Taking Stock and Taking a Blog Break

When I my kids ate 3 raw beets and 4 purple carrots after school for their snack one day, I knew something major had changed in our family. Since then I've had writer's block. Maybe because this blog has served it's original purpose for me. It has made me follow through on things I might never have done otherwise - and now I'm hooked, I don't need the cyberspace motivation anymore. Our progress has been beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you to those who have read the blog, commented, emailed or debated with us for the last several months.

In the last 4 months, our changes have focused on food, chemicals, and consumerism. But the more I learn, the more I confirm that all of these components are interconnected. As I change my food patterns, I discover community. As I change my shopping habits, I contribute to a more fair, sustainable economy. It's been eye opening, and surprisingly easy. It turns out that an average, somewhat lazy, but socially conscious mother can actually drastically change her habits in just a matter of months.

If you're interested, here's my inventory of changes:

• purging all processed foods from our diets, with a few exceptions that allow us to function socially!
• switching from about 10% organics to about 90% when it comes to fruits, vegetables, wine, baking supplies, oils, nuts, cosmetics and pretty much everything else except clothing (one of these days...cotton uses an insane amount of pesticides). We aim to choose local products where possible.
• switching to organic meats, with particular attention to grass fed beef and dairy (avoids feedlot agriculture, and provides a more healthy balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids) and cooking meals with smaller meat portions.
  
• eating more vegetarian meals with beans and lentils to make up for our expensive meat
  
• phasing out new toys for birthday parties and baby gifts (unless they are very needed). We recently gave an "e-charity gift" from Plan Canada. Our choice was a "Birthing Kit" (to be used for a woman with no access to clean medical facilities) to honour the birth of a friend's child. For the new big sister, we chose the gift of a year's worth of school supplies for a girl who would otherwise have no access to school.
• vowing to avoid loot bags and dollar store toys that don't last. Vowing to have gift free (or recycled gift, or charity gift) parties for our own kids, at least until they're old enough to really fight it.
  
• making way more foods from whole grains, and from scratch (ie. bread once or twice a week, muffins and cookies occasionally). We love our Ontario grown and milled Grassroots Organics flours. When we're stuck, we buy Stonemill wholegrain breads - they even bake with 100% green power!
  
• phasing out refined sugar and replacing it with agave nectar when possible
• choosing Fair Trade certified products when possible. Ten Thousand Villages makes a good shopping adventure for this, and stores are carrying certified goods more frequently than they used to.
  
• working towards homegrown food, even on our deck (and shared garden at my parents' place) where we're hoping to grow our own huge tomato crop so we can make our own tomato sauce, diced and stewed tomatoes to get us through the winter. We're also growing herbs, peas, beans, carrots, cukes, melons, and squash, some of which we will can, pickle or freeze for winter.
  
• teaching our kids about healthy foods, and watching them start to get excited about heirloom tomatoes, atomic red carrots, stripey beets, and kale chips (and actually eat these things!)
• avoiding canned foods (because the linings leach phthalates -endocrine disruptors)
• getting rid of most of our plastic containers in favour of glass
• buying less packaging (including finding products in refillable containers like Harmony milk in glass bottles and "NatureClean" laundry soap)
• replacing all of our chemical filled soaps, shampoos, and detergents with more natural ones. We're particularly avoiding parabens and phthalates. While I'm still not crazy about my natural shampoo, I'm trying different brands until the right one works for me. We've also avoided all fragranced products to reduce our exposure to phthalates.
  
• chucking my aluminum based anti-perspirant in favour of a crystal...even though I still sometimes get panic attacks about my aroma.
• reading more non fiction books (for fun) than I have in my life about organic gardening, container gardening, whole foods cookbooks, food industry critiques, politics of food, and the eye opening Anti-Cancer book. I've learned some really compelling reasons to follow through with our changes so far.

The result? We're all working harder and spending more time in the kitchen and the garden...but it feels like an adventure instead of like a chore for a change. The kids are being great about this, more and more adventurous with new foods each day. I feel like I'm finally doing my best to keep my family healthy, safe and socially conscious instead of using my old excuse about not having enough time or money for these changes.

