Clean Eating

Clean eating is a pretty commonplace phrase lately don't you think? Paired with eating real foods, or eliminating GMO's, Mosanto and a whole bunch of other things that have been floating around the Internet, my Facebook feed and even Pinterest.

All of these terms got me thinking and piqued my curiosity so I started to do a little digging and research on my own. I started to find awesome resources online places like Food Babe, The Herb Guy, Natural News, Raw for Beauty and Just Eat Real Food. And you know what? The things I was learning was scary. The chemicals being put into our foods, modified organism, preservatives, animal by-products, it was enough to actually cause me to consider going vegan for a moment! But then I realized that eating healthy doesn't mean I need to nibble on nuts, sprouts and greens all day. I can eat meat and dessert and have awesome food  minus all the crap.



Which brings me here to my long forgotten blog about all things yummy food and I'm going to change it. I'm going to take you on this adventure with me into eating natural, clean, real foods. I've started making my own homemade medicines, taking herbs and even using essential oils and I've noticed what a huge change it has already made in my life. The flu was rampant this season especially in the northeast but you know what? Neither myself or my husband got even so much as a cold this year! And no, we did not get flu shots or take any conventional medications to beat any symptoms.

I've found that this transition is best done a little at a time because quite frankly overhauling my entire diet and what I am putting into my body in a week is just too much for me. So I'm starting to make changes little by little until I get to the point where I am comfortable that I am putting all the right things into my body and that I feel good about it.

Step one for me began with ransacking my medicine cabinet. I tossed the conventional medications, Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, cough syrup, cold medicines - all of it and began to replace it all with Elderberry Syrup (my absolute fave go to for staving off sickness), Emegen-c Packets, essential oils (Thieves, lavender, basil and oregano to name a few), wild raw honey, garlic (these two stayed in my kitchen even though they were essentials!), vitamins, red raspberry leaf pills and saline solution for my sinus infections.

I then went through my refrigerator and pantry to get rid of products that we shouldn't be eating. Products with high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, MSG, sodium benzoate, BHT among others. I threw out a lot, but happily I realized there was a lot of food we did own that was good for us and we were already on the right track. I also realized that much of what I got rid of was condiments and packaged, processed foods that were really just sitting around in our cabinets anyway. I couldn't bear to throw away sealed food products so I actually ended up donating them because food is still food to someone who can't afford anything.

The end result looked like this:

I plan to take this on a daily and weekly basis to give you new recipes that I am trying out or creating as well as help inform you on what is harmfully effecting us by what we are putting into our bodies. It'll be something like a book report of sorts and I hope you'll send me any info that you find as well! It's a learning process for all.