What a journey so far. I wanted to start slow and do a little change at a time. I found slow really hard to do once I started reading ingredients. Ugh! I found that everything or just about had weird sounding ingredients in it or had a list that took up one whole side of the packaging. I just couldn't give stuff like that to my family. I love them. So I started buying only food that I could visualize the ingredients as a real food and not a product of industry. Then I purged my home of everything that had high fructose corn syrup in it. Then I did a second deeper purge. I can say that at this moment I have nothing with High fructose corn syrup in my house. My guess is that about 95% of what I have now meets the real food standard. The other 5% is at least somewhat benign.
I feel like this change hasn't been too difficult for us. I would say that we didn't eat really unhealthy to begin with. But I know better now that just because it doesn't have a lot of fat or sugar it doesn't mean its healthy. Sometimes those items are way worse for you.
I just feel so proud of my family for taking this change in stride and being willing to try new foods. Today for lunch I threw a grilled cheese sandwich (made with whole grain bread and organic hormone free cheese) and sliced apples and carrot sticks into bags and we ate on the go. My girls were thrilled and I felt really good about what they were consuming. Tonight we had rice noodles, a little bit of chicken, and bok choy stir fry. Followed by orange slices and smoothies for desert. Smoothies were made in the vita mix and consisted of Orange juice, cranberry juice, an apple, a banana, spinach, kale, carrots, frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple, and frozen mango and it was awesome. You should have seen my sons face when I told him about the veggies (he eats them all anyway). He didn't believe me that it could taste so good with all that in it. LOL
The down side:
1) I mostly have to cook all the time (but I have recently discovered a knack for it)
2) I have to chop a lot because all the food is fresh
3) It takes a lot longer to shop for groceries
4) My grocery bill is about 50% higher
5) Dealing with social situations (like someone gives the kids a lollipop or cookie)
Some of the benefits:
1) I don't need the fast food anymore (I don't crave it, my car doesn't do auto pilot into Chick-fil-a)
2) I lost about 7lbs so far without any real effort (that's really new)
3) I feel better. I usually suffer from aches and pains like fibromyalsia and back pain and bloating. I haven't felt any of it in a few weeks. Maybe its the toxins leaving.
4) We get to try so many new foods. We have liked most of them (when I cook them right)
5) We save some money from not eating out much. (used to be a few times a week now more like once every other week)
Next steps:
1) Check into a milk co-op to buy less processed, no hormone, humanely raised
2) Find a cheese that I like that is also no hormone, humanely raised
3) Visit some farms that raise cows right to find one I like to buy meat from
4) Keep finding recipes for new and exciting foods
