Hi. I'm Sarah. I love trying new foods, listening to good music, and learning about different cultures. I also love to cook and started this blog, initially, to just make it easier to share recipes with friends. The blog has grown along with my ability, and now it's here to help you feed your family healthy meals without making you buy weird ingredients or spend a ton of time in the kitchen.
My top interest is loving my Lord, Jesus Christ, and then loving on my wonderful husband and two little boys. While I really enjoy cooking, exercise and reading are right up there on the list, too. I have always liked reading about other people's lives. True-life stories. Memoirs. So when I majored in Creative Writing Non-fiction, it was no surprise.
Exercise has pretty much always been an integral part of my lifestyle, too. I used to swim competitively, but now I walk, run, carry loads of laundry up and down stairs, lug groceries from the car to the kitchen, scamper after the two little dudes, and enjoy my elliptical when the weather outside is less than pleasant. In short, I'm a stay-at-home-mom who happens to squeeze in staying fit and reading - sometimes at the same time!
As for cooking: it's a fairly new adventure for me. I never cooked until I got married and then all of a sudden I had to. My meager college-cooking skills did not "cut it" once I was married to a MAN. So I began to ask lots of questions, experiment with spices and food combinations, and have major flops. But I fell in love with creating delicious meals for my husband (and then boys) and I've just kept at it. I like easy, simple, tasty, and healthy meals. And preferably in just a little bit of time.
Disclaimer: I am not a chef. I did not go to school for any of this. I am not a dietitian. I can barely spell the word gourmet, let alone cook it. I am no expert on anything. I am a spice-wimp. I very rarely create anything that is completely from my own mind -- most everything is a tweaked version of something else, a big spin off of a dish I didn't like, or a combination of a couple meals that were just so-so. I will give credit where credit is due, so look for the links. I just have a love for cooking and food that tastes good.
Hello! I’m Brittany. I love to try new foods and flavors, enjoy cooking, and am fascinated by the science of nutrition. It is incredible to me how what we eat affects our overall health and well-being, both now and in the future. During my college years, this love for good food & nutrition inspired me to pursue a career in dietetics.
I am now a wife, a mother of two young children (soon to be three), and a Registered Dietitian. This combination always puts me in pursuit of new recipes and foods for my family--foods that are appealing, delicious, and good for our bodies. With our busy schedules, varied tastes, and the lure of convenience surrounding us, this can be quite a feat at times! I think of it as a daily investment in our lifelong health, and have poured a lot of time into recipe searching, meal planning, and experimentation in the kitchen.
Early in my career, I worked for the WIC Program. There I realized a common trend among mothers...they wanted to feed their families healthy foods, but often didn’t know how or where to start. Time, energy, resources, and lack of general nutrition knowledge were common barriers.
After a brief jaunt as a stay-at-home-mom, I now work as a renal dietitian in a dialysis facility. Though certainly not all cases of chronic kidney disease are the result of dietary choices, in this setting I am frequently reminded of the long-term and life-altering consequences of a lifetime of poor nutrition.
I am delighted that Sarah has allowed me to contribute to this wonderful site she has created! My hope and prayer is that it will help provide families with tools useful for turning the desire to eat healthy into reality, and thus reap the benefits of good health now and in the future.
Thanks for visiting!
This is us. A few years back, but years after our friendship started.
We met our sophomore year of college at a cooking class of sorts. Just a little ironic, don't you think? We hit it off famously and began a sweet friendship we nurtured over the years. Those years saw us through a lot. We were there for each other all through college, road trips home, and graduation. We rode the wave of adventure in meeting and dating our future husbands, and were both a part of each other’s weddings. We had our first children within months of each other and even though some of those years were spent states apart, we kept up the friendship, and the talk about food. How food works, the nutrition of it, and our favorite tweaks were always topics of conversation between us.
As our friendship grew, so did our love for cooking healthy and economical meals that tasted great. We spurred each other on and encouraged the other to keep on searching for new recipes, to keep up the work. We both wanted to feed our families great tasting food -- not just “wow, honey, this is great for being healthy” food, but honest-to-goodness, great food!
This love for food and nutritional grew so much that we toyed with the idea of writing a cookbook together. We thought that if we were putting so much thought and effort in to feeding our families healthy meals, that maybe, just maybe, others would benefit from our work, too. In the end, instead of writing a cookbook, we decided to "up the ante" on this blog, making it a one-stop-shop for feeding your family simple, healthy, and economically friendly meals.
And this is us now. Being moms. Hanging at a park with our kids.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at heartyhelpingsblog@gmail.com
