Food Catalog

I just did a fun project this morning (since its raining). I made a food catalog. I wish I would have had this when the kids were still at home and I had more people to please with my meals.

What I did first was make a whole bunch of card-stock squares (about 2 1/2 inches square). Then on each one I wrote first an item of food that we eat, then what it was I liked about that food – was it sweet, comforting, crunchy, creamy, healthful, hearty, etc.? I also wrote the point value since I keep track of that, but you wouldn’t have to.

I worked in categories, because we eat a lot of food. I did fruits, vegetables, breads (which includes cereals and grains), lunch main dishes, supper main dishes, beverages, and fun foods (which are snacks or desserts.) When you start listing them, you will realize you enjoy really a lot of things, but you don’t eat a lot of them very often because we all get in a rut.

Once that was done and I had all these stacks of cards, I found an old scrap book that I’d gotten at a garage sale and put them all in the book, labeling each category and leaving space at the end of each one for more ideas, because I’m sure I didn’t think of everything. I didn’t have any scrapbook glue, so I used a glue stick, but ran out very quickly, so ended up taping them in, which isn’t idea. Scrapbook glue would be better.

I plan to use the book to make my menus, because I’ve been in a rut again of eating all the same things, then overeating because I’m not really satisfied (because I’m bored). But if you have kids still at home, you could let them choose meals from the ideas in the book and they would probably not always ask for the same 3 or 4 things. You could all sit down on Sunday and plan the meals for the week and let each one have a certain number of meals or a whole day or something. If they have chosen the foods, they will probably eat up the meal better, too!