Our Food Journey Continues Part 1

My family's quest for knowledge about how to eat and live so we can lead happier and healthier lives is constantly evolving. It feels like we are in a state of rapid change lately because we have been reading and watching documentaries about food and health on a continual basis for the last 6 months or so. We haven't quite gotten to the point where we are ready to set the cruise control for a while and just do our thing. We are getting close, but not quite. Luckily in all of our learning and forming of opinions about food, my husband and I pretty much agree. That makes mealtimes much simpler around here. And luckily our son has an adventurous spirit when it comes to food and will try many different things (most of the time, he is 2 after all). We are still eating real foods as much as possible, but we are changing our thoughts about what real foods will make it to our table and into our bodies.

My Personal Journey (or experiment on myself)

About 10 or 11 years ago I was seeing various doctors to find some answers to some stomach problems I'd had for several years. I never did find an answer and eventually gave up on test and test telling me there was nothing wrong (the usual story right?) to deal with things on my own. However, there is one thing a doctor mentioned that has recently resurfaced in my mind: I may have a wheat allergy. I honestly don't recall how the doctor came up with this. It must have been a blood test. So for about 2 or 3 weeks, with my mom's help, I went on a wheat/gluten-free diet. It was tough and I didn't feel any better so I stopped and didn't think about it again until just recently.

I still have stomach issues to this day. Nothing major, but it's gotten annoying after this long. It would be nice to feel good on a more regular basis. In all my reading I kept coming across mentions of symptoms from food allergies/sensitivities like stomach distress, low energy, anxiety, depression, skin issues among other things. I have many of those issues to some extent so how could I ignore it? That with the mention of a possible wheat allergy years ago made me start thinking that maybe I do have some food sensitivities I am not aware of and are affecting me. Heck if I can change the way I eat so I can feel better overall I'm all for it.

So that it how I decided to given the gluten-free diet a try again after all these years. I thought about it for months and decided just to go for it. The only reason it took me so long to start is because I love bread! How could I give up bread? Giving up bread (in my mind) would be harder than giving up refined sugars (which I did months ago with only a few exceptions on occasion). I have been cutting back on the amount the bread I ate for several months now, but boy did I love the 5 ingredient whole wheat bread from Bountiful Baskets. I did a few days and then we had a get together for my birthday and I ate a tortilla and some cake (even though I'd bought myself a gluten-free cake from the same bakery). Then the next day, July 7th (my actual birthday), I started up again and haven't stopped since. So that is 10 days now.

I decided that for the start of my experiment of not eating wheat/gluten I would avoid any gluten containing ingredients. I want to see if this is enough for me to feel some difference in my overall health. Perhaps if I just have a slight sensitivity it will be enough. If down the road I feel like I need to be more extreme then I will make a point to avoid food that could be cross contaminated. It seems that practically every package of anything is also made in a facility with wheat including the restaurants where I've had gluten free meals these last 10 days and the gluten-free cake. Avoiding all cross contamination would be much harder so I'm trying the easier route first.

So after 10 days am I feeling fabulous? No, not yet. I think I am feeling some good changes, but I think I need to stick to it for a while longer to really know. Plus, I need to make sure I am very knowldeable about gluten containing ingredients so I don't accidentially eat it because then I won't really see if it helps.

I just read a book called Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis that goes into detail about what wheat is, how it effects your body and how to cut out wheat from your diet. It was very interesting and informative, but Dr. Davis recommends cutting out wheat for everyone, not just people with an allergy or sensitivity. I think he has some interesting points about how wheat affects our bodies, but I will leave it up to you to decide if he is an extremist or if he has a good point.

I will post more about how my experiment in cutting wheat is changing the way we eat at home and some other interesting ways of eating we are exploring in the second part of this post. I will also include more gluten-free information in future posts.

A Feast for the Eyes and Mouth

When I put this plate of food on the table I just had to snap a quick picture because it just looked so good. Even better, it tasted good too.

I bought these gorgeous and delicious Okinawa/purple sweet potatoes at a farmer's market in town and tossed them with some lemon/lime butter after cooking them.

Salad with whatever we had in the fridge.

Indian chicken salad that we've made so many times, and I posted about before.

Super easy, real food that was perfect for a hot summer day. Of course we went back for seconds and have been eating leftover. Yum! Yum!