So what's next? More of the same. My next project is to build some homemade test models of the Earth Box to see if they can help me produce even more food. And to continue to find more options for foods like kale, chard, fresh herbs and other veggies. And to learn how to can and pickle stuff. And to switch to baking soda and vinegar for cleaning. And to compost in the backyard...the list is endless, but the focus remains the same. I think I will need my blogging time this spring to tend to the garden, bake bread and soak beans. I'll post updates as things come along, but for now, I think I need a break!

Thanks for reading!

Road Trip Success

Okay, let it be said avoiding fast food while on a road trip with kids is a massive undertaking. That's why I'm tickled pink that I managed to do it. We used the facilities, but didn't succumb to the timbits and cheeseburgers. I packed a huge bag of healthy snacks on the way, and used my friend's kitchen to restock my supplies on the way home. My air popped popcorn bags were snubbed, but the orange slices were golden. Carrot sticks were actually crunched, almonds were popped. The only complaint I heard about food was from my 2 year old. Apparently he was disappointed in the lack of hummus. There was the issue of the "alligator" crackers I bought in a moment of weakness. They didn't wreck our roadtrip goal though - luckily they got spilled all over the floor of the van.

Of course, the kids promptly proceeded to turn their noses at most of the healthy food they were served for the rest of the weekend.

An aside: We had a great brunch, browse, and wander in Wakefield, Que. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Chelsea too has lots of little local food treasures if you're lucky enough to have someone tell you where to find them.

Veg meal, Veg brain

I cracked my head today, hard. Since then I've been in a bit of a confused fog. I'm having trouble finding my words today. But I did the veggie thing for real today. I made the following veggie meal. It's cheap and healthy and it tastes okay (like pretty much everything, it's tastier if you add hot sauce). Best part is that it's easy enough to cook while suffering from mild concussion.

It's apparently a variation of something called "Louvia me Lehana". Not sure the origins.

3 cups dried black-eyed peas
water
2 onions, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup fresh dill, chopped
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 fresh tomatoes, diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt

Soak the peas overnight(if not using canned ones). Rinse and then boil them in a pot for 45 minutes. Drain them.
In another pot put the olive oil and the onion. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes. Then add the garlic, the tomatoes, the tomato paste, the parsley and the dill. Let them cook in medium heat for 30 minutes. Add some salt.
Add the peas to the sauce, mix and cook in low heat for 15 minutes. Serve with pita.

Guilt Free Valentine

This weekend, when I came downstairs I found a shiny foil paper trail leading me to my chocolate smeared children. We needed a junk food antidote; we would bake healthy Valentines muffins instead of the sugar cookies I was planning.

We made mini muffins and decorated them with icing hearts. Other than the icing, they were Healthy (note the capital H). My kids proclaimed them yummy, and ate 4 each. The success ended quickly as my daughter decided that the blueberries looked black and she didn’t want to eat black food. And then she reminded my son that he’s scared of the dark, and dark is black so he should be scared of the blueberries. But still, about a week’s worth of goodness had already been consumed by then, so I consider it a success. And I got to eat the rest, so it works for me. In fact, I was scarfing down the last muffin when I had to stop myself to take its picture (it’s actually only half a muffin, that’s why I had to hold it up)

This is my recipe. As with anything I cook, the measurements tend to be inexact, but they’re muffins, so you can pretty much put in anything you want.

1 ½ c Whole wheat flour

½ c Wheat bran

¼ c Flax seeds (whole seeds)

¼ c Wheat germ

¼ c oats

½ tsp Baking powder

½ tsp Baking soda

½ tsp Cinnamon

¼ tsp Nutmeg

½ c White Sugar (a bit more if you’d like a sweet muffin, mine were not super sweet)

¼ tsp Salt

1 Egg

1 cup Milk

3 tbsp Oil

½ c Grated carrots

2 Grated apples

handful of Blueberries (unless you’re scared of the dark)

handful of walnuts

Mix the wet stuff together in one bowl. Mix the dry stuff together in another bowl. Mix it all together. Bake at 350 for about 15 mins. Once cooled, try to shove muffins down the throats of your loved ones and eat the rest yourself.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One down, about 500 million to go

Aha! The syrup. We did it. Bye bye maple flavoured corn goo (what is sodium hexametaphosphate anyway?)

Today we used pure organic locally made maple syrup.

And they liked it.