You are what you Eat

I have heard it said that you are what you eat, this means if you only put junk food in your body all you are going to get out of is junk.  I am not a health freak by any stretch of the wildest imaginations but I have been doing some changes in my eating habits since losing my dad in 2011 to a very rare form of Cancer. When pressed as to why he got this awful disease since he wasn't an alcoholic and he didn't smoke or do any of the "red flag" behaviors that doctors often see in their Cancer patients, I was told his food killed him.

Now a little personal family history here. My dad was raised on a dairy farm. They drank milk straight from the cow.  It was not pasteurized and homogenized and filled with extra nutrients and vitamins.  If his family ate it they raised it.  These eating habits continued on into his adult years but he was known for sitting down with a carton of ice cream and a gallon of milk. He loved his dairy. And when he was cremated they told me he had the densest bone mass they had ever seen.  But my dad also loved food.

Deep friend, farm raised, fast food, whatever was readily available. He loved to eat, he also loved to cook and a score for him was actually finding something that was locally raised or fresh from a friends garden, but this was not the norm.  He grew up in a time that you ate what was put in front of you and you never complained.  I was raised on old south cooking. Homemade biscuits, real milk, blackberries and dumplings every Christmas made with a ton of sugar and boiled until almost syrup in its consistency.

I was also raised with ice cream, and sour creme and real butter.  As an adult I have fought a weight problem but that is simply from my love of food, honestly inherited from the man who raised me.  I have many happy memories of sitting around a table heaped with fresh food and having good times with friends and family.  Unfortunately now most of our foods are genetically modified or come from overseas in boxes or cans.

Last year my husband and I did our own garden and to be completely honest I had forgotten how incredible a "real" strawberry tasted.  Or how juicy a fresh tomato off the vine felt on your tongue.  Or how awesome it is to make a meal with things grown in your own yard.  After losing my Dad we decided as a family to make some alterations to our eating habits. I began actually reading the ingredients list on the boxes of food I purchased and learned that many of the ingredients in things I cannot pronounce and had to google to discover what exactly they are.

I was reading a study done this has shown links to depression and sodas.  Now we all indulge in sodas from time to time. That sweet heavenly fluid that is sweet with just a hint of salty.  The cold bubbly goodness beckoning us from every fast food, convenience store, and grocery store shelf. It comes in a wide variety of flavors as well as "diet" and it is readily available. But growing up on a farm I also know what sodas are used for in a non dietary use.  They remove rust.  You can do this little experiment yourself.

Take a rusty tool, we used to use it for horse bits.  Drop it down in a some dark soda, can be the cheap kind 84 cents last time I checked at Walmart for a 2 liter bottle of the stuff.  And leave it alone for about 2 weeks.  When you come back the rust is gone. Was a miracle worker for tools left out in the yard to long, or a bit that had been put away without being cleaned. Now if it can do that to a metal object think what it can do to your stomach.

Since losing my Dad we have been eliminating foods from our diet that have ingredients I cannot pronounce or have to do research to identify.  Some people refer to this as natural eating. Meaning if it don't grow that way don't eat it.  I still eat cheese which is not naturally in that form, but I have learned how to make our own.  I still drink coffee which does not start out as that beautiful black ground powder that gets me moving in the morning, but I am more selective in the foods I include in our diet.

I try hard to either raise it ourselves or purchase it from local gardeners who often sell their surplus.  I have been told by some that doing this is more expensive than eating fast food.  But I look at the long term.  I love my family and friends and want to spend as much time with them as possible for as long as possible and if I have to find a creative way to eat healthier in order to do that then so be it.  I don't want to die at 62 with the best years of my life ahead of me.  I want to stick around long enough to be a burden to my girls.  I want to be that crazy old lady down the street that everyone goes she hasn't died yet?  I plan on doing whatever it takes to ensure I am the healthiest me for the longest period of time I can.

