Day 1: Success?

We finished day 1!  The place didn’t go up in flames, no one exploded, and in fact, there was only a little complaining!  We had a few failures, though, as the day progressed.
Failure #1:  Use of SPRITE to cook ham. 
We had a ham in our garage that we were going to prepare for a family Christmas celebration on Saturday.  This celebration was cancelled because Ed was sick.  So here we had this ham.  So I deviated from the meal plan (turkey breast was on the menu), and I prepared the ham.  The only way I know how to make ham is by slicing it and baking it in sprite…yes SPRITE.  The soda.  The chemical-laden soda.  Soooo, I decided that since I used only about 12 ounces for cooking, and the amount of liquid in the bottom of the pan after cooking was probably just 10 ounces, our level of ingestion would be very, very small.  I made an executive decision to allow this because I needed to have something tasty for this very hungry family to eat.
Failure #2:  Use of sharp cheddar cheese with annatto
Annatto is a natural coloring and it turns cheese orange.  However, it is a form of processing, and it would deviate from the real food rules.  I made the MOST delicious cheesy potatoes today…used homemade cream of chicken soup (which incidentally was so delicious, I may never buy another can of the gloppy yellow goo).  I can’t say that these were healthy by any stretch (a whole stick of butter (!!!!), a pint of sour cream, 10 ounces of cream of chicken soup—made with half and half, and 1 cup of shredded cheese).  But, again, in the interest of proving that real food can taste good, I stand by this decision.  Plus, they were soooo yummy, and they made us all very happy
Failure #3:  The whole wheat bread I made
I used my normal bread recipe, which calls for bread flour OR all-purpose flour.  But I substituted whole-wheat flour.  Plus, I had a lot of stuff going on in the kitchen yesterday, so I probably let that dough rise longer than it needed to.  The recipe I use calls for rising the dough 3x before baking, most recipes rise the dough only twice.  I don’t know why, but by the time I put the bread in the oven, it was all done rising (generally there is a lot more rising that happens once the bread goes in the oven).  In addition, I was thrown off by the dark color of the dough, and I think I overcooked it.  I made one pan of dinner rolls and two loaves of bread.  End result:  I had 12 hard flat dinner rolls (3 of them hit the garbage with just a bite or two taken from them), and two loaves of bread that are extremely flat.  I guess I’m going to need to find a recipe that is specific for whole-wheat flour.
Now, let’s move on to the successes of the day. 
There was a little bit of complaining mid-day about this whole plan.  Sundays are a day in which there is generally a lot of snacking going on, so it was a change for everyone.  BUT, they all took it in stride.  The kids would ask if certain foods were OK or not.  They did eat much more of the foods I had available than I planned for (many cookies were eaten along with a lot of fruit), but bottom line is they did it.
Ed has been an avid Dt. Mt. Dew drinker for many years, and he does not like to drink water.  So this was going to be especially tough for him.  I bought some strawberry flavored spritzers, which truthfully, may not be within the real food rules, but I could read all of the ingredients on the label, and outside of “natural flavorings”, it was all legit.  He drank one can and liked it well enough.  I hope that eventually he won’t “need” this, but this is an acceptable solution for now.  So that is another big success
Probably the biggest success of the day was that everyone was in a good mood!  I implemented this plan not just for our physical health, but to see if there would be a benefit on everyone’s behavior as well.  I can report that there was no misery, no sulking off to a room, no crazy-hyper behavior (which is very common for the boys), no fighting, etc.  It could have just been a good day, I can’t imagine that change would take place that quickly.  But, boy it was noticeable, all the way around.
I am calling day 1 a success!  Now on to day 2.  The biggest challenge today will be the fact that the kids are home again, with not much to snack on.  We’ll see if we can hang tight another day!