Movie Review: Forks Over Knives

So after hearing people mention Forks Over Knives a few times I figured it's probably another good food documentary that it wouldn't hurt to watch.We've watched King Corn and Food, Inc, the two documentaries that spurred us to make some bigger changes in the way we eat and think about food. We've also watched Food Matters and Hungry for Change, which lined up nicely with our way of thinking. I thought this documentary would be somewhat the same.

Here's the description from Netflix: Focusing on research by two food scientists, this documentary reveals that despite broad advances in medical technology, the popularity of animal-based and modern processed foods have led to epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes and other diseases.

To me the main idea of the movie was if you eat animal based foods like meat, dairy and eggs it is going to kill you. Well that's a little extreme dont you think. Of course within minutes I could tell my husband wanted to start screaming at the TV that what they were saying was wrong. I was feeling the same way, but I wanted to see where this show took us. It got worse as it went on. Of course we are not vegan, which was the lifestyle being promoted. Although we do not agree with the vegan lifestyle that is not why we were so irritated. Everyone has their own way of eating. It's their choice.

However, the way the information was presented was very limited and biased. There was maybe one or two mentions that processed food is a problem and plays a large part in the health decline in the US and around the world. The people in the documentary made it seem that the increase in consumption of meat, dairy and eggs was the reason for the increase in obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

They interviewed and followed the progress of a few people that had many health problems including diabetes and switched to a vegan diet that is based on a whole food, plant based diet. So lots of whole fruits and veggies and it looked like pasta and other whole grains. These people started off overweight and on several medications, and when they switched they saw drastic results. Yes eating lots and lots of whole fruits and veggies instead of processed foods full of artificial ingredients and little nutrition will have an amazing effect on your body, but I've read many stories of people with the same amazing results and they still ate meat products. Problem was they didn't talk about the switch from eating processed foods and the effect that had on their improved health. The focus was just on meat.

I'd have to watch Forks Over Knives again to really give a more detailed description of the wrongdoings, but why put myself through the misery of watching it again.

My husband and I feel that this documentary was simply trying to win people over to a vegan lifetyle with scare tactics and partial information. An unsuspecting person might be terrified of meat after watching this, but I hope everyone would do a little more research before making any big changes in how they eat. This documentary would have been greatly improved if there was more of a focus on how processed foods play such a large part in destroying our health and how one can change that to support a healthy vegan lifestyle. Just my opinion. Watch it (or not) and make your own opinion.

If you've seen it please tell me what you thought. Of course we watched this documentary  with thoughts of delicious grass-fed beef on our minds, so we are definitely biased towards eating meat. :)

Can Fast Food Be Real Food?

Ever since my family made a commitment to cut out as many artificial ingredients as possible in our diets, we have eaten at restaurants, especially fast food restaurants less and less. We never ate a lot of fast food compared to most people, but we are trying to make better choices when we do eat outside of the house. I have to say though that we do eat at some places that we know aren't meeting our real food standards, but not too often.

I just came across this blog post by Food Babe on 100 Days of Real Food (2 bloggers I admire). Food Babe has done several investigations into what is actually in the food at some popular fast food restaurants. This one is about Subway.

Read At Your Own Risk: If you want to remain blissfully unaware of what is actually in the food at Subway do not click on the link.

Food Babe Investigates: Is Subway Real Food?

Now I've never been a fan of Subway or Port of Subs anyway, but I have eaten there on occasion and I know family has eaten there too. Now no one is going to drop dead instantly from eating at Subway, but the point of trying to avoid artificial and chemical ingredients is that we don't need these ingredients in our food (and they sure taste better without them). I personally can't imagine all of this artificial "food" is good for our bodies and what scares me are the long term effects of constant exposure. Be aware of what you are eating and decide what you want to do based on what you know.

I'm on the lookout for better choices when it is necessary to eat fast food. I'll keep you posted on what I find. Happy Eating!

Book Review: Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food

Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food: Kick Your Fake Food Habit, Kickstart Your Weight Loss
by Christine Avanti, CN

Photo from Goodreads.com

I came across an ad for this book in a magazine and the words "real food" caught my eye. I've been on the lookout for more books about eating real food so I wrote down the title and requested it at the library. This book, as it states in the subtitle, is about weight loss, but there is so much good information for anyone interested in eating real food whether they are doing it to lose weight or not.

