Why healthy and conscious eating is so important to us...

Ever since my mother passed away of cancer, I have started looking at life a little differently. Up to that point, I had never lost someone who hadn't died of old age, after living a long, happy and healthy life. My mother was taken away way too early, very sudden, in a cruel way and at a time I know she would've enjoyed so much. Just in time for her grandchildren to arrive one after another. Now, I know where my mother's cancer came from. She smoked a LOT. She'd been trying to quit and knew it was bad for her but simply couldn't break the habit. Let's face it, everyone knows how bad smoking is for your health, but until you're actually facing the consequences of your addiction, you're thinking you'll be the one that gets away with it and live to be a hundred. My mother wasn't so fortunate. But the smoking might not have been the only thing causing her to get so sick. Just after she died, we happened to stumble upon a documentary called 'Forks over knifes', which pretty much changed my outlook on all things food. Yes, I knew that some foods were healthier than others and that junk food was bad for you, blah blah blah; However, I had no idea how bad red meat in particular was for you, until I heard about a thing called the China study.

I don't want to go into it too much, so let's just keep it simple and say that it was a 20-year study, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, Cornell University and the University of Oxford and basically concluded that the counties of China with a high consumption of animal-based foods were more likely to have had higher death rates from "Western" diseases (including cancer), while the opposite was true for counties that ate more plant foods. They were showing a lot of shocking statistics from this and other studies which basically all said the same thing. Eat less animal products and more plant-based foods and live longer.  

I grew up in Germany and can honestly say that meat is a huge part of our diet. Thinking back now, 90% of what I ate on a daily basis was meat and not the good, local kind either. Now, Adrian and I are planning on being around for our children for a very long time, so we made the decision to change our eating habits and live a healthier and hopefully longer life. In early 2013 we turned vegan. We basically went from one extreme to the other. Needless to say, it didn't last long. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy being vegan for a while. I felt better, less tired and I'd never looked better. I also really enjoyed learning to cook different things and discovering new foods. Before we went vegan, I'd never even heard about quinoa, something I really enjoy eating now. But I just can't imagine living the rest of my life not eating any animal products whatsoever. I really have to give my utmost respect to all the long-time Vegans out there, because it is harder than I thought it would be, and you really need to be disciplined and a hundred percent convinced that this is how you want to eat for the rest of your life. Vegan-ism is a state of mind and I simply couldn't do it. I lasted for about six months before I got pregnant again and craved meat. It didn't help that meat seemed to be the only thing that helped against my horrible morning sickness and was the only thing I could keep down. Probably because meat was what the German half of my brain was used to ;-)

Adrian lasted a lot longer than me and is still a vegetarian today. I don't buy meat at the supermarket anymore and don't cook meat at our house, but will occasionally cave and eat it at a restaurant, or if we're having dinner at a friend's house. It's not that we think all meat is bad for you, but we basically believe that the meat you buy at the supermarket is the worst kind you could possibly spend your hard-earned money on, and we believe that if you can't bring yourself to kill your food yourself, you probably shouldn't be eating it. So yes, we will probably start eating meat at our house again, but only if Adrian has hunted it himself. He's just obtained his gun license and will probably go out with a few guys this season. It's not easy to kill an animal and I think he'll have a hard time with it, but the way the animals that we buy and eat from the store have lived and died is a LOT worse and the meat a LOT less healthy. When it comes to food, we need to get back to that simpler life, where people still hunted, planted their own and kept livestock. It’s shocking how uneducated today's generation is when it comes to food. I watched a show where Jamie Oliver goes from School to School to educate kids about food and was stunned when he held up a potato and a tomato, and not a single child in that class was able to tell him what it was. But they all knew about fries and Ketchup.

I don't want my children to grow up this disconnected. My son Noah is the pickiest child in the world, and every day I struggle to get something into him that's good for him. So last year, we purchased a bunch of chickens and planted our first organic vegetable garden. I don't think I'll have to go into why growing your own veggies is better than store-bought produce. Pretty sure we have all heard about Monsanto and pesticides by now. Anyhow, we involved our son during the whole process. He helped us prepare the raised bed. He planted a couple of seeds. He watered the garden and when it was time to harvest, he simply couldn't believe that there was actually a carrot attached to the greenery above ground. He ate a few carrots right out of the garden, some beans, snap peas and black raspberries and even though he's still not the greatest eater today, he will eventually try new things, he'll enjoy the planting and growing of our food and he WILL know what a potato is. I even try to involve him when I prepare and cook food whenever possible. Our children are still a little too young to do much in the kitchen but, he enjoys watching us cook and always pulls up a chair so he can stand on it and watch the happenings. We believe we need to raise the next generation differently. We'd like to go back to that simpler life, show our kids how to live off the land and save money doing it and reconnect with nature. Hopefully they'll thank us for it one day and will live happy, healthy and very long lives.  

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Declutter your life!

Clutter... Stuff... Things... It's everywhere you look. I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't really need or own much. Since we've moved quite a bit over the last five years or so, and have thrown out a lot before every move, I really thought we didn't own a lot we didn't need or use. Man, was I wrong. It's amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in no time whatsoever. We had this huge wall unit in our living/dining room that Adrian hated from the beginning. It looked fine in our old house but simply never worked in the new space.

We kept it because I convinced Adrian we needed the storage. Finally, we both agreed that we had to change something. Not only was the unit way too big for our tiny house, we also didn't have a place to hang our coats or for our shoes and were always tripping over them in the kitchen. So we tackled the frustrating situation and started decluttering. As we went through each cubicle of the unit, we were amazed at the things we found and really had no use for. We went through everything asking ourselves three simple questions.

Does the item have any emotional value to us?
Do we use the item on a regular basis?
Do we really need this item?

If the answer to all of those questions was no, we either threw it in the garbage, or donated it to the local Salvation Army. After getting rid of over half the stuff on that unit we felt so much better, almost lighter. It felt like a weight was lifted from our shoulders and as Adrian took the shelving unit apart and started building a better looking and more functional shelf, I had a huge smile on my face. I love changing things up and looking at something new every once in a while, and I love the fact that we now own one more piece of furniture that was handmade by my very talented man. It's a quality piece and will certainly last longer than the cheap unit from IKEA.

I love watching Adrian work and I love how Noah watches his daddy's every move and how he gets out his tools and copies everything he's doing. It's adorable. The house is looking so much more spacious now, nobody is falling over shoes anymore, and our family, as well as our guests finally have a place to hang their jackets upon entering our home.

We felt so good after decluttering and making our house function better, we promised ourselves to do it more frequently from now on, because you really don't realize how many things you keep but don't need and how fast those useless things are taking over your home and your life. Don't be a hoarder! Get rid of the things you don't need and you'll feel so much better for it. Things are just that, things. We need to learn to let go and I mean that in a general sense. Sometimes if you let go of certain things you also let go of the memories or the stress associated to them. It can be a form of stress relief to throw things away that no longer serve a purpose or have no value to you anymore. As your life changes and you as a person change, so does your view on whether or not something is important. If you sort through your stuff on a regular basis you'll stumble over a lot of things you didn't even remember you kept all those years ago. Do you have stuff cramped in every nook and cranny? Are your drawers bursting at the seams? Do you currently have clothes in your closet you haven't worn in over a year? Give yourself more room to breathe and donate the things you don't use to people in need! It's a win-win.