Standard American Diet to Real Food- What I did

I have always been health conscious, but following the 'healthy' diet seemed like a constant life of deprivation, which just wasn't very fun. I swam for exercise (at one point twice a day 5 days a week), and yet was always exhausted. Now that I've found real food that works with my body rather than just the calorie in/calorie out idea, I feel so much healthier!

I started slow. This is the order that I changed things. Nothing in here is very difficult, I promise. I walk for exercise, it's easy to do with my kiddos. I don't make it a chore, but something we look forward to. If we don't get out all week, no guilt trips! But because it makes us feel so good, we want to get out the next week.

Here are the steps I took to get where I am at the moment, and as I try to convey on my blog, I'm always learning and changing. I'd encourage you to do the same, start slow. I'll put boxes by them so you can print this out and stick it on your kitchen cork board and check things off if you'd like. Seeing it out on paper might inspire your family to take interest as well! I know my husband doesn't want to read nutritional books, but if he glances at something I'm reading on a blog he likes to learn more about it in snippets. Kids will surprise you with how much they're interested in health as well.

"Supposing is good, but finding out is better."
- Mark Twain in Eruption; Mark Twain's Autobiography


Vegan/Vegetarian: All those reasons why you've heard that the vegetarian lifestyle is healthier? Here are 49 Reasons to be a Vegetarian: A Rebuttal, at Nourished Kitchen. I think a lot of us who are interested in health fall into the vegetarian trap. It sounds really healthy on the surface, but I know that I never thrived on it. I would encourage you to be informed about vegetarianism, since it will help clarify why we eat what we eat.

Swimming: I swam for exercise, which really is a nice full body workout. I'm not sure that swimming in chemicals is healthy, though, so I don't think I'll encourage this with my children. Public pools are heavily chlorinated, so I take my kids swimming in lakes and slow-moving streams

Milk Allergy: One benefit of going vegan for a couple years was that when I reintroduced milk (cheese pizza at Round Table, I can still remember it) I broke out in hives immediately. That was a good sign that I was allergic to milk products. I had always had really bad seasonal allergies and chronic sinus infections before going vegan, and now that I know to avoid dairy, I don't. Until my teens, we had no idea that I had a diary allergy, since I had become somewhat used to it, so it just manifested in chronic conditions rather than acute (hives) ones. Have chronic infections, eczema, or other problems? An elimination diet might be worth trying.

Water Filter: I grew up on well water, so when we got married and moved to the city, we immediately got a filter to filter out chlorine. Like the milk allergy above, if you've been on city water for a while, you might not notice the chlorine in your drinking water, but I would highly recommend filtering it out anyway. We just use PUR FM-9500 Water Filtration System. I'd love a reverse osmosis one, but for now this is better than nothing.

Childbirth: I have a collection of childbirth and baby links up here. Once again, there's a lot more to it than you'll learn in mainstream childbirth education classes. Reading birth stories, statistics, and talking to a variety of birth professionals (doulas, midwives, and doctors) can help you to have a well-rounded perspective when it comes time to make decisions for your and your baby. We chose to homebirth, so I felt like it was my responsibility to learn all I could. Now I see that wherever you choose to birth, it really is a parent's responsibility to learn the pros and cons of everything, since not everything done by a birth attendant is automatically evidence based.

Switch to regular soda from diet: I was surprised at how hard this is, since caffeine is often blamed for soda addiction. I just wanted to get the artificial sweeteners out of my diet before conceiving, and it was hard, I'm guessing aspartame is addictive to some people. Much easier for me to drop soda all together (later down the list). When I stopped drinking diet soda, I was usually drinking 4 Diet Pepsi a day.

Vaccinations: Again, please be informed of the statistics associated with vaccines, both the benefits and risks. There are also ingredients in vaccines that many of us are not comfortable giving our children.

Butter: Kitchen Stewardship has a great overview of all the reasons why you need to stop buying margarine and start buying real butter at the store. No more tubs of Country Crock (yes, that was a regular in my fridge 4+ years ago). No need to jump ahead to buying local grass-fed organic butter. Just start with replacing those cubes and tubs with real cow-milk butter. Now we use more coconut oil, but when we were mostly eating butter as our fat we went through 16 lbs a month.

