Four Pillars
Four Pillars
One of the biggest challenges we all face when it comes to feeding our families is time. Also ranking up near the top of our list are lack of energy and the occasional lack of inspiration to prepare a meal. These challenges, which I faced almost daily, led me to take pause, and create a list of the things that I could focus on that would help better our relationship with food and our family. The result of this introspection was the creation of Family Eats Four Pillars – Planning, Purchasing, Preparing and Partaking. The Four Pillars process served as the framework I needed to empower me to meet my goals as they related to food. It is a process that I re-visit frequently, as my goals and our lives continue to change. What are your goals when it comes to mealtime? Do you desire to sit down and enjoy a family meal? Eat a healthier diet? Cut down on food costs? Reduce food waste? Take on the challenge of entertaining guests? Whatever your goals are, big, small, or many, the Family Eats Four Pillars process will help you reach those goals.
Planning
This is one of the most important Pillars. Without proper planning, reaching your goals will be hard to accomplish. If you dream of eating together with the family at least once a week, you need to make plan with your family schedule in mind in order to make it happen. If you desire to cut down on daily stress of preparing meals after a long day at work, you must have a weekly meal plan in place. If you’re making a new recipe, you’ll need to ensure you have all the right tools on hand to prepare that meal. It is truly a process that focuses on planning the when and the where you will have those meals, choosing meals to prepare throughout the week, and then ensuring you have the necessary tools and ingredients on hand to prepare those meals. The Planning Pillar focuses on building your toolset to make the process easier, and is the essential first step of meeting your goals. Once you have a thorough understanding the process of planning all aspects of your mealtime goals, you can then confidently move on to the second Pillar, Purchasing.
Purchasing
The way we purchase our food is a function of how well we have planned. Without proper planning, our food costs, level of food waste, food choices, and food variety are all in disarray.
Learning how to purchase your food with greater forethought and a plan, is an essential step in creating new habits and reaching your goals. In the Purchasing Pillar, we focus on all those elements that feed into how we purchase our foods, why we purchase certain foods, and where we purchase our foods.
It’s a process of taking what we learned in the planning stage and transforming it into action. It’s a process that works for whichever goals you may want to accomplish, from cutting down on food waste to reducing your overall weekly food costs, and from adding more grains into your meals, to eating out less and eating in more.
The Purchasing Pillar is a process takes a bit of introspection as we learn about our existing food-purchasing habits, then deciding on what changes are needed to meet our goals. In the end, our Purchasing habits will build the foundation for success in our next Pillar, Preparing.
Preparing
The process of preparing meals is essential to our well-being. But with our increasingly hectic lives, so many things pull our attention away from the process of preparing meals, that we often consider it a burden. Perhaps we don’t find joy in it, we don’t have the skills, or we just don’t have the time to prepare meals, so choose fast food or prepared foods are the easy choice.
Preparing meals at home is beneficial in many ways. Doing so saves us money, and when properly planned, it saves us time. Preparing meals at home can contribute to our overall health, providing us with a more nutritionally balanced diet. The process has even been shown to help reduce stress.
The Preparing Pillar is designed to give you the tools needed to carve out the time to move through the process of preparing a meal. In this Pillar, you may learn the time-saving benefits of meal prep or learn a new skill in the kitchen. You’ll learn how to find joy in the process, and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with it preparing a meal.
Like any new habit, it takes practice. It takes baby steps to make it work in your life. And, the Preparing Pillar is designed to guide you in the process of getting meals on your table with less stress, making it more enjoyable, and giving you the time to connect with your family or friends around the table so that you can all Partake in a meal together – which is our next Pillar.
Partaking
The power of food in our lives is undeniable. Beyond our need for food to sustain us physically, it connects us with the world around us – from the land on which it grows to the meal that is on our table. It brings us together, provides us with memories, and builds our community.
Throughout history, communities have gathered together for celebrations, religious rituals, and for support. These community connections are an essential part of our daily lives, and food has played an essential role in these gatherings.
When we gather and break bread together, we know that it is more than just a meal it is a ritual we are experiencing together. And, research has shown that the process of gathering together for a meal on a frequent basis has physical, mental and emotional benefits for everyone involved
Regardless of what stage of family life -- single and out on your own for the first time, newly married, a growing family with children, empty nesters and beyond - the process of partaking in these food rituals is essential to our well-being.
The Partaking Pillar is all about the process of making these connections possible.
For families with children, research has revealed that the connection during mealtime has many positive benefits including better academic performance, lower risk of substance abuse and depression. They have lower rates of obesity or developing and eating disorder.
For young or seniors living alone, preparing healthy meals, then gathering with others to enjoy meal helps stave off depression.
It is here, with the Partaking Pillar, that we gather to enjoy the benefits of the Family Eats Four Pillars process. Regardless of your goal, you have followed the process and are now sitting down to enjoy the fruition of your efforts.