What is this blog for?

My sister recently sent me a study that showed the dramatic effects that exercise and diet have on reducing a person's likelihood of having colon cancer.  In fact, even though colon cancer is highly genetic (in that if you have a parent with it, you have a high risk of having it also), diet and exercise can apparently almost negate that genetic risk factor.  This is interesting to me because my mom just celebrated one year of remission for her colon cancer.

I also read a blog about a woman who stopped eating processed foods - especially granulated sugar.  Her rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis cleared up when she started eating better.  I found this interesting because my psoriasis runs in my dad's family, and both my parents have a form of arthritis (but not the same kind) - so it's always been something that I've thought was inevitable for me.

Now I'm wondering if maybe it's not inevitable.

Add this to the fact that I have an unhealthy addiction to sugar and an extra 20 pounds hanging around since the birth of my last child, and I'm hoping that I have enough motivation to make some changes in my life.

I don't plan to make them cold turkey.  I'm going to have to change my entire family's diet as well - as I've never been a proponent of making multiples meals for multiple people, multiple times a day.  We are a family of 8.  That's 24 meals everyday that get made in my kitchen.

We have three people with mild allergies to dairy protein.  The most serious is my one year old, who still can't have straight dairy products (cooked dairy such as what's in pancakes, or butter on toast doesn't seem to bother her).  My second child gets acne if she eats dairy.  My fourth child develops an obnoxious throat clearing habit as the mucus piles up.  Gross.  So because of them, I need to start cooking a lot more dairy-free foods.



Step one is to eliminate most sweets.  Foods with honey and/or real maple syrup will still be allowed.

Step two is to dramatically decrease our dairy consumption.  I'm still working out the logistics of what we'll eat because we all love cheese.  I might change this.