Tidbit: More than you wanted to know...

Argh...being cooped up by this dreadful weather (well, more specifically by the dreadful road conditions) has kept us from our restaurant reviewing. Maybe it's a good opportunity to gab a bit.

To preface this post, I've been thinking that I should say something to express why eating "good food" according to our description is important. "Organic" is such a cliche these days, and has a variety of different stigmas as well (i.e., hippy, expensive, yuppy, weird, on and on). I think the idea can be easy to dismiss for those reasons. But of course there's science behind it too. For now, instead of throwing out statistics and quoting science or whatever, I'll just start off by saying why it's important to me.

So several years ago, before I got really interested in the quality of my food, I was doing some messed up stuff. Number one, I was binging and purging. I'd come home from work (very stressful job) and I just couldn't get enough to eat...totally impulsive. And then, well you know, I'd remedy the situation. Like three pieces of frozen cake or something and then SPLAT.

Besides that, I had a nutrition bar addiction. Sounds weird, huh? Here's what was going on...I'd get a box of Luna Bars, or Zone Bars, or Balance Bars. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I was thinking about eating a bar. So I'd pour a glass of milk (probably skim milk, from the grocery) and have a bar. Then at work, I couldn't wait til my next one at around 10am. Another for lunch, another for snack at 2pm, and then sometimes two for dinner, with another glass of milk. I was eating so many that I had to buy extra boxes so my husband wouldn't know. Somedays, I wouldn't eat anything else...except maybe a piece of birthday cake at work (if there was one in the breakroom) followed by a purge, and a cup of black coffee to mask the potential barf breath.

I was clearly in a bad cycle, and looking back, I think my body was absolutely trying to tell me that it needed something I wasn't giving it. So fast forward and enter my awesome friend Carol. I don't even remember how it came up, but Carol introduced me to raw milk, and Weston A. Price type of thinking...whole foods, local, organic, grass-fed meats, etc. This opened up a whole new world, and I stopped binging and purging, stopped eating those nasty nutrition bars, and started eating GOOD food.

Along the way, I learned about cultured foods...kombucha (a fermented tea) and kefir (made from milk). Real butter, raw milk, raw yogurt, raw cream...so amazing and delicious...and straight from the farmer. Eggs from chickens who were tended to by the farmers' little children with BRIGHT ORANGE yolks, and meat and milk from cows who were right there grazing happily in the yard. And I joined an organic CSA (community-supported agriculture) for the first time. The set-up is such that you pay a lump sum upfront, and then throughout the harvest season, the veggies are harvested by a farmer and his or her helpers, and divided among the members evenly. Each week, a basket of freshly harvested organic veggies. Amazing!

So long story LONG, I've maintained a healthy diet for probably around seven years now, with no funny business. I don't binge or gorge or purge...I feel totally satiated by the food that I eat. My body isn't asking me for anything else. In fact, it's usually pretty easy for me to resist sweets and processed foods. Based on that, I think that I'm really doing what's right for me. And I have to say that I am so thankful to have met Carol, and to have been able to learn something from her that potentially saved my life!