Buy Nourishing Traditions and just look through it. I bought it when I was pregnant with my daughter and I think it was a good 6 months before I made any significant changes to our diet. The excerpts in the side bars of the pages and the overview at the beginning of each chapter are nice places to start. Skip the recipes for fermented fish sauce and brains, we won't start there ~smile~. (more recommended reading here, but digest Nourishing Traditions for a while before building a whole library)

Get rid of Crisco: I had been holding onto Crisco for cookies (Betty Crocker's recipe) but I finally let that go and switched to butter. So do that now. If you're using it to fry, switch to coconut oil.

Bought a wheat grinder, started making whole wheat bread: I read some articles on the importance of freshly ground whole wheat flour, and was interested. I bought my grain mill used (I love buying things used). Now I'll occasionally use Wheat Montana's whole wheat flour, but I usually just buy a 5-pound bucket of their wheat berries. They're easier to store and don't go bad like already ground flour does. I'm okay with buying whole wheat flour already ground, though, since it's local and pretty fresh. I keep it in my freezer at home. I didn't know about soaked wheat bread (see below) yet. I like my electric mill, but I'd also like to get the hand crank mill from Nova Natural to use with the kids.

Bought a natural crib mattress for my daughter. I did the same for my son when he moved to a crib for his naps (ahem, or when I thought he would. He is napping in our bed as I type this)

Stop buying corn dogs: Or other convenience food of choice ~smile~. Corn dogs were my personal favorite. Now I usually do quesodillas as fast I-forgot-to-figure-out-dinner food.

Switch to natural peanutbutter: I know it's different, but the natural stuff is good. Think of the hydrogenated peanut butter as more of a junk food, not something nourishing. I liked to spread the natural stuff on toast first, so it would melt a little bit.

Cut out food dye: I was intrigued by the book Why Your Child Is Hyperactive at this point in my 'real foods' journey. Reading it convinced me to not let any products containing food dye ever enter my child's mouth. We messed up a few times (marshmallows have blue dye in them, not being able to get dye-free medicine), but overall we've stuck to this. And it works well to keep junk out of the house, or at least out of little ones' mouths.

Detour: Baby food. As my little one was getting close to the 'eating stage' I did a cram session on this.

Soaked wheat bread: It isn't hard, I promise.

Good quality prenatal: I really wish I had figured out the value in a good quality foods-derived vitamin with my first pregnancy, but I didn't figure it out til my second.

Lactoferments: I was wary of these at first, but now I love them. I can feel that digestion is easier then I add some to each meal. We generally just add sauerkraut to everything, even hubby has it on his sandwich instead of lettuce.

Soaked nuts: Seriously easy, and it takes the bitter 'bite' out of them. You can use them to make honey nut brittle too- easy! and a real food!

Stop with sodas: We still drank rootbeer and coke after stopping with the diet verstions. Corn syrup, artificial flavoring, no thanks. Now we don't even like them any more.

Switch to real salt: It's easy, I just didn't get my act together and buy a grinder until way down here on the list.

Humidifier with essential oils: I was surprised how this cheap and easy fix can prevent sickness and help prevent it as well.

Lots of shuffling with the budget: Every once in a while I have to really examine how I can juggle the money around to afford things like organic foods. Cutting out the junk helps a lot.

Watched the Future of Food: Hulu has it for free, I highly recommend watching it. I wasn't very informed about GMOs until I watched this, and it's a movie that both hubby and I enjoyed.

Diligent about avoiding GMOs: It seemed overwhelming at first, but now that I'd gotten most of the junk out of our diet and was eating mostly whole foods, I just made sure that all corn, soy, and canola were organic if they were in our food. As far as I know 'organic' still isn't genetically modified. Some slips in every once in a while for us adults (corn syrup!), but I'm usually able to be strict enough with the kids.

