Items that I didn't used to buy...

One of my favorite blog and info sites in our journey is 100 days of real food.  The following post got me to thinking about what has entered our house since we started the journey.   100 Days of Real Food

Well, here are some of the ones that come to mind:

     Raw cheese- Warning:  Once you get used to this, pasteurized cheese tastes bland and pasty.

     Pastured beef, pork and chicken- It was really odd when we opened the first  pack of the pastured ground beef and found out it has a good healthy scent to it.  So this is what ground beef is supposed to smell like!  Much better than that stuff washed in ammonia!

     Pastured chicken eggs- I have noticed that the shells seem to be thinner so you don't have to smack 'em too hard to make them crack.

     Duck eggs-  Though I have been to "chicken" to try them for breakfast,  DH eats them for breakfast and I cook with them.  They are bigger so you use fewer of them.

     Coconut oil- which I use in lieu of vegetable oil in baked goods.  I also keep a paper towel in the jar and use that paper towel to grease any baking dishes.

     Organic food coloring-The colors are most definitely pastel, but that will do in order to avoid food dyes most of the time.

     Popping corn- which is much more tasty and all around better than that microwave stuff.  As an added bonus, you can inhale the fumes and not get lung cancer.  It only takes a few minutes to cook on the stove top and is fun to watch through glass top cookware as it hops and pops. 
 
     Nettle tea- Apparently nettle tea is good for headaches.  I have used it several times to rid myself of an achy noggin.

     Organic baby kale medley-This has replaced our usual romaine or iceberg lettuce for nightly salads.  For a while we used a red and green leaf mix, but the kale is much richer, has spinach and other heavy duty greens. 

     Kefir-The adults drink it straight.  I use it to make smoothies occasionally.  Unfortunately, I cannot get my kids to try smoothies...or milkshakes.  Wait, I guess that is a good thing.

     Whole fat organic yogurt-to make my own cream cheese.  Monica Corrado of Simplybeingwell.com taught me to strain whole plain yogurt through linen cloth to make separate the cheese from the whey.  I add a dash of maple syrup to the cheese and use it like any other cream cheese.  I add the whey to soups and slow cook recipes to make them healthier.

     Unfiltered apple juice-Since the kids were still using closed lid plastic cups, they never saw or tasted a difference, but it definitely looks different.  Our favorite is Golden Acres Apple Juice.  When we can't get that, we go with the Safeway brand organic unfiltered.

     Beef stock bones from polyface.com that I made some great beef stock with.  The stock has been turned into three types of soup, that stock my freezer.

     Pork fat purchased to make lard, but not yet used.

So in six months, besides a litany of items that we used to purchase conventional and now purchase organic, those are the things that are in my house right now.  

Please bear with me as I learn to blog and add photos. My purpose in blogging is to pass along some of the things I have learned on my healthy food journey so that maybe someone else will improve how they eat.  Eating healthy foods is a major part of living well.  If your body is well nourished (not just well fed) then you will be better able to fight off illnesses and have more energy and focus.  

Here's to our health.  Cheers!