Good morning! I can't believe we are already at letter T in our Alphabet's Healthiest Food Academy! Next week, I think I'm going to have a Letter U/V combined week.  What do you think?  Let's be honest, I really don't think I could get five things out of letter u, do you?

However, for letter T,  I've got some Crock Pot Taco Soup!  I love using my Slow cooker, besides the fact that the lid broke on the first day I bought it, and now the entire pot has a large crack all the way through it,  I am still using it! I just have to use a crock pot liner bag now so the food stays in the pot.   It's perfect for Sunday dinner.  You can get all your food in the slow cooker in the morning, and then you can go to church or relax all day and have a great meal ready for you at dinner.

While we love our Taco Soup recipe #1, this one is also yummy, according to my kids!

Slow Cooker Taco Soup Recipe

• 1 lb. cooked and chopped meat of choice (chicken breasts, lean ground beef, or ground turkey)
• 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes (or three cups of finely chopped fresh tomatoes)
• 2 cups frozen corn (or 1 can, 15 ounce corn)
• 2 cups black beans (or 1 can 15 ounce black beans)
• 2 cups red kidney beans (or 1, 15 ounce can)
• 1 envelope Ranch seasoning mix  (Or use recipe below)
• 2 TBL Taco seasoning
• 1 small onion, chopped

Place all ingredients in a slow cooker, and cook on low for  4-6 hours.

To avoid the packaged Ranch seasoning mix, make your own. This recipe comes from reader Lisa L!

• 1 teaspoon dried chives
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried dill weed
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Last night on Facebook, the question was asked of me if I was concerned about the new information coming out about the dangers of BPA in aluminum cans.  Any recipe you find that calls for a can of something can always be substituted for fresh or thawed frozen produce, if its important to you to avoid serving your family foods from cans.  However, for my family only, my response was:

I choose to not make BPA in cans a top health concern for my family. I find there are so many things that I can worry about that have a bigger impact on our health. I choose to be concerned about meat being local ...and organic, I choose to make fruits and vegetables seasonal and local, and the rest I don't worry too much about. It may be that there are awful things leaking from our cans, but we are a healthy family, with very few health issues. I have no problem with families having a concern with this though if they have room in their budget to avoid BPA altogether, but like I said, I worry about other things. Good question though! And you can always substitute fresh and frozen veggies or beans for anything you see in my recipes. In fact tonight I always use frozen corn when a recipe calls for a can of corn.

Your thoughts?