Homemade Lunch Meat: See, none of this stuff is too complicated. Put a chicken in the crock pot. Take the chicken out of the crock pot. Take meat off. There ya go ~smile~

Chicken stock makes really good soup: I used chicken stock in things like rice for a long time before I even bothered to make soup with chicken stock. It's really good! It's filling and satisfying, whereas soup made with water just doesn't really cut it for our family.

Homemade refried beans: Cans are lined with questionable material, and canned refried beans are either made with questionable ingredients (msg, 'natural flavors') or are super expensive. Making them in the crockpot makes them taste better and they're super cheap.

Brown Rice: Around this time I finally finished up the bulk package of white (jasmine) rice that I had, and I switched to brown. Our Costco had a bulk bag of organic brown for pennies a pound. I cook my brown rice a long time, a couple hours, and soak it the night before. It softens this way and isn't tough/dry.

organic beef: Finally I got my finances in line here to be able do this on a regular basis. If I try and cook regular beef, I can taste the chemicals in it now. Gross.

Tooth soap: I know, weird. But it works so well, you won't want to switch back.

Cut out corn syrup: There's nothing good in corn syrup. In addition to containing GMOs (in non organic) it's much more processed than sugar. Jam, fake syrup, and ketchup are some sources of corn syrup that were the last to leave my house. It still makes its way in every once in a while, but I'm generally not the one bringing it in ~grin~

Natural deodorant: This surprised me, it works better than any deodorant I've ever tried, natural or not.

Natural shampoo, conditioner: Super easy. Most of the time I just use baking soda in my hair (I just rub about 1 tablespoon in dry hair before showering now) and I always do a vinegar rinse to condition. About once every few weeks I use Burt's Bees Shampoo, but still with the vinegar rinse. I've used an egg yolk as shampoo before too, but it's more of a hassle to do that. It works well though. If you're nervous about it, just try on a Saturday when you can wear a hat or you're not going out :)

Natural household cleaners: Baking soda to scrub, vinegar for everything else. Essential oil added to make it all smell nice. I got a steam mop that I love, I'll add a couple drops of lemon essential oil to the pad before I mop my floors. I know this is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a mop, but with the steam I feel like I can sanitize the floor my kids play on without chemicals. I'll go around and squirt any spots with vinegar before mopping and it comes right up. I'm still working on this (Cascade in my dishwasher, Oxyclean on the clothes, somewhat natural laundry detergent that could be better)

Natural cosmetics: I'm not a big makeup wearer, so all this consists of is a natural mineral mascara, and Burt's Bees lip gloss. I tossed my conventional versions.

GAPS: Gut and Psychology Syndrome is a book about clearing up many chronic conditions (from eczema to allergies to autism to depression) through healing the gut. I find it fascinating, and it's worth looking into if you struggle with any chronic condition. I'm trying it mostly just as a gentle cleanse and for allergies. Sometimes people ask me about diets and cleanses, and this is what I would recommend. I think it would be beneficial, even if for a month. And I'd personally feel comfortable doing it even while pregnant or breastfeeding.

Buying Local: As I become more interested in real whole foods, I'm slowly finding local farmers to shop from. Most of them rely on word-of-mouth, so they're not super easy to find. We enjoy local honey and squash now, for a fraction of the supermarket price. I just was able to buy organic grass fed beef for a discount by going in on a share of a cow too.

Juicing: I consider juicing more of a supplement than a necessity. But in certain circumstances it's a good idea to look into.

Next up:

Learning more about herbal medicine: Stephanie of Keeper of the Home has a lot of posts about herbal medicine. I'm starting to use herbs for some things, but I still have a long way to go in this area.

Get a shower filter: When we were in the country on well water I didn't think about it, but now that our water is chlorinated I really need to get it together and buy a shower filter. I'll just get one for the shower and then fill up the kids' bath with the shower. Or skin does let things through, so we're getting chlorine in our bloodstream every time we're in chlorinated water. I didn't even realize how cheap they were til I looked them up for this list here.

Finish replacing chemical products with natural ones (Cascade, Kirkland 'natural' laundry detergent, Oxyclean)

I know there's lots more I want to learn I'll add to the list as time goes on


(part of Works for Me Wednesday, Real Food Wednesday, and Fight Back Friday)

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