With Halloween just around the corner, this weekend we decided to watch Monsters, Inc. Even though it’s not technically a Halloween movie, monsters are definitely key icons to the Halloween spooky season - so we felt it fit.

About The Disney Family Movie Date Series

Since returning from our trip to Walt Disney World, our little family has begun having Disney movie nights on the weekends. We pick a Disney movie, put together (or purchase) a meal that is inspired by the movie, and enjoy a family date at home.

Because I work in the health & fitness industry and health and fitness is really important to our family, our little spin on it is that we swap the traditional buttery popcorn, pop, and candy for more health-forward meals instead.

I hope in sharing this new series on my blog, I can inspire others to take on the mindset that we can enjoy special family dates like this, still order take-out, and fill out plates with healthier options.

Disclaimer: I am not a competitive body builder, a professional athlete or on a journey to transform my body composition; and because of that, I don’t restrict my diet or follow a specific diet plan the way some athletes do to become the best at their sport. Rather, because I am an average Mom who loves to lift weights and fill my plate with more mindful choices, when I speak about “healthy food” in this series, I’m referring to looking at food on a spectrum and making more healthful choices, like prioritizing protein, fibre (especially fruits and vegetables), complex carbs, healthy fats.

Monsters, Inc: Meal Inspiration

For dinner, we chose to pick up some Japanese food from our favourite local sushi spot - Umi Sushi. The idea of sushi for dinner came from the scene where Mike and Celia have dinner at Harryhausen’s.

I actually had a lot of fun being a little creative with this meal because of how the sushi in this scene had traditional looking sushi rolls alongside rolls that looked like they had eye balls and other slippery and slimy parts.

Our Monsters, Inc. Inspired Sushi Dinner

What’s For Dinner:

Spicy Crab Roll - Shredded crab mixed with spicy mayo.
Snow Dragon Special Roll - Dynamite roll topped with spicy crab
Crab Sushi Pizza - Fried rice patty topped with spicy crab, soy sauce, and tobiko
Japanese Okonomiyaki Fries - Fries topped with okonomiyaki sauce, cheese, Japanese mayo, nori flakes, green onion, and bonito flakes
Sesame Balls - Mocha filled with red bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds, and deep fried.

I topped the spicy crab rolls with an extra dollop of spicy crab sauce and then cut out a circle of nori to make it look like an eye ball roll - like they have in the movie.

I thought the wild nature of the spicy crab looked similar to the fur on some of the monsters. I even put eyes on the crab pizza to make it look like a monster's face.

I added some more nori dots to the sesame balls to make them look like eye balls.

Healthy Habits For Eating Sushi

Many people try to avoid sushi when they start a healthy and fitness journey because the fitness industry has done a good job at demonizing rice.

As an Asian, rice isn’t something I am worried about - in fact, it is a daily staple that I enjoy and fits within my journey.

When it comes to eating sushi, there are a few nutrition skills I like to follow:

Pick items that are high protein
Eat slowly and mindfully
Listen to intuitive hunger and satiety cues

Pick Items that are high in protein

While we could have picked some raw fish, crab is still quite high in protein and my husband, Adam, prefers it. Crab is also high in omega fatty acids. The snow crab roll also had some shrimp in it.

Eat Slowly and mindfully

When we eat sushi, I aim to slow down my eating so that I can properly listen to my hunger cues and avoid overeating. Something I do to slow down my eating is put down my chop sticks in-between pieces. The act of putting them down and picking them up may just feel like seconds (because they are), but it definitely slows down your eating compared to shovelling food in your mouth non-stop.

Listen to your intuitive hunger and satiety cues

Like I mentioned in the previous point, listening to my intuitive satiety cues so that I can stop eating when I’m full and avoid over eating is key. My goal isn’t to finish everything on my plate. Instead, it’s to eat what I enjoy, stop when I’m full, and save the rest for a later meal.

By the end of this meal, we still had basically a whole order of fries still, half the order of spicy crab, half a spicy crab pizza, and half of the snow crab roll.