Alright, well The Story, part 2 will come someday but not today!  

Today my kitchen has become an experimental place!  I have been reading a lot about our food system and the nasty chemicals which are in everything and I am really bothered by it all!  

Dan and I watched Food, Inc a few years ago and we have already taken most of the dairy out of our diets.  No more cows milk for us.  Anything that “grows” cancer is not welcome here, especially when talking about giving it to my innocent little boys!  We switched Nathan over to hazelnut milk and he was a fan.  The chocolate version is his drink of choice so we had the added sugar in there but no dairy.  I thought I was doing something right by getting as much dairy out as we could.  Boo on casein!  

Then came Nathan’s food allergies and we began to work through some of those restrictions.  We have long suspected gluten/wheat being a problem, but now that we know for sure, there is no way not to be fully g free.  After the last few weeks, I think I have a handle on the egg thing and his list of “only every 4 day” foods.  

Well, after just finishing The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien, I now have other things to add to my list…changes to make to how we eat.  The book is a fascinating read and I recommend it to everyone.  Your eyes may be opened, as mine were.

So, now I have begun to look at food additives and colorings.  (Something my Mom has been talking about for awhile but I am only now ready to hear it!)  All those chemicals pumped into the stuff we were eating.  Anything with a color and a number behind it=bad.  MSG=bad.  Soy=bad.  Carrageenan=bad.  I was not familiar with the last one but come to find out it can cause inflammation and digestive problems…isn’t that what we’re dealing with with Nathan?  You know that hazelnut milk I was pumping into him?  It uses that carrageenan stuff as a filler.  What if that was bothering him all this time too?  One change I thought was helping might have been harmful!  I was buying the stuff at the co-op by the case for him.  Well, no more!  Do you know how easy it is to make nut milks?  I had never tried it before but it is super, SUPER easy!  I whipped up some almond milk in no time and it has no additives, no fillers, just almonds, water and dates.  A simple change.

I also made almond butter today.  Again, super, SUPER easy.  You need a blender, some almonds, dates and maybe a little oil and voila, almond butter!  No fillers, no processed stuff, no soy.  

 I have begun to look at the labels on everything.  Now, I consider us a very healthy family, food wise.  We eat lots of veggies and fruits and my kids are good eaters.  They don’t balk at green stuff in everything.  But there is more to the picture than I realized and now that I know what else we need to watch out for, how can I not make changes here and there?  I think your brain, well at least my brain, can only hold so much information at one time and this process will be in baby steps.    As I mentioned before, my Mom has been telling me about some of these things for awhile but I was too overloaded to hear it.  Now, I’m ready, so look out world!  

I only wish I had known what I know now 6 years ago before Nathan was born.  I wouldn’t even have introduced him to all that stuff.  If he’d never had M&M’s, he wouldn’t miss them. Or Ritz crackers or WheatThins. It might be too late for Nathan and Caleb but at least Zachary is a clean slate!  Just kidding, I know it’s never too late, the big boys just know more of the taste of the “bad” stuff, so it’s harder to make changes.  But if I know something is bad, how can I give it to them?

By the way, since we have made changes to Nathan’s diet taking out as many of the food allergies as we can, his skin is finally improving.  It is now soft and looks awesome!  His behavior is calmer and more focused too!  Maybe there is actually something to that whole allergy thing….

PS…You know what else I have learned the last couple weeks?  You can pop quinoa and eat it like popcorn!  I have mine ready to try for snack today, so I’ll let you know how it goes.  (My friend Diana runs RealHealthyRecipes.com and has amazing ideas on there so we can thank her for the idea!)

PPS…My brother and sister-in=law showed me how to make my own potato chips…in the microwave!  All you need to do is slice the potatoes with a mandolin, put them on parchment paper, a little spritz of oil and salt and nuke ’em.  Amazing and again, NO chemicals!