May Day May Day

I just learned that May Day is NOT about breakfast!  School yourselves here as I did http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/30/living/may-day-facts-and-times/   Personally,  I would love to wake up and find a May basket filled with groceries vs. flowers on my front steps.

The thing is we live in a toxic food environment and the odds are the basket would be filled with highly processed, low fiber snacks.  The grocery store can be a jungle of FAKE food calling your name…especially if you go shopping hungry.  The following words are by an experienced, intelligent, science teacher and mother of 2 young children who offered to write a few words about her recent awakening.

‘ I just listened to the audio book, Little House on the Prairie.

The book describes how vegetables were once only grown in gardens.  Grains were harvested when in season.  Meat was raised and butchered on the farm.  Breakfast cereal was NOT available.  This was REAL Food in the 19th century.

Think about this week’s grocery store flyer.  Imagine walking through the aisles of the grocery store.  More specifically, visualize the cereal aisle or the snack/chip aisle.  Look around.   I no longer see food.  I see chemicals.  I see long lists of ingredients.  For the most part, I do not recognize the ingredients and it takes effort to pronounce some of the words on the ingredient list.  What are we eating in the 21st century?  I realized to be truly healthy myself and be a good role model for my children, I needed to start a new and improved grocery list.  I still eat food, but seriously, I eat REAL food.

My path to eating REAL food started with my second baby.  She was born last October.   After the holidays when I was bombarded by all of the “food”, leftovers, drinking, and chocolate covered peanut butter balls, I was still wearing my maternity jeans!  I enjoy eating and I love snacking, but I decided that I needed a change.  I had read somewhere that losing weight (like my pregnancy weight) is about 80% diet and 20% exercise.  Could this be true?!?

I decided to start with my diet and found a free application, http://www.myfitnesspal.com.  It helps me balance my intake of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats within a personalized caloric goal for each day.  In addition, it helps me monitor my daily intake of vitamins and nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, calcium, and iron.  For example, I have learned that squash has a lot of potassium…as a science teacher the vitamin and mineral content was exciting information to me!

Because I am nursing, I wanted to have a balanced diet that is healthy for both my daughter and myself.  I have learned so much more than I can write in a blog.  The most important thing I learned are the differences between REAL food and what I now call “fake” food.

I am actually starting to cook and it is exciting and surprisingly easy.  I roast butternut squash in the oven.  I make navy bean soup in my crock pot.  I cut up potatoes to make my own French fries.  It is now even more fun going grocery shopping.  In the store, my 3-year old son asks for plantains, acorn squash, asparagus, watermelon, kiwi, and the cute little “baby” bananas. He has a sweet tooth – for fruit – and he enjoys making “ants on a log” for snacks.  Of course, like any good mother, I blame his father for my son’s love of “cheezy poofs”, Fruit Loops, and Klondike bars ☺’

Enjoy May Day with some REAL food.

“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.”

~ John Gunther