The book is 289 pages including recipes and appendices at the end. I found the reading quick and enjoyable (Christine Avanti's personality definitely comes through) all while being very informative. I'd say this would be a good book for people that are new to the real food idea and people like me, who have read and learned a good deal about eating real food already. I still learned some new information and partway through reading decided it was a good enough resource to actually shell out the money to buy it.

The book is divided into 3 sections:

Part I: Addicted to Factory Food explains what type of food most Americans are buying and the processes they go through in the factory. It also touches on why people have certain cravings and are addicted to food. There is also a chapter dedicated to sugar and another to fats. Very informative section, especially for people new to the real food idea.

Part II: Real-Food Recovery talks about making the switch from factory food to real food. There are also some tips on how to fend off the cravings and people that offer you factory foods that you are trying to avoid.

Part III: Real Food in the Real World gives some great tips about shopping for real food in the grocery store and at farmer's markets. It also talks more about the weight loss plan and gives some sample menus. There are also enough recipes for every meal of the day for several days.

One part of the book that I really liked were the profiles on several different real foodies that have blogs and other resources to check out. Being a blogger myself I was excited to see Lisa Leake from 100 Days of Real Food in there as well as several other people that I want to go check out. I think reading blogs from regular people that are trying to do the same thing you are trying to do is so helpful and inspiring. It makes it all seem doable.

I will be passing this book on to someone else (and then asking for it back so I can use it as a reference). I hope you find this book helpful too. 

What Am I Reading?

This is currently what my stack of books looks like on my night stand. I just can't read fast enough. I've just finished Clean by Alejandro Junger, in the middle of Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food by Christine Avanti, and will be starting Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Food Rules by Michael Pollan is missing from the stack because I read the whole thing last night and during breakfast this morning and gave it to someone else to read already. Of course there is one non-food related book in my stack for a little break for my brain.

What are you reading?

My Love Affair with Fresh & Easy

It wasn’t love at first sight with Fresh & Easy: Neighborhood Market. We flirted for a bit several years ago, but there was no chemistry and the relationship didn’t go anywhere. Over the past year we reconnected, I discovered some very attractive qualities and fell in love. I’ve found that Fresh & Easy has a wide variety of healthy choices, several ways to save money, and it is convenient. Since my family began eating more real food, Fresh & Easy is where I spend the most of my grocery budget.

Note: Fresh & Easy is currently only in California, Nevada and Arizona. If you live elsewhere and know of a similar type of store let me know. I think Trader Joe's is similar. We have them in Las Vegas, but it's not close enough to where I live to shop there.

Here is my rundown of why I love Fresh & Easy:

The Fresh & Easy brand – Fresh & Easy brand products do not include high fructose corn syrup, added trans-fats, or artificial coloring or flavors. This really attracted me to the store once I knew about it. Their products are clearly labeled so you don’t forget. Of course these items are all processed, packaged items, but they are a better choice than much of what is out there from other companies. Still read their labels because there may be other ingredients you are trying to avoid that are included. I really like that they are listening to what consumers want or don’t want and make better choices available at their store.

Meat – Fresh & Easy has a wide variety of meat, which I just recently discovered. I used to buy regular ground beef (no pink slime!!) and chicken because the prices were reasonable. When we decided that we wanted to go to organic chicken and grass-fed beef we found that they carried those as well. They have a few different types of seafood, pork and turkey too.  So no matter what my meat choices have been, I have found they have what I need. I have also recently discovered they have some nitrate free options for bacon, lunch meats, salami, and pepperoni. That makes me J.

Produce – They don’t have a huge selection and I don’t buy the bulk of my produce here, but when I do need something to supplement what I get from Bountiful Baskets this is a good option. They have some organic items and many conventional choices. It’s reasonably priced too. If you are looking for something unusual you might have to look elsewhere, but if you just want your usual produce choices you’ll have no problem getting what you need.

Saving Money

The Clearance Section – I found this section early on and check it every time I go. There is a refrigerated section and a non-refrigerated section.  Check here for some great deals. Just keep in mind that the items need to be used quickly. Sometimes we find our favorite pizza dough super cheap and just freeze it until we need it.

