Blenderized Diets: Protein

One of the best decisions we’ve ever made is to move Parker from a formula only based diet to a blenderized diet during the day and a formula diet through out the night. If I could figure out get the blenderized diet to work for over night feeds…..well, I’d change that over too.

The sources I use for Parker’s protein are pretty typical. While I would LOVE to be able to offer him up organic meats, it’s way out of our budget. We do have a neighbor who’s father raises cattle that sometimes drops off some organic, grass fed goodness to us. If I could scrape the money together I’d order a half a cow from him! But other than that an a Costco organic whole chicken or two, Parker’s protein comes in the form of:

• Beans and Legumes

I serve Parker up everything from black beans, pinto beans, red beans, garbanzo beans and black eyed peas.

I usually cook them up in the crockpot just the same way I’d would for beans I use in other recipes. The only difference is that I cook them with more water and let them cook until they are very soft and kind of soupy.

After my beans/legumes are cooked, I put them in quart jars and freeze them until I’m ready to use them.

• Nuts and Nut Butters

I purchase almonds, pecans, and walnuts from Costco. Then I grab organic cashew pieces from www.nutsonline.com. Cashew pieces are cheaper than whole cashews, and taste just the same!   I purchase organic sunflower and pumpkin seeds from the bulk food section of our local health food store.

I buy nuts in bulk, put them in mason jars then use my Food Saver to seal them up, and  store them in the freezer.

I actually do the same thing with my beans and grains! I have smaller containers of beans and grains in my pantry, but I keep the bulk of everything in my large upright freezer.

BTW, that’s Parker’s homemade kefir on the left and the crock pot of beans cooking away on the right.

• Eggs

Parker gets free range, organic eggs twice a week.  Several people very close to my house have backyard chickens and sell their eggs.  I won’t even talk about how much I’d lurve me a backyard chicken or 6.

• Salmon

Once a month I splurge on a salmon dinner for the family. As soon as the salmon comes out of the oven I set back portions to use in Parker’s blenderized diet.

You can see my stash of nuts and salmon in this picture of my small freezer. This is the freezer I usually use to store the makings for Parker’s diet. Right now I’m down to using store purchased fruits and veggies because I’ve used up all the stuff I froze myself.

Several times a month I’ll cook up beans/legumes and grains for Parker. Then I will freeze them in Mason jars so that all I have to do is grab what I need each morning. I do the same thing when I’m able to score an organic Bountiful Basket.

Often Parker will get half of his daily protein from one source and the other half from another. Kind of like we wouldn’t only eat chicken for our daily protein, I try to mix Parker’s up too.

I also make sure that either his veggies or fruit servings are fresh. During gardening season EVERYTHING Parker gets is either straight from my garden or my neighbors and parents unsprayed fruit trees.

Last summer I dehydrated a lot of fruits and veggies. Then I vacuum sealed everything in mason jars with my Food Saver. I’ve been SO very grateful to have these on hand this winter. Purchasing organic anything from the store is jaw droppingly expensive. They next best solution is to grow and either dehydrate or freeze my own.

Parker weighs 35.25 pounds.  His daily protein intake is just a bit under two ounces.

2 T nut butter

2 ounces nuts

A bit less than 2 ounces of meat or salmon

Almost a cup of beans/legumes

1 egg and then one ounce of another protein

A combination of the above

When I first started this blenderized diet I was a bit obsessed about the amounts.  (MOI?  Obsessed? )  Now I can pretty much eyeball it and don’t worry (quite) so much.