Food for Thought

Here is a post that will come out of left field, but is something that I've been researching a lot for awhile now and I am very interested in. So I thought I would share, because I have enjoyed learning more about nutrition and what I am putting into my body (as well as my children's bodies). When I had Sam, I started researching nutrition topics that interested me and I continue to research and learn today. I wanted to know what I was feeding him, and whether it was good or bad. There is something about being responsible for the health and nutrition of an infant. Someone so little and helpless and pure, whom God has placed in my hands and trusts me to take care of. I took and continue to take that job seriously, and am having fun learning in the process!
One of the blogs that I like to follow opened my eyes to more health/nutrition topics that interested me. She has been a great motivation for me to do more research when I read about her daily life (and she has twin girls, so that makes it fun to relate also). I never trust information from just one source and always find more information to give me confidence that I am making the right decision and not one merely based on a fad created by the media. For the sake of keeping this post brief, I am only attaching one source to each item below. But each is a nutritional idea/area that I have spent quite a bit of time researching. My chiropractor is another great resource to see whether I am on the right track or not.


Feel free to disregard if you are not interested, as I am not trying to forcefully change anyone. I am just trying to give you some "food for thought!"


We are eating a lot more "colors" around here lately. I do my best...not all days are great ones, but they are better than they used to be. Lots more raw fruits and veggies in a spectrum of colors. My breakfast consists of a smoothie made with a whole blender full of these colors. I feel good knowing that I have a couple servings of veggies in before noon already!



I have to admit, until I get more organized, this does take time. Chopping fruits and veggies is always time consuming. I'd eat a lot more salads if I didn't have to put them together right before I wanted to eat. These days I often find myself grabbing lunch on the run (not fast food:) because I just don't have the time to put something together when we get in the house after a busy morning.

I am making most of the food I feed the girls. Not only is it cheaper, it's really not that hard and I know that when I make sweet potatoes, they are only getting sweet potatoes, and not some artificial shelf-life prolonging ingredient also. Stick to whole, non-processed foods whenever possible!

And here are a few other nutrition topics that interest me:

Probiotics

I started taking these quite frequently after I would be on antibiotics because I would always get a yeast infection following antibiotics. I am just beginning to learn about how yeast can live in our bodies and cause numerous chronic health problems. Don't know enough about it yet to comment, but I'm researching! The girls take probiotics daily because they had tummy problems when they were really little and probiotics help get good bacteria into their digestive tracts. Sam took them for quite awhile also when he was littler. I hope to have all of us on them when I come up with how to incorporate them into our budget!

Dangers of soy

Please don't believe all of the media hype that you read on this one! Soy is NOT good for you and I am finding more and more articles coming out that show research studies connecting soy to infertility, breast cancer and other cancers, thyroid disorders and numerous other major health problems. I borrowed the book The Whole Soy Story from my chiropractor and it opened my eyes even more to why we shouldn't eat soy. Unfortunately as I write this the girls are on soy formula and I hate that they are, but I have tried several other milk-based formulas and they do not tolerate them. Ugh!

Lemon water and Coconut oil

Okay, these are easy! When I told Ed I'd like to add these into our diets, he said "Is everything going to be this good? What's next???" I lucked out that these are two of his favorite things (besides a good steak:), but they are both really good for you and are quite simple to make part of your daily routine. Unfortunately coconut oil is expensive, but we use olive oil as our primary oil and have coconut oil as a second option.

Vitamin D
I cannot say enough about Vitamin D3. Next time you have a blood test, get your vitamin D (25 hydroxy to be specific) level tested!!! The primary source of getting vitamin D3 into our system is sunshine. As most of you know, even if we are out in the sun, we are usually covered or slathered in sunblock due to scares of skin cancer. So most are not getting the vitamin D3 we need from the sun. And those of us like me, who live in the upper midwest, don't see the sun for much of the year. The current recommended daily dose of vitamin D3 in most multivitamins is 400 IU, an amount that was determined would keep people from getting rickets, not give them optimal health benefits!

Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging

I just learned about this as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for many health concerns. I'll let you research the website on your own if you are interested since this is new to me. But I'm pretty confident I'll be going in for at least a breast scan in the near future.

I am far from a health expert and am in a learning process myself, but wanted to share what I am learning because I learned by talking with others and then researching further on my own. I have a lot to learn and learn as I go. I still cave in to my cravings quite often and do not eat a perfect diet, but am hopeful that as I take small steps and learn more I will more easily be able to rid our home of processed foods and fill it with healthy whole foods (although I'm pretty convinced Ed will still have his stash of candy hidden somewhere :) ) I'm all about splurging, so I'm not doing this all or none, but hope to have the majority of our diet and lifestyle be as healthy as they can be. If I want to keep my children's bodies pure, then I need to keep my body pure also.

Okay, it's time for me to step down from my soap box for now. For those of you who stuck with me, thanks for reading:)