Oddly enough, I have often not felt like the healthiest person in town. Having one time been something of an athlete, it was right surprising when I became a grown up and doing my own cooking coupled with far less of the sports things, and then found myself exhausted, breathing hard, and often unnervingly sweaty.
I have made many a half hearted attempted at healthy living, and have made a few full hearted attempts at self sufficient living. Usually I have given up after a few short weeks and a couple of misshapen bread loaves. The reason these experiments fail varies, but overall I think the uniting factor has to do with my reasons behind doing so. When I would try to eat healthy it was because I wanted to lose weight, go on a trip and look like what I decided pretty was. When I would try to make my own foods it was because I was broke or needed some kind of escape from a crappy life.
When Boss moved in, we both expressed our desire to start living more healthy lives. We wanted to have more energy, be less reliant on processed foods and have a better understanding of what it was that we were putting in our bodies.These seemed like better reasons than any I had had before.
The decision made, putting it into action became something else entirely. As I mentioned, I was raised on mayonnaise based salads and margarine, my idea of eating healthy was buying things full of health claims and shiny photos brought to you by Nabisco and Winston Salem. I was still desperate to find the food loop hole that would allow me to continue eating cheese as often as humanly possible and feel awesome about my choices while doing so. Unfortunately, that loop hole does not exist, and believe me, if it did, I would have found it. I fucking LOVE cheese.
We went back and forth and in and out of good habits, nothing really sticking for any significant amount of time. We would buy the better versions of boxed foods, skinless boneless frozen chicken parts, and things smacking of Omegas and what not. We didn't feel any better, our wallets were still pretty damn empty and we couldn't tell you from one day to the next what exactly it was that was going into our foods. This seemed counter productive.
*Tangent*
As poor people, we have been told again and again that we don't deserve to be healthy, that we don't deserve to have delicious, healthy foods to put in our bodies that don't come from brightly colored boxes. Healthy, organic foods are not affordable, not readily available and not marketed to your "average" family making only slightly more than minimum wage. The shelves at Wal-Mart (where all us poor folk shop) are chock full of chemical laden sugar drinks and vegetable flavored fried corn puffs. As there is no money to be had in actual carrots, rarely will a carrot be seen (the carrot lobbyists are few and far between).
As fat people we are told that its our fault we are fat, that we can't possibly be both healthy AND fat. Society tells us the two are mutually exclusive. We are told that the only way to be healthy, is to be thin. That the only way to be thin, is to give our money to a diet organization, or subscribe to some new chemical fad that will change our bodies to work in a different way. Does NO ONE see how FUCKED that is? If we give money to someone to make us thin, does that someone benefit in any way from actually making us thin? If we are all thin and staying that way, where will they get their money? Will Jenny Craig just brush her hands off and say "ahhh, now that was fine days work, on to cure cancer!" WHY would we willingly alter the chemistry of our bodies and reroute our internal organs in order to eat less shitty food, but shitty food all the same, instead of leaving our bodies the perfect energy plants they are and filling them with real, actual food that is also fuel? And why can't that be fun?! and social?! instead of a source of contention and angst?
We as a society have been told that we are helpless slaves to multinational corporations that know what is best for our families and that the food we have always eaten isn't good enough, or healthy enough. That their lobbyists and scientists know better than our bodies and our ancestors do. Do you see Charles Ingalls eating re-hydrogenated food type products? HELL NO! Charles Ingalls would be like, I want chicken, I'm gonna go get me an actual chicken. Caroline, grind me some flour! You know why? Because Charles Ingalls is THE MAN....
*End Tangent*
SO the point I was getting at is, we got sick of it. We started making changes.
Change the first:
Stop buying what has commonly been referred to as "bread" but is really a mishmash of refined chemicals and flours and a metric ton of sugar compressed into a bread like shape. That one was easy. I love making my own bread. Its this very zen thing for me. I knead the dough and become one with it, there is nothing but me, and the dough. I have begun the search for the most epic of all bread recipes. Stay tuned for that adventure.
Step the second:
Vegetables are expensive and keep spoiling before we eat them, this is both wasteful and annoying. Solution? Don't buy any meat, then you have to eat the vegetables and also have more money to spend on them! We also turned to the family oracle (Google) and found better ways to store our veggies and things to do with the bits we don't eat (stay tuned for this also!) So no veggies are going to waste!
Step the third:
Foods that contain less chemicals seem to be more expensive, this is what we in this house refer to as "bull shit". Solution? figure out how to make it yourself. Again, the family oracle provides us with solutions. Want gluten free bread? Don't want to pay 9bazillion dollars for 12 kinds of flour? Make sprouted grain breads. Have a hankering for egg salad, don't know what "disodium edta " is and don't particularly want it to be part of your dinner? Make your own mayo. The internet is literally SWARMING with people aching to share their recipes and tips for making the perfect whatever. This has become what I call culinary truth or dare, and what Boss calls "Food Alchemy". I have saved about $100 a month by cutting out meat, and making my own everything but vegetables, yeast, almond milk, and flour. And if that grain mill comes in for my kitchen aid at a reasonable price...
Step the fourth and final:
Quit fucking apologizing for being awesome at life. We feel amazing since we have started instituting these changes in our lives. The energy shift in our home is palpable. Pinkone is happier, cleaner, and is far less of a goth kid in training. Boss and I are playing with her again, teaching her how to do the things we are doing and are able to use every meal as a science experiment or math lesson. There are some days where I start to feel silly, or self conscious for going to the co-op buying bulk quinoa or grinding my own oat flour or...whatever. Like suddenly I am one of those people from California Woody Allen makes fun of. Then I stop and think about it. Fuck You Woody Allen! (not really, I seriously love you Mr. Allen) But, really, that kind of thinking is me apologizing to (someone?) for living the kind of life I want to live. Living this way only looks ridiculous and feels like work when I decide it is ridiculous and feels like work and don't remind myself that not only is being relatively self sufficent super fun, but a great way to keep my brain in shape learning new things. Fuck Yeah Learning!
So basically what I am saying here is that my family is making the choice to engage in food related anarchy and non conformist living. We would like to share that with you, the people of the internet in the hopes that you might find it informative, entertaining, or at the very least, amusing. If you have any awesome ideas for self sufficent living, food related anarchy, or just a general comment or gripe, please feel free to send it to the following address: pinklilybit@gmail.com
Stay tuned for more adventures in MediocreParenting, in which your hero continues to feel less Mediocre by the day!
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