Coupons – Fresh & Easy does not accept manufacturer coupons, but who care when you can save a lot more money with their store coupons. This is my most recent discovery. I always used one of their coupons and got $3 or $5 off. However, you can use more than one of their store coupons in one transaction. For example, if I spend $100 I can use 4-$5 off $25 coupons, which takes my total from $100 to $80. Even in my short-lived couponing days I never did that well. Most manufactures coupons are for highly processed food I wouldn’t buy anyway. Win-win for me.

The Friends Card – This is a new program that I am so glad I signed up for a few months ago. For every 500 points you get $5 to use on a transaction. You don’t have to spend $500 either because they often have double and triple point items so you can accrue points very quickly. I’ve probably gotten $30 dollars back already since I got my card. You can use your $5 off from the card and coupons in the same transaction too.

Convenience – Fresh & Easy is a small store so even at their busiest times in the early evening and on weekends it’s never as busy as other grocery stores. I don’t hate grocery shopping when I go to Fresh & Easy.

I feel like Fresh & Easy has a lot to offer to anyone who is trying to make better food choices. You still need to do your homework and read labels because not everything sold in the store is a healthy option. They carry a number of the big name brand products for anyone who just wants the small store convenience. The selection on natural and organic products is not as extensive as a store like Whole Foods, but it does the job for the regular week to week shopping trips.

So if you have a Fresh & Easy in your area check it out. If you’ve already been to Fresh & Easy see if there is something about the store that you haven’t taken full advantage of in the past. You might fall in love too.

The Best Chicken Salad

I have a tendency to pull recipes out of magazines and save them for way too long before trying them. While organizing my recipes I came across a chicken salad recipe I saved out of Food Network Magazine in April 2011. Yikes! I need to be more on top of trying recipes I save. But boy I'm glad I held onto it this long. When I came home today and thought my husband finished off the leftovers I was bummed. Until he showed me a little container just for me left in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

You've got to try Aarti Sequeira's Lady Marmalade Chicken Salad. It is so delicious and easy to make. Aarti has an Indian background so her recipes always feature some delicious spices. We ate ours with organic blue corn tortilla chips. Yum, yum!

Sorry no picture of our salad. I totally forgot so you'll have to settle for clicking on the link for a picture this time. Ours turned out a darker yellow than in the picture. I'll try to be better about getting pictures next time.

Does it qualify as real food? I say yes with the exception of the orange marmalade.

My only issue was having trouble finding orange marmalade that I was totally happy with so I settled. The brand I bought had corn syrup in it, which I try to avoid when I can. I'll have to check Whole Foods for a better option. Of course maybe I can work with my husband on a non-processed substitute that would still give that orange flavor. Not sure if just orange juice would do.

A few changes we made:

• I made a whole chicken in the crockpot the night before using this Chicken Recipe from Lisa Leake's 100 Days of Real Food (my new foodie hero). I used most of this chicken for the chicken salad.
• I swapped out the canola or peanut oil for coconut oil.
• We added some diced celery because we had some on hand. I love the extra crunch.

We will be making this again very soon. This would definitely be a hit at your next summertime potluck.

Note: I have to give my husband credit for putting this chicken salad together. All I did was make the chicken the day before and make sure we had the ingredients. He likes cooking much more than I do, and he's better at it so many of the things we try will be cooked by my wonderful husband with me as the sous chef. However the food gets cooked at your house, make it as real as possible.

Bountiful Baskets

April 14, 2012 Organic Basket

I've decide to start posting about what I get in my organic basket from Bountiful Baskets and post ideas and links for the recipes I make using the produce. I hope that other people will find this helpful especially when they get ingredients that they are not very familiar with like I did this week. I only get a basket every 2 weeks right now, but with the organic baskets having less than the regular ones I might start getting.

Note: The recipes are not created by me. I have gathered these from cookbooks and online and will give credit to the chef who created them. The recipes I post will typically be from scratch. So no or very few processed ingredients. We (my husband and I) are not expert chefs so these recipes are doable for people who have some basic cooking skills. Of course read the recipes to see if they fit in with what you are willing and able to do in the kitchen after a long day.

