Old Colorado City Farmer's Market

As you know, one of my goals this month was to go to a farmer's market, so that's what we did yesterday morning! 

My mom and I had a long talk the other day about eating healthy. I think what stuck out the most to me was that she read somewhere that my generation won't even live as long as my parent's generation because of the way that we eat. :O

Our generation eats so much fast food and preservatives instead of REAL food. Zach and I really don't eat that bad (except for my Kraft Mac and Cheese..which I've given up). We don't eat fast food and our dinners are usually a form of meat and vegetables. But we decided to really be conscious about what we buy. We used to buy the butter in the plastic tub, until looking at the ingredients! Now we buy the regular sticks of butter. We also used to buy the deli meats and cheeses already in the package, but instead we buy it all fresh at the deli. Little things like that you may not notice can be bad for you. Here's a couple tips on shopping that my mom gave me:

1. Shop the perimeter of the store. This is where all of your fresh meats, eggs, fruits/veggies are, etc. 

2. Once you start getting into the middle aisles, start checking your labels. If there's more than 3-5 ingredients, or contains things you can't pronounce, it's most likely highly preserved. 

3. Most things that are canned are still okay to buy! Canned fruits/veggies, canned tomato sauce, beans, etc. (I can't live without my pasta and sauce..). Frozen veggies are also good!

4. Aim for whole grain bread, pasta, and cereal. 

4. Plan your meals before you go to the store (main dish, sides, etc.) We already do this. We don't plan for a certain day, but we make a list of 5-7 meals and sides that we want over 2 weeks and then shop the ingredients. This way we can choose which meal we want that day and already have everything.

So this week we went grocery shopping and aimed to buy healthier foods and check our labels. It's especially hard for us on the cookie/cracker aisle. But I found that certain potato chips only contain potatoes, olive oil, and sea salt. So I can live with that! Instead of buying our fruits/veggies at the store we went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and they had such a variety of foods! They even had pasta, bread, and meats. We will definitely be going back there weekly, it also saved us quite a bit of money!

Our goodies: