So here I sit avoiding the very large pile of laundry that needs to be washed, folded and then put away, to say that I am a laundry procrastinator is an understatement, the word hate comes to mind and I don’t use that term very often. Our family seems to create an ungodly amount of dirty clothes and if I don’t keep up with it and happen to miss a day or two then the mountain in front of the washer is almost insurmountable, hence the fact that I am sitting here seriously considering moving to a nudist colony, I know, I know not really a feasible solution when you live in the great white north but it is the only solution that I can think of at this particular moment.
It is fair to say that if I were to win the lottery I would definitely hire someone to do our laundry, it’s not so much the washing part but the whole folding and putting away that gets to me, our couch down stairs in the rec room has become the official dumping ground for any laundry coming out of the dryer and is piled so high right now that I’m not even sure that there really is a couch there anymore I’m afraid it may have been eaten by the laundry monster and disappeared. ( this monster is the same one that steals the socks, not both socks just one so that you are left with a pile of mismatched socks and then end up leaving the house with one striped and one rainbow coloured sock on, don’t worry other mommy’s understand)
The problem in my house is that I have these wonderfully fantastic helpers every time I get a load of laundry folded they come along and mess it up, and my very adorable daughter has recently started to dress herself a great and horrible thing in my eyes, some days her pants are on backwards and more days then not she is wearing a summer dress when it’s -20 out but she is dressing herself! But along with learning to dress herself comes the need to change outfits 10 times a day, the colorful and often funny mismatch of clothes gives me a great chuckle but at last it also creates more of that lovely laundry I hate so much, because we all know a three year old is not going to hang her clothes back up (in fact the last time I looked in her closet she had pulled everything off of her hangers yep just one more laundry mess waiting to be cleaned up) My husband who can somehow fold clothes down small enough to fit several weeks’ worth of clothing into a ruck sack can’t seem to manage to fit any clothes into the dresser at all, funny how that happens eh ladies. I also have such a large selection of clothing to choose from so I can actually go for weeks and not have to do laundry but therein lie’s another problem, must conquer my clutter.
Back to the original issue, I have people coming to the house tomorrow to visit and am pretty sure that they are going to want to sit on that couch that I can’t find. So now that I have fed the kids breakfast and had a little rant just one more method of procrastination I really must tackle the mountain in the basement, and if I’m not mistaken there may even be a load of laundry sitting in the washer that didn’t get switched over, come on you know you all do it, we get busy forget that we started the washer and it ends up getting run through a couple of times( not so great for the hydro bill ) because we have forgotten it over night or in my case sometimes days go by before I get back to it, it also has that wonderful smell to it. I just think of it as adventures in laundry room drama you never know what surprise is waiting for you when you lift the lid. Well if I’m going to do this I had better put on some good music and get a move on it, I’ll write more latter if I don’t get lost in the mountains of the new territory in my basement.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
3 letters 1 Huge Change
Ok so I have been asked by a bunch of people now just what it is that I have removed from our diets to make us all feel so much better, the answer is 3 letters “MSG” but oh so much more complicated than that. MSG goes by so many different names and is in so many things that in order to completely remove it from our diets I have had to go to a completely REAL food diet( I prefer to use the term lifestyle as opposed to diet, as it is a complete lifestyle change) In answer to a question that I got from someone else yes that means I have removed all preservatives as well from our diets, if it has preservatives in it, it has some form of msg in it to make it taste good and because manufactured msg is in its self a preservative and is often used to increase shelf life of products.
MSG comes in two forms the first is naturally occurring and our bodies are designed to break down this form of msg examples of things that have natural msg are white potatoes, mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, grapes, cheese and yeast. The second form of msg is chemically produced and our bodies are not designed to break this form down it takes 10 to 20 times longer for our bodies to break this form down then to break down naturally occurring msg, because msg and aspartame have the same chemical makeup we have also removed anything with aspartame in it as well(this includes all things sweetened with splenda, sweet and low, and alternative sweeteners like sucralose and the like) Almost all food companies use a form of msg in their products, it is so widely used for several different reasons, it enhances foods flavor to make it taste better and to cover up unwanted tastes an example of this is the tin taste that it covers up in canned foods. Another reason is the fact that MSG has an addictive nature similar to that of caffeine or nicotine, it is added to foods and beverages by companies so that you will crave their foods and continue to want to buy them or become addicted to them, a great example of this one would be the fact that it is added to Timmies coffee and pretty much all food you buy at fast food restaurants.
So having had to remove this from our diets I have done a great deal of research into just what msg is, why it is used, where it is found, and the side effects of msg intolerance in people. Even after reading all of the literature on it I was still somewhat skeptical, was this really the cause of my daughter’s allergic reactions, was all this time and effort really going to pay off, how could something that was found in pretty much everything in the grocery store be this bad for us. Well here I sit almost a month later and all I have to say is that I am no longer a skeptic, I am seeing for myself the differences that removing this from our diets has made in our health, there have been no more allergic reactions, we are all sleeping better, our bowels are now regular (my oldest son who has never had a solid bowel movement ever has started to have solid poops.) my husband who’s hands have always shook since I have known him no longer has shaky hands. The black circles under my eyes are disappearing my skin has started to have a fresh look to it, I no longer feel tired and tense, and I actually feel genuinely happy once again and I have so much more energy, I have also lost 6pounds since we made the change.
All that being said there have been challenges to get to this point several days after removing it from our diets everyone in our house was as cranky as a bear, we were all going through msg withdrawal, this lasted for several days before we all started to get used to our new eating habits. This change is also very time consuming as everything has to be prepared from scratch and planned out and as I am just learning it also takes a lot of time at the grocery store reading every single label. It is expensive to buy “real” food probably the reason behind why there is such an obesity problem around junk food and pop are actually cheaper to buy then healthy food. But that being said I spend more at the grocery store but am not spending money on take out and junk food so I am saving money there. It also took a little bit of getting used to what real food tasted like. now that we have been eating nothing but real food our taste buds have adjusted and the food tastes great, fruit tastes much sweeter and I am actually enjoying the natural flavors. At a play date the other day they had KD for lunch a month ago my kids would have wolfed it down and asked for 2nds and 3rds but this time my daughter barely touched it and my son didn’t touch it at all when asked why the answer was simple “it tastes yucky mommy”, but they did eat the apple slices and carrots. I can say that I don’t think that we will be able to completely remove it from our diets but by doing our best to remove the majority of it from our systems we are creating a healthier happier family. I don’t mind the time and effort that goes into it now and enjoy both the planning and preparing of our meals it gives me great joy in knowing that I made it from scratch with love and even more joy when I see how much my family loves it. I am getting much better at creating wonderfully delicious meals and know that our real food lifestyle will get much easier the longer we do it for.
MSG comes in two forms the first is naturally occurring and our bodies are designed to break down this form of msg examples of things that have natural msg are white potatoes, mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, grapes, cheese and yeast. The second form of msg is chemically produced and our bodies are not designed to break this form down it takes 10 to 20 times longer for our bodies to break this form down then to break down naturally occurring msg, because msg and aspartame have the same chemical makeup we have also removed anything with aspartame in it as well(this includes all things sweetened with splenda, sweet and low, and alternative sweeteners like sucralose and the like) Almost all food companies use a form of msg in their products, it is so widely used for several different reasons, it enhances foods flavor to make it taste better and to cover up unwanted tastes an example of this is the tin taste that it covers up in canned foods. Another reason is the fact that MSG has an addictive nature similar to that of caffeine or nicotine, it is added to foods and beverages by companies so that you will crave their foods and continue to want to buy them or become addicted to them, a great example of this one would be the fact that it is added to Timmies coffee and pretty much all food you buy at fast food restaurants.
So having had to remove this from our diets I have done a great deal of research into just what msg is, why it is used, where it is found, and the side effects of msg intolerance in people. Even after reading all of the literature on it I was still somewhat skeptical, was this really the cause of my daughter’s allergic reactions, was all this time and effort really going to pay off, how could something that was found in pretty much everything in the grocery store be this bad for us. Well here I sit almost a month later and all I have to say is that I am no longer a skeptic, I am seeing for myself the differences that removing this from our diets has made in our health, there have been no more allergic reactions, we are all sleeping better, our bowels are now regular (my oldest son who has never had a solid bowel movement ever has started to have solid poops.) my husband who’s hands have always shook since I have known him no longer has shaky hands. The black circles under my eyes are disappearing my skin has started to have a fresh look to it, I no longer feel tired and tense, and I actually feel genuinely happy once again and I have so much more energy, I have also lost 6pounds since we made the change.
All that being said there have been challenges to get to this point several days after removing it from our diets everyone in our house was as cranky as a bear, we were all going through msg withdrawal, this lasted for several days before we all started to get used to our new eating habits. This change is also very time consuming as everything has to be prepared from scratch and planned out and as I am just learning it also takes a lot of time at the grocery store reading every single label. It is expensive to buy “real” food probably the reason behind why there is such an obesity problem around junk food and pop are actually cheaper to buy then healthy food. But that being said I spend more at the grocery store but am not spending money on take out and junk food so I am saving money there. It also took a little bit of getting used to what real food tasted like. now that we have been eating nothing but real food our taste buds have adjusted and the food tastes great, fruit tastes much sweeter and I am actually enjoying the natural flavors. At a play date the other day they had KD for lunch a month ago my kids would have wolfed it down and asked for 2nds and 3rds but this time my daughter barely touched it and my son didn’t touch it at all when asked why the answer was simple “it tastes yucky mommy”, but they did eat the apple slices and carrots. I can say that I don’t think that we will be able to completely remove it from our diets but by doing our best to remove the majority of it from our systems we are creating a healthier happier family. I don’t mind the time and effort that goes into it now and enjoy both the planning and preparing of our meals it gives me great joy in knowing that I made it from scratch with love and even more joy when I see how much my family loves it. I am getting much better at creating wonderfully delicious meals and know that our real food lifestyle will get much easier the longer we do it for.
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