Am I the only one who would rather go hungry than plan yet another nutritious dinner? Let alone one that caters for everyone’s food intolerances and allergies, doesn’t cost a fortune to buy the ingredients for, and will actually be eaten by most of the members of our family?

I have to confess – I’m very lucky. I have two older daughters who do most of our cooking – they cook dinner three nights a week each, and a third daughter is learning on the other night. My oldest makes the absolute best steaks – I don’t eat steak out anymore (ha ha, when do I get out for dinner?) as hers taste too good. Our side dishes though are totally boring – usually soggy vegetables. Trouble is, we’re all too lazy to find nicer things to make, so we end up with the same old meals all the time. Not to mention that I now have an 18 year old and a 14 year old who are already complaining about how horrid it is to plan and cook dinner!

We used to do great menu plans when we were only additive free and soy free, and we even had matching shopping lists. Then along came gluten free and casein free. A bit later on, we went corn free. Now we’re also free from eggs, honey and pork and are supposed to be free from tomatoes, potatoes, onions and garlic. I honestly don’t know what to cook anymore!

My shopping bills keep going up – we’re buying organic vegetables and fruit where we can, and buying those on the EWG Clean Fifteen list where we can’t. I try not to buy anything in a package anymore, as it takes me an extra couple of minutes to read the labels very carefully – every single time, in case they’ve changed the ingredients yet again.

I am constantly on the lookout for ways to maximise my children’s nutrition by sneaking in as much goodness as I can to what we eat. I even wrote a blog post about it here, as I have a son who lives on air most days, so every mouthful of food counts! I have a shelf full of cookbooks specialising in ‘without’ recipes. You know the ones – without gluten, without casein, without any ingredients you’ve ever heard of before?

The trouble is, that when it comes time to start dinner, I often find that I haven’t prepared anything beforehand, and we end up going back to our soggy vegetables.

So, one thing I’ve decided to do for myself, is attend the Thinking Moms’ Revolution eConference on GMOs, Organics and Food Allergies: How to Feed Your Family Without Losing Your Mind. Because I am seriously going to lose my mind if I don’t do something about our soggy vegetables soon!

The eConference will not only talk about the dangers of GMOs and pesticides in our foods, but will have a LIVE cooking demonstration, as well as a guide for preparing meals on a budget and on time, and a bonus eCookbook. One of the speakers is my very good friend and fellow Australian Team TMR member, Kris Barrett. Kris was our diet coach when we first embarked on our new eating regime, and I know how much she hates to cook LOL so her recipes are always easy to follow, quick to make, and best of all, use ingredients I can pronounce the names of.

Come and join me in learning more about the food we put in our mouths, and let’s take a stand against soggy vegetables!