>A Testimony to Real Food and An Invitation

>With the New Year fast approaching many people are putting together their list of New Year’s Resolutions. These lists often include things like lose weight, exercise more, and get out of debt. I don’t plan to make any official resolutions this year (or have I in recent years) but I do plan to continue on my quest to improve the health of my family through eating real, nutrient dense foods and keeping our budget in check.

I believe that the best way to take charge of our health is by changing the way we eat by decreasing the amount of chemicals and preservatives we are putting in our body. By choosing high quality fats and proteins, eliminating packaged foods, and keeping sweets to a minimum we can begin to make amazing changes and improvements.

I first read the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon in January of 2009, which began my quest to return our family to a more traditional way of eating. At that time we were living in a camp trailer in California while waiting for the weather to improve enough to move to Wyoming (and live in our camp trailer here). Our changes started very slowly due mainly to my space issues. In the middle of June we were living in Wyoming and finally moving into our current home (a 3 bedroom 2 bath just under 1600 square foot manufactured home on our own two acres of sand and sagebrush). The big changes to our eating (and our health) happened after that.

Since June, some of the physical changes that we have noticed have been the almost complete elimination of symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) in Joe and myself. Lulu (my 13 year old) used to suffer from the same symptoms but was never diagnosed with IBS and she now rarely has issues. KiKi (my 14 year old) and Lulu have had a decrease in acne and all four of us have noticed a healthy decrease in our weight. These changes have resulted from adding things into our diet that for years (all my life maybe) we have been told to avoid. Mainly butter, whole (raw) milk, and beef (grass fed). And we are not the only ones experiencing this. Read Local Nourishment’s amazing story or Wardeh’s story how her family has reversed food allergies and see how Butterpoweredbike maintains her 100 pound weight loss eating butter (and other real foods). Many others are also taking charge and taking back their own health by going against what we have been conditioned by the “Diet Dictocrats”(1) to believe.

What about my other goal of keeping our budget in check? One of the rumors that I heard (and believed) when we first started to want to make changes to our diet was that it would be very expensive. And it can be. But it does not have to be. We have been able to change our diet and improve our health with very little impact to our food budget. Food Renegade has an excellent article called Eating Real Food On A Budget, the tips she provides helped me immensely. Also, in the book Nourishing Traditions there is a guide at the back of the book for people with Limited Times and Limited Budgets (2). These articles provided me with a great jumping off point. Before reading Food Renegade’s article I have to admit that I was floundering a bit and trying to ‘do it all’. Having someone break it down was wonderful and our budget has appreciated it.

Are you wanting to make changes to your diet to incorporate more real, whole, traditional foods while staying within a reasonable budget? Not sure where to start? I invite you to join me and my family on our journey toward eating real nutrient dense food on a budget. Below is what I would like to offer you each blogging day to help on this journey in the New Year.

Sunday: Menu plan for the coming week and a recap of the previous week’s menu with a highlight of our favorite meal.

Monday: Recap of food purchased (or acquired) the previous week with a tip to help you with your food budget (and a solicitation of tips from you).

Tuesday: Tuesday Twister hosted by Wardeh at gnowfglins.com (what is gnowfglins? find out here) where I recap what happened in my real food kitchen the previous week and link up with other real food kitchens so you can learn their great ideas.

Wednesday: Do you like recipes? This will be the day for you. I’ll post an original recipe or rework of a non NT friendly recipe. I’ll start you off with my recipe for sandwich quality sourdough bread that only takes 20 minutes hands on time.

Thursday: A frugal tip, recipe or a method, such as my muffin method, so you can make the best use of ingredients that are economical to you.

Friday: Potpourri. This could be another recipe or possibly my opinion on something that I have read, learned or heard (like the time my daughter came home and told me about pasteurized eggs)or I might actually jump on a big soap box and really rant (okay, probably not but maybe).

I hope you will join me on this continuing journey to eat real, nutrient dense food on a budget and share any tips or questions (even criticism) that you have. Your comments encourage me! Be sure to follow in the RSS reader or via Google Friends Connect (both in my side bar) so you never miss a money saving real food post.

(1) The phrase ‘the diet dictocrats’ is used by Sally Fallon in the book Nourishing Traditions to describe the various government and quasi-government agencies who try to tell us what their version of ‘healthy eating’ is.

(2) Limited-Time Limited Budget Guidelines is Appendix A from the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. If you would like to purchase Nourishing Traditions you can do so by clicking here and ordering through Amazon. Please note that I am an affiliate with Amazon and if you order through this link I do receive a small commision on your order.