Our eating habits are evolving

As a child I grew up in a home where we ate out a lot, and ate a lot of process food. I don't want that for my kids. Inadvertently that is a path we have  been on for a long time. About a year and a half ago hubs and I sat down and watched a few documentaries on food. Food Inc, Fast Food Nation, and King Corn. We were initially inspired by Jamie Oliver's show Food Revolution. The state of what our kids were eating in schools sickened me. Later we followed up with Forks over Knives. Wow, the information was overwhelming and scary. The way they treat the animals that become nourishment for our bodies, the way they even treat our fruits and vegetables. It was heart wrenching. The amount of potentially toxic chemicals that go into our boxed foods is terrifying. I know some will say, "Well if you believe everything they say, you would never eat anything." After watching these documentaries, that isn't the truth. I will still eat. I will even still eat the stuff that isn't so good for me. But I will think about it more and I will make a better point to avoid it. I will be more apt to purchase free range, organic, and grass fed over conventional meats and produce.

I decided I wanted to do more research. I wanted our family to eat better. I was determined to stop all processed food, and no fast food. Cold turkey. Can you guess why that didn't work? LOL We failed miserably. So, I started more research. I started following blogs like Fooducate, Super Healthy Kids, and Spoonfed. I loved the ideas they had. The plethora of information readily available. But I found at a few points I felt guilty about everything. By far Super Healthy Kids is my favorite. Its a good middle ground, for me. She has inspired me to make yogurt, and even try bread. Both of which have worked out amazingly. More recently I have discovered 100 Days of Real Food. But still her challenge intimidates me. Its crazy to think, I am afraid how I will survive without white flour and refined sugar.

With my trusty kitchen aid artisan mixer I have ventured into bread making. Usually I stick with 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white. BUT this week I bought vital wheat gluten. This will allow me to make a (hopefully) fabulous whole wheat bread! I currently make 90% of our breads. Everything from dinner rolls, sandwich breads, artisan bread, garlic bread sticks, English muffins and even naan and bagels. I make about 25% of our yogurt (mama needs a larger yogurt maker so I can keep up with demand), and I make most of our snack foods. Occasionally I cave, more lately than before. But when I do buy packaged snacks I try and stick to lara bars, rice cakes, mr, wheat, or freeze dried fruits and fruit leathers. Lara bars are by far the new family favorite. They make TONS of flavors but unfortunately our commissary only carries 6 of them.

Over the next few months I am going to work hard on remodeling our eating lifestyle. I have 4 major goals:

1. criticaly reduce our refined sugar consumption (white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar...)
2. reduce our refined grain consumption (white flour)
3. banish artificial sugars and sweeteners (HFCS, aspartame)
4. reduce our consumption of artificial food color
5. a major reduction in fast food

Basicially if I need a science lab to make it, we aren't going to eat it. I hope with being held accountable on a blog we can stick to it step by step. I will be posting recipes that work for us, and stuff I create!


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