I Do Love Granola- Part 1

I have been pondering this for some time and even promised a more detailed post back during the Horizon Organic Milk contest.

Waaaay back!

If you stumble over here and have any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment for us all to benefit from. If you are totally immersed into all that is natural and good, please know that I am a babe in this area. And while I am continually trying to learn and make changes, I am still a work-in-progress when it comes to living healthy and making smart choices for myself, my family, and my environment.

What I share with you are my thoughts and my suggestions. I do not claim to be a medical professional or a trained expert about the things I mention. Please do the research yourself and then consult a professional to guide you. I am learning though and being an active participant in my life. One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou, "I did then what I knew how to do, and when I knew better, I did better." Ahhh, living by grace!

I have decided to do this in at least 2 posts so your eyes don't completely glaze over!

I have always tried to take care of myself and help my family eat healthy. I consistently exercised periodically. I know you know what I mean! I occasionally took a multi-vitamin (I dosed up before and during pregnancies on folic acid stuff). But that was about it.

Truly.

About 2 1/2 years ago, my friend introduced me to Arbonne products. **Let me go ahead and say this here. Obviously, this is my business and one could see this as another shameless plug. But here is the deal. Yes, it is my business, but it is also the products that I feel passionate about. I feel no shame in that fact. You may have a different opinion or make some different choices and that is so OK because different things work for different people. Anyway..........!

I saw and realized the difference in how products made without junk (mineral oil, an abundance of unnecessary chemicals, etc.) in them could do great things for one, inside and out. So, basically, if it could be replaced in our home with what Arbonne offered, that is what happened. I won't go into detail because what Arbonne offers is listed and linked on my sidebar.

What happened next, is that I really had to start looking at the other things in our home. I mean if I was gonna tell people why they needed to change their skin care, etc, then I might oughta think seriously about other aspects of our life and home. It only made sense.

Household products were the next victims!

For me, the choice is Shaklee for our household cleaners, dishes, and laundry products. I like being able to order when I need to and they have a great starter kit where you can try out many of these cleaners with one order. I love also, that like Arbonne and many other quality-made products, less really is more. It may seem like these products cost more upfront, but in the end, they cost less. They last longer and create a safer environment for our families.

As my awareness has increased, I have realized that more and more products are available that offer safer options. Look at your local retailers or seek out various company's distributors. There are definitely many more choices these days, and at various costs, which makes buying better much more affordable to a greater number of people. And of course, you CAN always make the stuff yourself! More on that later!

I am not sure why, but food came along last as far as reconsidering our options. Actually, more changes are on the way because since the time I actually started this post, my whole realization regarding products made in China and other thoughts concerning how I store our food and things has changed.

What is funny, is I actually had my daughter on the right start early on as a babe. She had eczema and was found to have a few allergies. Nothing life threatening, but enough to exacerbate the condition and make her miserable. Since we were early on with introducing milk to her, we went with rice milk. She knew no different. And just for the record, I totally flavor my kids milk if they want it. A healthy chocolate milk is way better than a coke or juice. After a few years, I started weaning her back to regular milk. Regular, hormone-injected, pesticide-residue filled cow milk. Yuck!! I PROMISE you that it did not take long for me to see her body change. Probably only enough for a mommy to notice, but I could totally see why all these artificial hormones could be influencing the early development of our young girls. However, it was still a long while before I got on the organic train.

About 6 months ago, I started reading and looking into other food choices more closely. Long ago, I had read The Maker's Diet, The 40 Day Health Experience That Will Change Your Life by Jordan Rubin. I knew what we should be doing, but it was a scary change, especially when my husband was not on the bandwagon and is a meat and potatoes, whatever-it-takes-to-make-it-taste-good, and at-the-lowest-cost kinda person.

So, nothing happened.

Then, I found this book. Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones. I had heard about bioidentical hormones over a year before and knew they were the best step up from natural progesterone creams. At first, I wondered about the whole Suzanne Somers expertise thing. But truly, other than talking about her own personal experiences and results, she leaves the information to the doctors she interviews for this book. This book was probably the catalyst for me to get serious about my health and the health of my family. I now want to read this one and this one.

Then I remembered that I had TWO books by Dr. Andrew Weil in my own library! I had read them before but had forgotten about them. They are Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Bringing Health and Pleasure Back to Eating and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health. So I reread them, made some notes, and started making some changes.

Coming tomorrow- The Changes!

Stacey