Recently, I happened to visit a friend’s house after I picked up my milk and honey from some local friends. Both foods are delicious and as fresh as food can get. My friend’s husband soon arrived and I had to laugh as he exclaimed, “Wow, this is just weird!” when he saw my glass jars of goat milk and how our dark, raw, medicinal quality honey was crystallized. I sometimes forget how different our shopping habits are from many of our friends despite the fact that one of my sisters refers to me as a “hippie”.
We haven’t always eaten such fresh, delicious food. When I first ventured out on my own as a single girl, my cabinet had plenty of canned/boxed and otherwise prepared foods. But, as I got more interested in fueling my body to do the things I was interested in – like long hikes and martial arts (I know, what a picture!) – I learned to get the most bang for my buck by investing in fresh, whole foods.
I wish I could say that I’ve consistently made healthy choices with my life since the time I learned to make REAL food, but like most people I have regressed from time to time. In the early years of our marriage, my husband and I ate out a lot, made white pastas and bread a staple of our diet and added quite a few pounds to our waistlines.
When we realized (each at different times in our journey) how much these choices affected our health and our ability to do things we love, we each committed to make changes in our lifestyles and food choices. We didn’t try to change everything at once. Instead, we made small adjustments – like cutting out sugar, pasta and bread and adding lots of veggies. We incorporated legumes or organic meat and whole grains (like brown rice, quinoa, couscous, steel cut oats etc). We learned to eat till we weren’t quite full and our attitudes about food started to change. We learned to love eating foods as close to their natural state as possible.
As we tried to find a healthy balance, we discovered we liked cooking healthy food a lot more when we had fun options. We decided that a diet high in fruits and veggies meant we needed to switch to organically grown food so we weren’t eating a lot of pesticides with each bite. We discovered that farmer’s markets sell locally and seasonally grown food at a reasonable price. We learned that we like knowing the people who grow our food and love supporting the local economy. Thanks to our venture into local foods, we now have great friends who provide us with delicious dark honey and milk in glass jars.
Making changes to the way we shop, eat and live has taken us on somewhat of a unexpected journey. Saying goodbye to mainstream, box stores has brought us closer to our community and has opened our eyes to an abundance of locally grown foods, including those grown in our own yard. It’s given us a way to spend time together as a family each week and helps us to teach our kids about caring for this beautiful world and their own bodies. We have everything we need to live well and we breathe in our food and life with gratitude. In a way, we’ve realized that we live in a land flowing with milk and honey – and it’s a good place to be.
