And in the end, I find my heart still beating and my gardens growing. It was nice to have a break from the desk for a few weeks. I had time to ponder, experiment, plan, ruin, and just plain old cheat along the way, (cheating consists of coffee stand lattes, and tiny bites of things I know I shouldn't be eating anymore). Now that I have a good grip on what it means to be gluten free, I think I'm ready to jump into phase two of the entire ideology. A much easier step to accomplish, but still a phase that will take time, a little planning, and a lot more reading along the way.
So what does it mean to be gluten free? Two months ago, I would have said it was just a special diet. It's not a diet, it's not something only one member of a household can do, it's a lifestyle change. It forces you to take a hard, unveiled look at your food, where it really comes from, how it's really treated before you see it, and what the hell are all those ingredients that nobody can pronounce. Rule #1: if you can't pronounce it, toss it. Rule #2: GO LOCAL! I am nothing but blessed in my food situation because I have an entire valley filled with organic farmers eager to fill my plate, so eager that I'll be able to buy directly from them twice a week thru October.
In between, I have battled with the old need for places like Costco - where us happily fat Americans can go and buy even more crap food and in the masses so we can go home, stuff our faces and still have leftovers for the next two weeks. I have battled simple replacements for things like Cheerios (once thought impossible), syrups, and learned what a healthy staple filled cupboard really looks like. What does it look like? It would take less than five minutes for me to clear out every single piece of food in my kitchen. Two months ago, it would have been a job on my to-do list. I occasionally stroll into a Fred Meyer or Haggen's, but the more I do that the more I feel like it would be so easy to undo the pathway that I worked hard on building - so I find myself avoiding it as much as possible. Shortly after we started this lifestyle change, I was so determined to not go to Costco ever again, it forced me to get Isabel potty trained so I didn't have to go there for anything. Three days later - success!
The effects on my children have been amazing! I thought they were getting little added sugar before, but again, once you go this route your forced to look into things you never would have otherwise. I now have kids that wake up and want carrot sticks, apples, and bananas for breakfast. I did find a replacement for cereal, and they each have only 2-5 ingredients and they're all natural things that actually grow in dirt somewhere. I learned through this process, what a REAL sugar high looks like. The look on my dad's face as we experienced that episode together, was priceless.
I only have a coffee once a week (twice if I'm having a rough week) and I really just prefer to get it elsewhere. I put my espresso machine away and enjoy having the extra counter space for my new "tea station". Yes, I now have a hot water and tea station, and I love every bit of having tea in the mornings.
Rule #3: If you can grow it, just do it! Mark and I have always had some sort of a garden, but this whole change has prompted us to clear more space for vegetables. So far we have tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini, cucumber, lots of cabbage, arugula, peas, red leaf lettuce, carrots, corn, and radishes. All this is in my south facing garden that we finally got a grip on. Pictured above is just a small area. Still a lot more to come! My master plan is to continue to grow things that have multiple uses. Fruits for jams, veggies for eating and storing, and I would love to start making my own hot sauces and pickles. I planted another blueberry bush, but it's the Pink Lemonade variety. It will taste the same but the berries are hot pink, it will add flare to my garden. We also plan on getting some raspberry bushes so I can use my own berries for my raspberry jam, it would take at least a year before I would get any fruit off it it, but I think it would be worth the wait. Until then, I'll continue to buy them out of Duvall.
These changes also prompted me to start making my own chicken broth. I buy a roasted chicken from the Co-Op, we eat most of it, and the rest goes into the pot. I get enough broth to last me a couple weeks. I feel it's efficient and nothing goes to waste, although I do need a good fat skimmer now. So after all this blah blah blah, maybe your curious as to what phase 2 of this lifestyle change means. I have already started, but it will take more time. I plan to rid this house of any kind of chemical. From soaps to cleaners, to the now empty medicine baskets. If it wasn't compiled from ingredients found on this earth in natural form somewhere, it goes. Does this mean that one day I'll stop using my expensive shampoo and conditioner? Hell yes, I have plans to wash my hair with baking soda, and condition it with apple cider vinegar. As soon as I get through all my dishwashing tablets, I will then be forced to make my own. I'm so glad the world didn't end last year, because this year so far has been stellar!