The contents of my basket include: 2 pears, 1 red apple, a bunch of bananas, 4 kiwi, 2 avocado, 3 romaine hearts, green onions, garlic, 2 small heads of broccoli, green kale, rainbow chard, 6 red beets, 1 cucumber, and fennel. (Bold type items I have never tried before.)
  

Rainbow Chard - So pretty

Apple, pears, kiwi, bananas - snacks and part of breakfast (most fruit in our house ends up being a snack or part of breakfast so you won't find as many recipes with fruit)

Garlic - Who needs a recipe for this? Not us. We probably cook with garlic at least 3-4 times a week. I did sautee some green beans and mushrooms last week in garlic butter. So yummy!

Fennel - I haven't used this very much so I searched for a new recipe. This sounds yummy.
Shaved Fennel and Green Apple Salad

Beets and Green Onions
Farfalle Pasta with Beet Vinaigrette and Parsley Pesto 

Beets - These look yummy and I have sweet potatoes left from my last basket. Hmmmm I guess I need to decide what I want to do with those beets.
Sweet Potato and Beet Chips

Rainbow Chard and Green Onions - this is a new recipe for me. I love anything with lemongrass.
Lemongrass and Ginger Egg Drop Soup

Green Kale
Kale Chips

Avocado and Romaine Hearts
Quinoa Avocado Tacos

Broccoli and Cucumber - these will just be snacks or a quick steamed side dish (broccoli)

So it looks like lots of new recipes to try this time around. Let me know if you try any of these recipes. I'll follow up later to let you know how they turned out for us.

Happy Eating!

Progress?

Okay so it's been nearly a month since I last posted. So have we gone back to the way we used to eat or have we been able to stick with it? I'm proud to say we've stuck with it. I don't think I can say we've made any big changes since last month, but we are continuing to eat as much real food as possible. We are by no means at our goal yet, but we are taking little steps.

So since last post:

• I went through our recipe book to see if there were any recipes that needed to be ditched, but I was pleased to realize that 90% of our recipes count as real food and a few could use minor substitutions to make them totally really food.
• I have been trying some new recipes with quinoa, fish, and granola.
• I made the chocolate powerballs. Hubby really liked them. I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan so I'd eat them, but I did not love the super dark chocolate flavor. However my son loved them and I'd eat them so we were all getting the benefits of 100% cacao. It's amazing what dates do as a sweetener.
• I've been reading like crazy and educating myself more on what to avoid and what to use as a substitute. I have so much to learn. I have found some fantastic blogs with great recipes and information on eating real food. Oh I wish I could blog like those ladies do. Maybe someday when I have more time and energy.
• We've been enjoying our grass-fed beef from our co-op order. What a difference in taste.

Things to try in the near future:

• Try to find more organic products at Costco. The Greenbacks Gal inspired me to scout out my Costco for yummy and healthy food.
• I got a variety pack of Naked juice from Costco. Super yummy, but expensive. I need to look into juicing at home. Not sure if I'm ready for that yet. Need to read up on it more.
• Try more new recipes and make good use of our basket ingredients. Maybe try to make some kale chips.
• Try to find a bulk source of chicken like I did with the beef.
• Read, read, read about real food lifestyles and share as much info as I can via this blog and Facebook.
• Connect with other real food foodies.

Change is Good

We've been making some changes in our kitchen lately and surprisingly enough it's not as hard to stick to as I thought. This whole diet change is not for the purposes of dieting. The point is to eat healthier more natural food that is good for our bodies so we don't feel so tired and cruddy as often from all the stress in our lives. This is a lifestayle change, and I am so excited about it. I have found several good resources online (Real Food Blog and Organic Blog) to help me get ideas not to mention a change in where I shop and what I buy. You can't do couponing quite as much since most coupons are for processed food items, so I'm searching for good ways to keep within a budget. Not so successful yet, but working on it.

Some good things we've changed and tried:

• We ordered 35 pounds of grass-fed beef through a local co-op that orders from Utah.
• We are buying organic chicken and looking into buying in bulk through the co-op as well.
• We are getting the organic basket from Bountiful Baskets and trying to buy organic produce at the store when possible.
• We are trying to eat less processed food as snacks so less cereal, crackers, chips, etc. and replacing that with more trail mix and granola (homemade), Power Balls (sooooo yummy!), eating cheese or meat or veggies with homemade hummus.
• Eating less processed sugar (my sugar cravings disappeared very quickly and it's easy to turn down sweets when they are in front of me). Using honey to sweeten things like oatmeal, the Power Balls and other recipes that call for sugar.
• Eating more fish - salmon is Eddie's favorite and it's starting to grow on me too.
• Eating less grains overall, but especially things that aren't whole grain. I've been replacing white flour with wheat flour for ages when possible, even in my famous chocolate chip cookies.  

