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SALT LAKE CITY — Think you can't afford to eat healthy? A Utah family has written a book on how to make nutritious meals on a budget that even kids will enjoy.
Derek and Emily Childs wrote "The Healthy Happy Family" as a way to lose weight.
"After our daughter was born, I wanted to lose the baby weight," Emily said. "And my mom showed me this book and it was all about how you don't need to eat just meat and potatoes. It can be more plant-based."
Emily said she followed the diet and lost 60 pounds.
"90 percent of the time we try to eat very good, as unprocessed as possible, more natural, and 10 percent of the time, I think it's okay to go out and enjoy treats and go out to eat, and go out to the movies and eat popcorn and stuff like that," she said.
"With us being both students, it was definitely difficult, both working, both going to school, we had two kids," Derek said. "And so money's really tough to come by. But we wanted to be healthy so we had to get creative."
Derek said it can be difficult and expensive to eat healthy, and that is why they wrote the book — to give people ideas.
"Most people think they can't do it," Derek said. "If they're not asking us how we're doing it, they're saying that we can't do it. And that's another reason why we wrote the book, because you can."