i'm just starting the whole foods lifestyle and i've found a bunch of recipes online and i'm wondering can i use ww pasta instead of white pasta in all my pasta dishes? i'm just not sure if this is okay because it seems to simple. also, can i just replace my white bread with wheat bread and it that okay?

Yep! At least that is what I've done. If you haven't tried them yet, you might want to not make a huge batch the first time. My family likes ww pasta but I've heard others say it took getting used to. Make sure the bread says 100% whole wheat. Also, substituting brown rice (my family likes instant best) for white rice is easy. My kids even eat cookies made with whole wheat flour now. (ok, not the healthiest thing, but these are skinny kids who can eat a few with no worries.)

i was also wondering about he meat. i know chicken and fish are okay but what about beef? also, what are good things to eat for breakfast? i think i've got dinner down and lunch will probably be leftover's or a salad out of the cafe'.

Make sure the beef is as lean as you can find.

As for breakfast, my suggestions are: oatmeal, whole grain cereal with skim milk (I like Cheerios but they're probably not the best; however, I don't add sugar to them anyway) ... then there are omelettes or scrambled eggs or egg whites or eggbeaters. Protein shakes make a good breakfast, or whole wheat bread toasted with natural peanut butter.

As for ww pasta, there has been discussion that some brands taste better than others. If you try one and you don't like it, don't give up! Try another brand. A few months back, I tried a low carb pasta and it was the worst thing I'd ever tried! I was almost afraid to try ww pasta, but I finally did and neither I nor my family can tell the difference between it and regular pasta. I'm a convert for life!

jusj5571:

What I try to do with red meat is find the less fatty cuts usually. You can do a google search for those. If I just have to have a burger I get the 4% lean ground beef. I limit myself to 1-2 times per week. I love roast and pork chops so I generally have that on a sunday. You can also add turkey to your eating. I had some ground turkey in a can of chile beans the other day. It was like only 2 grams of fat compared to regular cans with 10 grams! It was so good too!!

what brand of ww pasta do you guys recommend?? also, are potatoes okay, not really mashed but i love the oven roasted kind. also, what brand of ww bread do you guys recommend??

I got the idea of trying whole wheat pasta from this board. I went out and bought this whole wheat spinach spaghetti by hogdson mill. It was pretty much inedible. After I posted about my experience, multiple people suggested Barilla Plus multigrain pasta. I love it! It's better than the white stuff! I'd eat it any day over white pasta. It is very nutritious as well!

Here is the link to the whole wheat pasta discussion. There were some other brands suggested, but I got the Barilla Plus and loved it! It comes in lots of shapes and sizes; the box is yellow.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...ht=wheat+pasta

Of course potatoes are okay--they come right out of the ground! Doesn't get much more "whole" than that

I don't choose any brand of whole-wheat pasta over any other--all the ones I have tried have tasted just fine to me. For bread, though, I would highly recommend you check to see if you have Nature's Own available near you. Their bread is only about 50-60 calories per slice and is actually GOOD--not cardboardy or so airy it falls apart--and they don't use high fructose corn syrup.

In this whole "whole foods" thing, what you can and can't have is really up to you. Whole-wheat pastas and breads are definitely better choices than their white, processed counterparts, but I would still say they're not "whole" (by my understanding/interpretation of the definition) since they are so processed and usually contain additional additives/chemicals (unless you pay the exorbitant prices for the ones at Whole Foods and whatnot). This doesn't necessarily make them bad, but beware that you may get different answers from different people when asking if something is "allowed."

Hey jusj5571, what a great smile! Where are you in East Texas? I lived in Greenville for awhile (in Seattle now).

I love roasted potatoes too! I pretty much love roasted vegetables in general. For dinner sometimes, I just get a big pan and roast carrots (chopped up kind of small), potatoes, green beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes, red pepper (cut into strips) and chickpeas. This is a great thing to make at the end of the week when you have a bunch of produce you need to use up before it goes bad, anything works! I season them with a little spices (sometimes I like to add a little curry powder) and drizzle a little olive oil over them. They are great served over brown rice!

For breakfast, I pretty much rotate around these favorites:

1. Whole grain (can be any whole grain, not just wheat) toast, with 2 tbs of natural peanut butter (the stirring takes some getting used to)
2. 1/4 cup egg beaters microwaved, wrapped in a warm whole wheat tortilla with salsa and vegetables
3. 1/2 cup oatmeal (not the packaged stuff) made with 1 cup water, with dried fruit/nuts
4. 1/2 cup granola with low fat/fat free yogurt (granola can be high fat/calorie, so I read the labels carefully)

Salad is definitely a good choice, but don't forget to add some protein so it's filling!

I was going to ask what part of East Texas, too. My parents live in Tyler and I was born in Beaumont, raised in Liberty, Silsbee, Hardin, and finally Livingston ... then moved to the DFW area. I am thoroughly familiar with East Texas. Oh and I went to college in Marshall.

Hey there
An alternative to beef, if it's available to you, is bison/buffalo. It has the same nutritional values in terms of fat/protein etc. as skinless chicken breast, and it tastes just like beef. Just know that's it's so lean that it takes a bit longer to cook.
Tracy

Pasta brand- I use Walmart's brand 'cause it's the cheapest, lol.

Potatoes- I'd just watch what you top them with. I don't eat them personally, but I love baked sweet potatoes.

Breakfast- I'd say almost any good for you thing. I like oatmeal and eggs. I make veggie omelets or greek omelets. My dd eats fruit salad and yogurt. My ds likes ww toast and peanut butter. I've also been known to just zap last night's dinner if I feel like it. Don't knock it, a bowl of minestrone can be very good in the morning. Better for you than donuts anyway. If I'm in a real hurry I grab a measured amount of almonds and walnuts with 1/4 C dried fruit. Use your imagination, almost anything healthy will work.

i first want to say thank you!!! all you ladies have helped me a lot!! i live in longview, texas and have family all around the state. thank you glory for the compliment!!! i've tried almost every diet known to man and some of them actually worked but as soon as i went back to eating normal i gained it all back plus some. i went shopping yesterday and filled my house with whole foods!! every other diet that i have tried, i've had to force myself to eat the menu, this lifestyle change seems very simple and i am very excited to see what the lifetime outcome is going to be!! i also read that i am supposed to eat something about every 2-3 hours, is this okay?? this morning i had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with a lil mayo and some grape tomatoes. thank you so much joyofsix for the comment about eating last night's dinner for breakfast because i was afraid that my sandwich was not okay. also, "anything healthy will work" has made me even more excited!! i bought some MISSION WW Tortillas last night and ate them with baked chicken, cheese and salsa and they tasted like cardboard!!! does anyone have and suggestions on a better tasting WW tortillas? thank you ladies for all the help!!!