The 8 Best Appliances for Moms Trying to Be Healthy!

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Being a mom, we know it’s important to be healthy and take care of ourselves, however, this can sometimes be harder than we expect. We can easily get too busy to care about our own health, and it’s too easy to get sucked into the convenience of packaged or processed foods. We may also not have the right tools to be healthy, or forget about the ones that we do have!

(Or, maybe we never had the time to find out how to use the ones we have, such as the ones other people bought us for Christmas, like my crock pot I got about 3 years ago and used for the first time a few months ago…I never knew how easy it could be to just throw a meal together, by literally throwing ingredients into a crock pot and turning it on!)

But, our health is too important to ignore, and we need to get a handle on it. The best thing we can do to make this hassle into something we enjoy is by having the tools we need, that give the most time savings and health benefits for our buck, and investing a few minutes into learning how to use them or finding recipes to use with them! (Pinterest is a great place to start to find recipes if you don’t want to spend money on cookbooks!)

What Kitchen Appliances Do This?

Well, I’m glad you asked! Since having my own children, I feel like I’ve been experimenting with so many different kitchen appliances, ones I didn’t even know existed when I was growing up. And, I have quite a few more than I want to buy to try out for myself (like the instant pot, that has been getting a lot of praise recently). Below is a list of the ones that I own, love, and use for various things!

Nutribullet

To be completely honest with you, not that I’m ever not, I have no idea how I was able to live before I got my nutribullet! It’s more powerful and faster than a blender. It makes making home made baby food (and cereal) a breeze, and it still looks brand new after more than 4 years of being used every single day (sometimes more than once a day)!

This is one appliance that I don’t keep hidden in my cupboard, I use it way too often to put it away! Plus, it makes it super easy to get extra servings of fruits and veggies into my diet, and my childrens diet! My five year old actually requests for me to make her smoothies, milkshakes, or ice cream with this, and she loves to help make it, too! And, the thing is, everything I just listed that she asks for is mostly made of frozen fruits, even the milkshake (which consists of frozen banana, strawberries, and some soy milk)!

I could not live without my nutribullet, just like I could not live without my coffee pot!

If you want anymore information on my thoughts about my nutribullet, make sure you check out:
10 Reasons You Need a Nutribullet as a Mom
and
10 Amazingly Healthy Things You Can Make with a Nutribullet

Coffee Pot (with K-cup option)!

Alright, so a coffee pot may not directly help you be healthy, but indirectly, it does! My logic is that if you drink coffee and are able to stay awake and fully functioning during the day, because of that coffee; then you’re able to think more clearly and make better food choices through out the day!

Now, with that being said, the coffee pot I currently have is my favorite of all time! It’s on of those special ones that has a coffee pot on one side and a K-cup option on the other. And, I have to thank one of my friends at an old job for recommending it to me!

With the amount of coffee I drink, it would be pointless for me to get a keurig; it’d just be another thing sitting on my counter waiting to be used every once in awhile. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy feeling fancy once in awhile and making myself a single serve of a specialty coffee; it’s nice to treat myself to that once in awhile! But, it’s just not realistic for my life, or my husbands. We go through a full pot of coffee a day, between the two of us. (Actually, I had to make a second pot the other day on his day off! Our girls seem to have much more energy when he’s home from work!!)

Juicer

My husband and I bought our juicer after being inspired by the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Now, we didn’t get the same juicer they had in the documentary, but we did get one, and I had been contemplating getting one for a few years. So, when he got fed up watching people on the documentary change their lives for the better and get healthier by juicing, you could say I was quite pleased! (He’s the spender and impulse shopper in our relationship, and I’m the saver- sometimes contemplating on getting something I want for a year or more before deciding on getting it or not.)

The first week we had it, we made fresh juice for ourselves and two little girls every day. After that, it’s been every couple of weeks that I take it out of the cupboards to make some juice for myself and girls. It can get a bit expensive to buy enough fresh fruits and veggies to make fresh juice everyday for four people. (On the documentary it says approximately how much it costs to juice everyday for one person; if my memories correct then it’s between $15 and $30 a day when that’s all you consume! For our first week where we each had one small glass a day, it cost us about $40 on top of our regular grocery bill.)

And, I’m not the type of person trying to avoid being healthy because it’s too expensive. I’m one of those people who will tell you how much cheaper it truly is to eat healthy, and how much more expensive it is to eat a diet full of processed and packaged foods. But, I still have to admit, buying enough produce to make juice everyday becomes a bit pricey.

