Our “diet” now consists of fresh eggs, fresh fruit and veggies, fresh butcher meat, fresh wild USA caught fish and seafood, fresh chicken and turkey. Noticing a theme yet???? It is all fresh! I am blessed that I live in an area that I am able to take advantage of multiple places that I can get fresh foods from. I have no issues driving an hour for our food. When food is out of season I still buy as fresh as I can from our local grocery stores. We drink teas and coffee (decaf of course), 100% juice, whole milk, and water. I make as much as I can from scratch. We use butter. I do not count calories. I do not follow any fad diets. I have lost a 100 lbs so far. Only a 100 lbs left!
Our journey to real whole foods began 3 yrs ago. We were a processed food family….There I admitted it. My pantry was over flowing with boxed and canned items. It saved me time and money, so I thought. Most importantly I thought we were eating healthy. I knew my doctor’s number by heart. We were there all the time for this illness or that. That was the norm. My family had gut issues too. Constipation was a norm. After my stint in ICU I realized that I was eating far from healthy. I knew I loved to cook. I did not want to do a “fad” diet lifestyle. Palio, South-beach, Gluten Free, etc. I am not one to take things out of my diet if I do not need to medically. We are meat eaters. No way around it. Gluten is my friend. We are all kinds of bubbly love! I wanted to eat balanced and healthy. That much I knew. I had issues with soy milk and almond milk. I have since learned that I am soy and whey intolerant. NOT ALLERGIC. I can handle only so much before the body rebels. My Hubby was all about the supporting of his wife’s new views on food. So we did what our family does best. We dove in head first. We did a 10 day pledge to eat as unprocessed as we could and as local and fresh as we could. It was easy for us. It was only 10 days. I liked it. A LOT! So did Hubby. So hey, why not continue on?
We decided to buy fresh. Hubby found our butcher. We found a local turkey / chicken farm, several orchards, and several incredible farmers markets. We even found fresh eggs. We also found several fresh fish markets. I turned our shopping into adventures with the kids. They got to pick fresh fruit and veggies. Our pantry got emptied out of the the heaviest processed foods. I started making our own broths and stocks, bread crumbs etc. WOW! The taste difference alone was incredible! We got rid of dark pop first. That was painful for me. I was addicted to Coke! Hey, I found the silver lining though. We still had Sprite and Ginger Ale. Until Hubby came up with the brilliant idea to get rid of it all. I can not even say that I was all that thrilled about it. But I also knew he was right. It needed to go! It took us about 6 months to really dive into the whole real foods switch. At that point we knew it was time to give up the last of our old world in the way of the processed foods and drinks. We said good bye to it all…. I do not miss them in the least.
Simplicity Redesigned 