I know that we all have our guilty indulgences, be that a big mac or chocolate. For me its coffee, never could have guessed that could you.  But what I am saying is if you truly want to be happy you first have to look at what you are doing in your present every day life. What is making you sick and tired to the point you don't have the energy you need to pursue your dreams and goals.  What is a crutch leaping from one glass to the next. I feel anything in moderation is ok but when 90% of your meals are filled with chemicals it might be time to take a long hard look at your eating habits and decide if they truly work for you.

Thanks to modern technology we have choices.  We can make meals ahead of time and control the ingredients and the quality of the those ingredients and stick them in a freezer. It takes less money to do all of your prep work at once and freeze your homemade ready to heat and eat meals than it does to actually buy those same meals that someone else put together for you.  It is healthier to eat "whole" or natural foods than to rely upon premade meals that are coming out of places like Korea or Japan.  And don't even get me started on Corn Syrup.  It is in over 85% of the products you find on the grocery shelves these days.

Use that wonderful brain you have been blessed with to start questioning the things around you.  Do you really want to continue on for the rest of your life asleep at the wheel.  You don't have to immediately throw away everything in your cabinet that is store bought. We did it gradually replacing old stand by foods with healthy alternatives a little bit at a time.  I am to the point now I indulge in a meal out with my family once a week sometimes twice depending on the week and depending on our schedule but over 90% of our meals are made at home.  When I do order out I take that into consideration and try hard to look at the big picture.  What will eating this cost me in calories and in content.

Eating out can be expensive, far more so than you may realize.  Eating those prepared meals can be as well.  Eating healthy is not only better for you but if done right can actually be cheaper.  It is definitely better than dying young and losing the best years of your life to Cancer or some other dreaded disease that has been linked to our dietary practices.

What you eat affects your moods, it can elevate it and help your body function on an all time high. Or can be weigh us down and create more bad things in our life.  If you are following your bliss you have to look at the entire picture.  You cannot pick and choose what is wrong with your life. You have to see the relationship between it all in order to change what doesn't work and what does.

In the new year I have decided to also begin trying to get healthier physically.  I will never run a marathon or a be a slim run way model and I am good with that. But I am taking better care of myself in order to be able to do the things I have dreamed of doing my entire life.  I want to be in the kind of shape that I can enjoy my outings and my new experiences with being exhausted or sore the next day.  Ok some of them am still going to be sore but you know what it will be worth it.  Because sometimes you just gotta push those boundaries.

I hope my blog today has given you some food for thought. I also hope that you are taking care of yourself the way you take care of others. You cannot truly love another until you first learn to love yourself.  I am unsure who wrote those words but I do know they are very true.

Until Tomorrow blog buddies. Be safe, be sane, and be happy.

These are real foods, just encase you have forgotten what natural foods look like.

So yourself and your body a favor, when warmer weather arrives in your area check 

out the local farmers market. If you are afraid to try something new or different buy one item.  I would recommend something sweet like a peach or a box of strawberries. Take a bite and just live in that moment. Allow it to dissolve on your tongue.  Enjoy every single bite of it and remember what it

was like to eat real food. At some point in our lives most of us lived on the stuff.

If you think you cannot afford to eat a healthy diet on a budget I am including a link with how to do just that.  Making meals at home instead of relying so heavily on the inside ring of a grocery store.  Most real foods are located on the outside ring but many people rarely if ever see those departments for very long. Things like real fruits and vegetables especially if they are in season.

Milk and meat as well as the green stuff, although many veggies come in a wide variety of colors.

I hope you all take this for what it is advise from someone who lived most of the adult lives eating commercially prepared meals but after being on "real" foods for a little over 12 months now has noticed a marked difference in how I feel.  I have energy, I look younger, and to be honest I am happier. Explore the wonderful things around you and enjoy the freshest foods you can find. 

It will make a major difference in your attitude and in your life.

Heatlhy Eating on a Budget