It looked like this

My little experiment, the one I hope to turn lifestyle, is going along very well. I can't tell you how long I scribbled and scoured and listed and fretted over the menus. What I can tell you, however, is that we have held to them faithfully and with a great deal of success, I'd say.

This one is beef apple couscous from page 19 of the Better Homes and Gardens Diabetic Cookbook magazine. I got it at the check stand at Albertson's one day, hoping I'd use it at least once. To date, we've tried six of the recipes. I was nervous to attempt any of them because I have five hungry mouths to feed that generally aren't very adventurous eaters, and I hate to waste food. You can imagine my surprise when all I had left to send to work with Dale was one serving. I really thought I'd be throwing away at least half of it.

Mine didn't quite look like this... I had forgotten that we ran out of apple juice yesterday, so I cooked the couscous and vegetables in diet 7up. And I peeled the apples so that the kids would eat it without fussing over apples under the meat. Also, green peppers are MUCH cheaper than red ones, so I only used green. And one more thing, the only top sirloin I could find was about half as thick as this, and I never grill the steaks, so they were medium instead of med-rare. But all around it was a lovely surprise to hear Dale talk about how well the flavors worked together. I didn't know what curry was when I put it in, so it was a little spicy to the kids, but they still ate enough of it to get through the night without falling out under the agony of their hunger. I was quite pleased.

I can't tell you how much different it feels, physically, to enter this world of new eating, the world where fast food and Little Debbies don't exist. I love it. Yesterday the kids were fighting over who got more cherries at lunch. This morning Micah had an orange for breakfast. The other night, Leila and Tre came to the table with a bag of carrots and ranch dressing for their final snack of the night. It thrills me. Apples are becoming a commodity, apples and salad. *salad is always a safe cover when the meal is less than appetizing for Mr. Picky Trebo.

In the back of my mind there is a little devil that keeps telling me it won't last, and if the past really is the best predictor of the future, then it won't. I'm just trying to break these monstrous habits that Dale and I have both battled all of our lives so that our kids won't have to fight them as adults. If anything else, exposure to this kind of eating gives them an understanding of the difference it makes in their bodies as well as the blessing of whole foods. We live in such a Mecca of fresh produce, it would be a tragedy not to try it all!