Eats on the Detox Part 1: Breakfast

I've had a few requests for recipes and meal plans that we followed while on our sugar detox, so I'll quickly throw a few posts at you with some ideas.  If you came here looking for pictures and updates on my kids, stay tuned... I'll stop talking about food in a few days!

Let's start with breakfast, since it's "the most important meal of the day", right?

(Pardon my poor photography; most of these pics were hastily snapped seconds before the food was gobbled up.)

Our go-to kid breakfast was eggs and fresh fruit (not altogether different from what we've been doing for the past six months, except no toast in the first two weeks... wheat-free).  Or a smoothie (I think I'll devote a separate post to smoothies since we had so many variations.)  We scrambled and fried our eggs in coconut oil instead of the usual butter to make it a dairy-free breakfast as well.  I was really afraid on the first day that the kids would notice the coconut flavor and revolt, but it was quite the opposite.  They loooooooooved that flavor with the eggs.  They were begging for more every day and I had to stop them at 3-4 eggs each usually.

Mama's go-to breakfast... oatmeal cooked in soy milk (unsweetened) with a banana and some sort of nut butter on top (almond butter, peanut butter, whatever we had on hand).

{P.S. Nut butters are so expensive that I prefer to make my own-- plus you can control the ingredients a little better that way too, i.e. make them without sweeteners.  For the sake of convenience, however, we stretched our grocery budget and purchased them that first week.  I was making so many other things from scratch that it was worth the expense.  We went through like five jars of different nut butters in the first week.}

One morning I threw some leftover brown rice from last night's dinner in a bowl, sprinkled it with cinnamon and poured some milk over it (this was in week 2 when cow's milk was allowed), topped it with fruits and chia seeds.  AMAZING.

Cornmeal mush (subbing oat flour for the wheat flour in the recipe) topped with walnuts and a banana (we also went through like six bunches of bananas the first week!!)

Another newly-discovered favorite: soaked baked oatmeal.  (Scroll down to the very bottom of the linked post for the recipe.)  This recipe has honey so it only works for week 3 of the detox, but you could easily just add another banana for more sweetness, and leave out the honey.  We also tried banana baked oatmeal (leaving out the brown sugar... it was plenty sweet without it!) and that was equally delicious!

Okay so I snuck in one picture of my kids. :)

The soaked oatmeal is a favorite because I can do most of the prep work the night before and it saves time on busy mornings.  I also discovered through research and doing the detox that oats are one of the more difficult grains to digest as well, so it's a good idea to soak them before eating.

Soaked Baked Oatmeal topped with shredded coconut & slivered almonds

On Saturday morning the first week M made us soaked millet waffles and they were SO tasty!  Even better than wheat waffles, I thought.  We made a syrup of melted coconut oil, cinnamon, and a bit of stevia.  That meal was like a feast after a week of no indulgence!

{Stevia was our go-to sweetener when sweetness was absolutely needed, since supposedly it is processed differently than sugar by the body, but I used it extremely sparingly, since the point was really to teach our tongues not to look for the sweet flavor.  I just used a pinch if it was absolutely necessary (most often to get my kids to eat something-- like to take the edge of bitter or tart foods) and that was enough!  I know there is some controversy surrounding stevia so I can't recommend consuming large quantities.  But I am no dietician.}

By the way, one cup of coffee per day on the detox was allowed, so I continued to drink coffee with my breakfasts.  I don't normally take sugar in my coffee, so that part was easy... and I just used soy milk in the first week instead of cow's milk when we were dairy free.

Stay tuned for more eats on the detox!