Recipes - Separating the Good from the Not so Good

I was wanting to say Recipes - Separating the Good from the Bad, but when I thought of all my "bad" recipes and the memories of birthday parties, get togethers, or special meals, I couldn't call them bad. They are just ones that we want to eat on occasion rather than daily, weekly, or some even monthly. Why? Because while they are good for great meals, they are not good for the health of our bodies long term. 

There's a common adage these days that says, "Eat 90% healthy and 10% not-so-healthy". Well, I thought we had always done that but then when I kept a food log, I realized we had too many "exceptions" and took way more than 10% of our meal plan. I also notice it while I'm outside and I walk by the recycling bin and see all the food boxes leftover. If you don't want to keep a food log and do recycle, then you can get a pretty good idea what you're eating just from your recycle bin. I know, the neighbors, I'm sure, have seen me snooping curiously in our bins and trash can, assessing how we are doing. :)

So what change did I make to our meal plan to help? I separated my recipes. I got the original idea from Alton Brown. He makes a copy of the recipe from the book, that way he can make notes and changes, and then puts it in a page protector to keep it nice while he's cooking with it.

I went a step farther and separated my healthy "good for me" recipes from the ones not so healthy. It's a real help when making a meal plan to just use those recipes that are already healthy or can be made healthier by the "examine and exchange" method. But the problem was that they were all crammed in the notebook without rhyme or reason. I took this opportunity to not procrastinate any longer and put the copies in page protectors (that weren't already in one) and then separated them with dividers by category.

Three things I learned:

1. I have WAY more recipes than what I thought (With it more organized, I'll have more variety in meals)
2. Make sure you have enough page protectors
3. Never do this on an empty stomach (Boy, it makes you hungry!)

As you can see I have plenty of healthy recipes left still to put in the binder. I wish I had more page protectors to finish but, again, I procrastinated...

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday." -Don Marquis-

What can you do to realign your eating strategy? Perhaps a separate notebook just for healthy recipes would help. Why not take 15 minutes and start today?

This is linked to:
Anti-Procrastination Tuesdays at New Nostalgia