If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that we have made significant changes to our eating habits in the last 6 months. I had finally gotten settled with meal preparation so it was time to create a new complete and healthy grocery list. Going wheat, kamut and spelt free, and nearly dairy free, among other adjustments had physically been pretty straightforward, although an adjustment when it came time to cook and shop. I attribute this relatively pain free transition to our switch to eating Real Food last fall, minimizing the amount of packaged foods we eat.
Going wheat free or gluten free does not necessarily make for a “healthier” grocery list.
After 2 months of examining gluten/wheat free brands, to this day I am reluctant to include the majority of them in my grocery list, let alone my diet. It was pretty difficult to replace bread products, baking, and cereals with healthy wheat/gluten free alternatives. Most packaged brands rely on ingredients like laboratory made Xanthan gum, various sweeteners in abundance, corn products, and white rice flour, rather than healthier alternatives. I’m not saying that it impossible to replace old favorites with healthy wheat/gluten free alternatives, however, gluten free products are no more health promoting that other packaged foods. This is the part of going wheat free that takes time: Finding wheat free recipes that are simple, healthy and reliable.
Healthy benefits from switching to a limited dairy and wheat free grocery list and diet are still popping up for us.
One of the most recent benefits was that Olivia had stopped picking her nails. She had picked for as long as I can remember, even until her nails would bleed, as well as other things like her blanket and Na-Na snuggle bear. Soon after we changed our diet, she stopped picking and her nails have all grown back. I knew this habit was centered in the emotional realm; however, I have underestimated truly how much food can impact this realm. Wheat has been related to many emotional disturbances such as nervousness, depression and anxiety. Since the switch I certainly feel lighter and more energetic myself, but when I saw Olivia stop her picking habit at the age of three, again I was simply amazed.
One major key to healthy nutrition is to eat food as close as possible to its original state. This means Simple, Whole & Wheat free and REAL Food. Food we recognize and ingredients we understand. My grocery list is pretty simple. Notably absent are products made with corn, soy and wheat – this also includes avoiding products that use these ingredients as livestock feed – organic or not! If it makes the animals sick, why would we eat it? We now rely as much as possible on local suppliers and ask a lot of questions. How would I describe our meals these days? Real foods, local fresh foods, organic, wheat free, reduced dairy, 50% raw and cooked from scratch.
I hope you’ll find this healthy grocery list useful. I’ve wanted to create a download for so long so I’m pretty excited to be posting today!
Join in the food revolution and share this article with others who you feel would enjoy this list.
Download your own Healthy Grocery List here!
Image credit: Bruce Turner
These are my thoughts on living a healthy and simple life. I'm a modern mom with some simple ideas, a little common sense and a natural philosophy. This is the sanest way I know how to navigate the 21 century.
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Monica, I like that your encouragement to eat food closest to it’s natural state. I just started picking things up at the grocery store and asking myself- how many things have been done to this item before it found itself here. Sure makes me put a few things back on the shelf!
.-= Tori {Daily Grommet}´s last blog ..Muller’s Smart Cart =-.
Monica, I am glad to see you back to blogging. My RSS feed is full of blogs that I haven’t read or commented on in a while, life is busy these days, but I was really excited to see that you have something new on your site and came over right away. Thanks for the list, it is definitely going to be very helpful, I am downloading it right now. The changes your family experienced after eliminating wheat are amazing!
.-= Lana – {Daring Clarity}´s last blog ..Sex and Money – Two Of The Most Powerful Tools For Conscious Growth …Are They? =-.
Hi I am a fairly new follower of your blog and I love the grocery list! I just wanted to suggest to you that you grind your own grain. We recently bought a hand grinder and we love it. I know you may be thinking that you don’t have the time but you would be surprised. We are a blended family that every other week has 5 children (we have 3 all the time) and we homeschool. We are just starting to move to a more raw diet ourselves and we need to test for food allergies as well. When you grind your own grain it makes everything taste that much better and as you may or may not know flour goes rancid a few days after being ground. We also use it to roll our oats for breakfast.
.-= Kelly´s last blog ..Out of Left Field =-.
Found your blog searching for answers for my child’s eczema and came across this post. We’ve cut out cow’s milk which was relatively simple and now I’m looking more at cutting out wheat. I’m not the most creative chef. Any cookbook recommendations?? Particularly for breads. Wheat-free breads are not easy to come by at the grocery stores near my home and I would think I could make something better and much less expensive here at home.
Thank you! We’ve eaten whole foods for years, but I’ve just been diagnosed with gluten sensitivity, and I am sooo frustrated by the shortage of *healthy* gluten-free choices. It seems that all of the substitutes are the non-wheat versions of “white flour” – they’re sheer starch. So I am looking forward to looking over this list!
hi ms. monica!
I am new to your site and I must say that I am happy finding your site. I see lot of good and interesting stuffs here that I know will make me come back.
Right now I am also on my way of making our diet healthier and of course living a healthier lifestyle. Its not that easy since I am just starting but I’m hoping to succeed starting this month…
keep posting interesting and informative articles.
I just started going wheat-free but I’m finding it very difficult between work and taking care of my kids to find alternative foods. I don’t miss it all that much but my kids miss it terribly and they don’t understand why I’m doing this. I’m sure their taste buds will adjust soon enough but it’s not easy. Everytime I think of giving up, I tell myself to take it one day at a time, read articles about how bad wheat is, or I visit your blog. Truly inspirational!
I just found out that I have a wheat allergy, so i started doing some searching online for wheat free foods with no real luck, untill i got to this website and found exactly what i was looking for. Thank you…you made it a little easier for me to change my diet..
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