We still have a way to go before we are where we want to be with this, but I feel like we are off to a good start. This diet change seems doable long term and I think we will see more and more benefits as we continue.

Nate isn't hard to switch over because he eats what we eat for the most part. He loves eating trail mix with Daddy so I've been making him a trail mix in his snack cup of cheerios (until we are out), peanuts or shelled pistashios, raisins or cranberries, and unsweetened coconut.  He loves it.

My biggest challenge is when we are out running errands on the weekends that I pack lunch or snacks that are healthy so we don't have to stop and get fast food because we are hungry. It's been pretty easy.

Next on my list of things to try:

• Homemade grain-free blueberry muffins
• Another flavor of Power Balls since we are about out of the others
• I'm reading about Square-Foot Gardening. The idea of growing some of our own food appeals to me, but I do not have a green thumb. I'd love to try it though.
• Finding ways to budget while buying organic, real food
• Revamping my recipe book with more real food recipes
• Making more things from scratch and getting some use out of our 2nd freezer
• Trying some smoothie recipes like this one Smoothie

More updates to come and hopefully a success story of avoiding processed foods on our upcoming vacation to California over Spring Break. It's all about a little planning ahead and some time in the kitchen. Off to do some baking. :) Happy eating.

A Mom's Research into the U.S. Food Industry

What an amazing woman and mom. Taking the fight for healthier food for her family public.

King Corn

A few weeks ago a friend on Facebook posted about a documentary about the role of corn in our lives and diet. It sounded interested and my husband and I finally watched it tonight. King Corn was very interesting and not entirely shocking. I learned more about the role the government plays in the corn industry and about how Iowa is a huge corn producer, but the corn grown there is cheap and low in nutrition. The corn there basically turns into feed for cattle and high fructose corn syrup. It's cheap, and in turn allows companies to turn out cheap products.

Corn in some form is in so many foods that we don't even realize. An entire fast food hamburger combo meal has some form of corn in it. High fructose corn syrup is in so many different foods and things that would never occur to you like breadcrumbs. I haven't been a fan of high fructose corn syrup for a while now and have been making an effort not to buy things that contain it. There is still a huge debate about whether it is harmful or not compared to regular sugar, but it is so highly processed that I'm trying to steer clear of it. Of course trying to limit any kind of sweetener is important. I love that Fresh and Easy makes their products without HFCS or any preservatives or artificial products.

The other interesting thing was about the corn fed beef that we eat constantly. Supposedly the corn fed beef has a higher saturated fat content than grass fed beef, not to mention that the corn is horrible for the cows. But it's cheap so who cares right? I'm by no means going the vegetarian route ever, but I think I'm going to read up and look into the cost of grass fed beef as a possibility. The other thing was all of the antibiotics that they have to give the corn fed cows to keep them from dying before slaughter because of the confinement and corn diet. Yikes.

All I can say is do we really know what is going into our bodies? How is it all effecting our health? All of these chemicals can't be good.

I'm just trying to change things little by little. I'm only doing what is manageable for us at the time. Of course anyone can eat however they'd like, but this is what works for us. Like I said, I am learning as I go.

New Focus

I haven't posted since August for a very good reason: I went back to teaching full time. It feels like I'm just trying to stay afloat a lot of the time. Life is busy. Somehow this weekend I have a little free time so it's time to catch up on some blogging. I'm changing my focus on this blog a bit I think. I always change my mind so we'll see how long it lasts. I suppose this is a less family related blog and more about other things I'm thinking about so it could be about a random mishmash of things I suppose.

Over the last few years, essentially since I was trying to get pregnant in 2008, I've been trying to go a more natural route when it comes to eating and health. I've never completely stopped doing that since then, just to varying degrees. I've been trying to make more of an effort lately to make our lives more natural so I'm going to probably be talking a lot about my learning and journey through this process.