This Delightfully Sweet Life: Surprise!

So for this Friday, I have a little surprise guest blogger! She and her family, well they are a part of our family, have inspired my little family of five to go clean. OK so below is a picture that I took of them last fall. I know, I know...gag! Aren't they just the perfect little family??? Oh and that handsome guy on the left is my Uncle (my moms brother) and he is an amazing photographer! Here is his website: http://toddwrightphoto.com. He also is the founder of Bought With Blood. Look to the right and there is a link to that page! Pretty cool family, I know!

So first to introduce myself. I am Morgan's Aunt Emily or Auntie Em as we like to joke. I am married to her handsome Uncle Todd. Apparently we are responsible or to blame for the shift to clean eating! In all seriousness, I couldn't be more thrilled as I feel it is so very important to be educated about what we are really putting into our bodies and all the misconceptions that surround our food supply in America.

I am a mother to 3 kids (15, 12, 3) - one who eats anything, one who is a new vegetarian, and one that barely eats a thing. Despite our differing eating habits one thing was for sure, our diet was 80% processed food. As we sat on the beach one day last year I noticed a post from a FB friend about a book called "The Science of Skinny" by Dee McCaffrey. The title is deceiving as it is not so much about being skinny as it is about what chemicals are really in our food and how they effect our bodies. Like many Americans I considered us a "healthy family" - we are active, we workout, we bought low-fat and fat free foods. Boy did I have it all wrong. I read my friend's post and then looked at my "snack bag" full of low fat free granola bars, fruit snacks, crackers, drinkable yogurts, and capri suns. A lightbulb went off and our journey began. I like to refer to this as a journey because we are still learning and our eating habits are ever evolving. The wealth of information can be overwhelming so we take baby steps.

While we began our journey to clean eating almost a year ago, I feel like there is still so much to learn. I have become disgusted to learn about the politics and big business that surrounds food in America. (See the recent uproar in the whole food community over the Monsanto Act (http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/04/02/gmos-monsanto-protection-act)/ and the Kraft Petition (http://foodbabe.com) to remove unnecessary food dyes from Mac & Cheese). Did you realize that many of our American food products that contain dangerous food dyes are made in other countries without those same dangerous food dyes? So Nutri-Grain bars are made and sold in other countries without dangerous food dyes, but are not available to us in America? Doesn't something seem wrong with that? All I am learning helps motivate me to read labels and be very particular about what I feed my family. Lots and lots of baby steps.

Below are a list of resources that I have found the most helpful. Remember...BABY STEPS.

Blogs

www.100daysofrealfood.com

http://foodbabe.com