Wednesday, May 27, 2009

May's challenge

So I read the book Seven Pillars of Health by Don Colbert. It was a good book. Here are the changes my family is or is working on instilling in our house.
  • Weed out the white flour, HFCS, white/brown sugar, MSG (and all the other names for it)
  • Drink more water, eat more fruits and veggies, buy as much organic as money allows.
That's enough for now. His book goes in to great detail about supplements and things like that, but I feel we will be more successful with just working on a couple of things right now.

Really our family has been on a healthier eating path for many years. It seems that each time I read a book like this, we come another step or two closer to how I'd love to live. One thing I realized by reading this book (that wasn't even discussed in the book) is that for me, my husband, and my SEVEN children - good eating is something that I'm willing to spend more money on. For some people, food is a great place to save money. Not for us.

Also, here is how the changes are really fleshed out around here.
  • no more Mrs. Butterworths HFCS syrup - moving to pure maple syrup
  • no more white flour in stuff - replacing with whole wheat. This will affect the taste of dutch babies, obviously.
  • MSG (in it's various forms) is in way more stuff than I realized - like my Progresso bread crumbs. Weed that stuff out of the house and find a good alternative or make my own. Did you know that MSG can be included in stuff under the ingredient "spices"?
  • no more white or brown sugar...and less honey. Working on alternatives for this. Agave nectar has gone over well as has pure maple syrup.
  • We are already big water drinkers around here, but I'd like to invest in stainless steal water bottles like these. Anyone want to invest in some as gifts for us??
  • Cereal is pretty much out. Gross stuff in most of it. The healthy, organic options are just not cost worthy, so now we're coming up with other breakfast options like homemade granola - oatmeal is relatively cheap.
All in all, I think this has been a pretty productive challenge for me. I'm in charge of making great healthy food choices for my family, so I want to do all I can to instill good habits in my babies now.

What are you doing to become more healthy?

Breathe your life!
amy

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say that my May,June,July,August etc.... challenge is just to be better at who I am, what I do and what I say. Will I get there probably when I get to heaven. That's about it Punk.

Anonymous said...

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http://www.inspiredliving.com/travel-water-bottles/canteen-water-bottle.htm

Anonymous said...

I like these:

http://www.inspiredliving.com/travel-water-bottles/canteen-water-bottle.htm