Living Unprocessed
Taking back our American Dream!
When did I come to my senses?
So why now? some have asked. Did I just wake up one day and said I have had enough! No, I think it was a gradual thing for our family that ended with this incredible urgency of having to get our life on track right now.
When my husband and I met and got married, we settled into the comfort of a stable relationship and ate with abandon. Needless to say, with that comfort we packed on the pounds. I worked full time, so takeout was what we ate most often and if it wasn’t takeout, then it was the ready made lasagnas, chicken Alfredo, etc. As we gained weight, the health problems started to appear. My husband was in his late 30’s and suffering from sleep apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure, gout and high cholesterol. That was our first wake up call. We are now obese and he has developed some serious illnesses. He started his medications and his breathing machine and we changed the way we ate. I started cooking more and started looking at sugar free alternatives for desert. Desert is my husband’s biggest weakness. Klondike made these great sugar free bars that he really liked and since I am not much of a baker, I was relieved. He started losing weight by just regulating his sugar and sleep, but I wasn’t.
I joined Curves and still no significant weight loss. I couldn’t understand. We were eating mostly salads now and started to grill every other week and we cut our takeout by 90% as well as cut out soda completely. We do feel better, but I am still obese and he has plateaued. So what was going on?
I started looking into health supplements and what ingredients increased your metabolism. Money down the drain, most of the time. And gradually I started thinking about the foods that we put in our body. Yes, we eat mostly salad, but what else do we eat. I buy granola bars, I use butter, I buy my daughter Nutella. I make life easier for me by buying all of my condiments, dressings, broth, canned tomatoes and tomato sauce. I realized that I buy a lot of processed items. I started by looking at the labels to see what was in the butter, in the half and half, etc. And there came the shock. Butter was just not churned cream, but it had natural flavors. Why would you add natural flavors to something that is already natural? and if it is a natural flavor, what is it? Nutella was just not chocolate, milk and hazelnuts, it had all these additives and emulsifiers. half/half had starch and sugar and other ingredients than half cream half milk. And the list goes on!
That’s when the true awakening happened, when I realized that what you think is wholesome is altered even if it is organic. And there my journey began…
Living Unprocessed 