Cooked the BEST dinner tonight! Salsa roast…. One big rump roast into the slow cooker, tipped two jars of salsa over it and left it to cook all day! The meat was literally falling apart! Dian cleared her plate!!!!!!! And I even had seconds of the meat. That may well be a first time ever for me…. There’s enough left for another meal too. Mmmmmmmmmm

Ummm, well, an update… hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. I had the best intentions, but basically lost it when I didn’t actually sit down and plan how to implement it… Eddie informed me the other night that soup was an entree, NOT a main meal, so either I start two course meals or skip soup… I have the sourdough starter in the fridge ready to make French Sourdough loaves. Bought the starter culture, and piima culture that I haven’t used yet, from Fermented Treasures. Ok, so while I’m thinking of it, I’ve just written it in my calender for an hour on wednesday to make up some menu plans and incorporate some more healthy eating habits.

So far; – changed the deep fryer (don’t use it that much) from olive oil to Supafry animal fat. Baked vegies taste way better cooked in this!
- Tried using a butter spread (homemade) made with butter, olive oil and flaxseed oil. I found it rather salty and it sank into the bread. We’re currently back on Olive oil margerine, but I think I may try and just go to straight butter.
- No more Equal sugar substitute. Honestly, it’s scary reading the reports on these substitutes. They’re all neurotoxins, and the effects they have on a person’s body is shocking. The Stevia isn’t getting used, neither Eddie nor I like the taste, so we’re currently using organic raw sugar. Need to come up with a better solution. Maybe we should just bite the bullet and swap totally to Stevia and just get used to the taste.
- Eddie requested that I buy decaffienated coffee for him. This is day one, so we’ll see how he goes. I really should give up my coffee habit (2-3 daily) but I have to say I’m not real motivated to do this!
- Swapped normal table salt for Celtic Sea Salt and Trocomare. Celtic Sea Salt is natural salt, scraped off the salt ponds with wooden ladles. It’s a pale grey colour and has minerals and nutrients in it!!! Particularly iodine (from kelp). Trocomare is a seasoning, based on salt and herbs. It’s only 30% salt, the rest of the flavour is from the herbs. Tastes wonderful on vegies and in soups! We’re still working on convincing Dian that just because it’s low in salt doesn’t mean you can cover your food in it. Repeat after me, salt is a flavouring, not a food!

Believe it or not, this ice cream qualifies as healthy food!!! It’s made from real milk and eggs, and several vanilla beans. Yummy, scrummy, it’s the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted! The little black flecks in it are vanilla seeds. No preservatives, no artificial colours or flavours, minimal sugar, just lots of real ingredients and home made love! Can’t get better than that….Not cheap ice cream unfortunately, and definately not something that you just whip up in a few spare minutes, but it’s pretty special!

I’ve recently been reading “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon. She talks about the inefficiencies in our westernised, highly processed, mostly cooked diet and how it affects our health. Sally suggests reverting back to the foods our ancestors ate, lacto and naturally fermented, raw milk and dairy, raw foods etc. Eating a lot of foods with natural enzymes in them to support our body’s digestion and enable all the available nutrients to be utilised. It all makes a lot of sense. Since I’ve been trying to eat healthier for a few years, cutting down on fats, salt etc it’s going to be a huge change in our diet!

I’ve got a lot of concerns with making these changes. Will I eat the foods? I’m a fairly fussy eater, I don’t like meat and hate fat. I love my sugar! Will I be able to get Eddie and Dian to eat the foods? So far I’ve changed Eddie’s Equal (aspartame sweetener) for Stevia powder, and I have to say that the taste will take a while to get used to! Dian often won’t eat if she doesn’t like the meal, how can I get her to eat unusual foods???? And the sheer logistics of changing the way I cook, shop, store food etc.

My plan is that we’ve been eating in relative ignorance for this long, making changes slowly isn’t going to kill us! So, as we run out of foods I’ll either replace them with better choices in line with Sally’s directions, or not replace them at all. I can start making simple changes to our menu, making my own broth and soups, and start on a few ‘gentle’ fermented foods.

My Kombucha tea is staying! Which I’m very happy about! Among other wonderful things, kombucha contains glucoronic acid.
“Glucoronc acid is not readily commercially synthesized, but the healthy human liver makes large amounts of it to detoxify the body In the liver the glucoronic acid binds up all poisons and toxins – both environmental and metabolic – and rushes them to the excretory system. Toxins once bound by glucuronic acid cannot be reabsorbed into the system so we are rid of them.” Tom Valentine, Search for Health.