Hello there! Most of you, or all two or three of you who actually read this, know who I am already but in the slightest chance that someone hops along this blog who doesn’t know me or know much, let me introduce myself. My name is Heather and I love food. I mean, I really, really, REALLY love food. To understand how my passion for food evolved over the past decade, let me rewind to my high school years back in the mid-to-late ninety’s (that’s showing my age now, huh? But I am not embarrassed about my age. I’m 28 and loving it!). I ate terribly! I often wonder how I ever did such a 180 with food. Vending machines were my friends, Cokes were most definitely in my “inner circle” of friends along with super sugary and sour candy delights. I was sick a lot because all the junk I ate just tore down my immune system.
Fast forward a little to Spring 2002. My husband’s mom tells us she has incurable Stage 3B (at the time, which later escalated to Stage 4) Inflammatory Breast Cancer. So she did everything she could to learn how to make healthy lifestyle changes, and through that, I became like a sponge wanting to absorb all the knowledge I could on eating healthy, unprocessed, organic foods. Because of a decision to make healthy lifestyle changes, her incurable cancer has become a manageable, livable disease that has allowed her to beat all the odds and statistics placed against her. She is largely responsible for my love of food, and she taught me how to cook (I could barely boil water for ramen noodles a decade ago!).
Also, my husband, Aaron, read the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser in 2002. It was an eye opener to what fast food foods really were made up of and how the industry ‘worked’, and so after Aaron’s great critique of the book, I read it. And we ditched our microwave, which turned out to be one of the greatest decisions of our life.
So, in a nutshell, these events are what culminated our desire and passion to make healthy lifestyle changes. And I don’t say lifestyle changes with a grain of salt, either. We truly have tried to overhaul our entire lifestyle over the past eight years. I don’t want to mislead or pretend that it was an easy overnight experience for us. We took what I like to call babysteps. We found out what produce items were the highest risk for contamination of pesticides, what animal products were at highest risk for hormones, antibiotics, etc. You can try to jump in at 100% full force, but it is hard. We tried it and learned it was not the best route for us. There was so much to learn, from what was in our drinking water to the fecal matter in our meat to the e. coli scares in our spinach. To truly make this a lifestyle change, the best way for us to keep on pressing on was to take babysteps. We would slowly buy more and more organic foods each time we went grocery shopping. And after a few years of that, I started to really become aware of how organic foods don’t necessarily even mean organic anymore. It is a sad thought, but true (because of the big corporate industry in the organic boom) and this is something I will delve into at a later time. My mother-in-law also taught me how to grow vegetables. She has a gorgeous garden every year with a surplus of veggies that she shares with us. My mom and dad have always loved gardening since before I was born, so they instilled in me the knowledge of how to take care of a garden. Too bad I didn’t put that knowledge to practice until a few years ago (sorry Mom & Dad, I will never make fun of you again for spending hours upon hours each week out in the yard with your plants!).
So here I am eight years later. I want to share what I have learned along my journey and what I am continuing to learn. I am hoping to offer encouragement to those that want to make healthy lifestyle changes in their own lives, to answer questions that have been asked of me, and also, I am hoping to gain wisdom and encouragement from those that have knowledge to teach me and help me grow. This is my first post on this blog, so it is not very witty, humorous or helpful, but I felt like I needed to lay the groundwork of why I even want to do this blog in the first place. I hope you will enjoy the food and tag along!
OVER THE LAST THREE DECADES, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. An industry that began with a handful of modest hot dog and hamburger stands in southern California has spread to every corner of the nation, selling a broad range of foods wherever paying customers may be found. Fast food is now served at restaurants and drive-throughs, at stadiums, airports, zoos, high schools, elementary schools, and universities, on cruise ships, trains, and airplanes, at K- Marts, Wal-Marts, gas stations, and even at hospital cafeterias. In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music — combined. — excerpt from Fast Food Nation
Eat your veggies!
Heather
*Disclaimer: This blog will be my personal opinions. Even though I may talk about how foods have certain healing properties or how they have helped me or someone I know in times of illness, I am not making any medical claims. I am sharing what I know to be true in my own life.
Heather
Taste Your Life! 