But, just knowing that we have an appliance that makes fresh juice and can get all of the enzymes out of fresh produce to provide my family with more nutrients than we’re able to eat in a day; it’s a peace of mind that I enjoy having! Even if we just cheap out and make grape juice or orange juice with it, it was completely worth the money! (You haven’t had grape juice, til you’ve had freshly made grape juice, with grapes being the only ingredient!!)

Food Processor

If you asked me 5 years ago what a food processor was; I would not know what you were talking about! I was still trying to get into eating well; my husband and I were still in our teeny tiny first apartment with our new baby. To be completely honest, I didn’t even know these appliances existed! I didn’t know what it was until I started finding all of these healthy recipes that required a food processor to make. This was about 2 years ago, and I got so fed up with finding all of these amazing recipes and not being able to make any of them, that I finally just gave in and ordered one off amazon.

I’m so glad I did, too. The first thing I made with these were cashew bars, and boy were they delicious; just cashews, dates, and a pinch of salt; I was sold! Then I started using it to make cookies, vegan mac and ‘cheese’, and ice cream! I haven’t bought any type of snack bars since getting my food processor. I also can’t remember the last time I bought the cashew ice cream I used to love so much! The kind I make is a bit healthier; it mostly consists of either bananas, or some other fruit and coconut milk!

I’m sure there are other ways to use a food processor, and I’ll eventually get to use it in all the different ways it’s meant for. But for now, using it for what I do helps me avoid high calorie processed foods. And, it helps me enjoy eating more whole and real foods on a daily basis!

Crock Pot

Funny story, I’ve owned a crock pot for 3 to 4 years, it was a Christmas present one year; and, I just started using it recently. I’ve got to tell you, it’s pretty amazing! I love how you can just chop veggies, open veggie broth and a box of pasta or some beans; throw it all in the pot in the morning, turn it on, and then by dinner time it’s ready!

It still amazes me how easy it is to use. It’s certainly helped me make my soups. However, with only recently starting to use it, I don’t know very many recipes I can use with it. So, I know I need to invest some time into finding some healthy crock pot recipes that my whole family would enjoy. Ones that are vegan, or preferably plant based!

Waffle Iron

My family went the longest time without a waffle iron. In fact, the only reason we have one is because we found one, that is a spiderman one, and it was on clearance. I’m a big fan of things being on clearance. And, if you don’t know, my husband is a big spiderman fan. Don’t believe me? Look at the picture of our wedding cake below! Half traditional wedding cake, and half spiderman!

This is how much my husbands love of all things Spiderman is in our lives!

At first, when we got the waffle iron my husband didn’t want me using it because it was new and spiderman; therefore he claimed it to be his. However, it’s been about a two years since then, and the new-ness only lasted about a month, anyways. It’s amazing how many vegan waffle recipes exist online! Some even use such basic baking ingredients that I always have on hand! I can use the recipe as a back up meal in case our meal plan doesn’t go as planned!

Or, I can make a few batches of these healthy waffles and freeze them! I love batch cooking. It saves time, energy, money, and having to do as many dishes!

Toaster

What? A toaster? How does that help us be healthy? Are you talking about making toast?

Well, yes and no. I love eating avocado and tomato toast, or sandwiches; delicious! But, that’s not why a toaster made it to this list. If you are to batch cook and freeze breakfast foods, like pancakes and waffles; how do you think you’re going to warm them up?

If you’re a mom and the purpose of you batch cooking is so you can get your kids, and yourself, breakfast super quick on busy mornings; you can’t be waiting around for the oven to preheat! And, the microwave would make the food soggy. Sure, a toaster oven would be nice. But not everyone has one of those (or, at least I don’t, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon!) So, a toaster will prevent food that needs to be reheated from becoming soggy, and is pretty quick!

To Sum it All Up

I know eating healthy can be a challenge; especially when you don’t have the right appliances (or don’t take the time to learn how to use them). But, don’t feel like you have to start trying to use them all at once. Start by introducing one new appliance into you life as you can; get comfortable using it before going onto the next. Just like any other new skill, learning new recipes and how to use different appliances can take a little time.

Personally, I try to learn how to use a new small appliance every 6 to 12 months. This past Christmas I got a veggie spiralizer; before I move onto a new appliance (like an instant pot). I’m determined to find a recipe my family and myself love with that!

Are there any other appliances you can think of that helps you eat healthier?

Related Posts:

10 Reasons You Need a Nutribullet as a Mom

10 Amazingly Healthy Things You Can Make with a Nutribullet

10 Life Changing Documentaries That Will Make Your Healthier!

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