praise and thanksgiving 1

On my drive to work today, I was listening to klove and they were having listeners call in for a day of praise.  It got me thinking... what is a praise in my life, and what am I thankful for.  If I started living every moment thinking of all that was going well, I would probably be a lot happier and much more content.  Of course, there are always the obvious... I am thankful for my husband, my family, my career, my house, etc.  But honestly, those are the standard responses anyone would say.  I want to really think about the small things that make my life better each day.  I thought this would be a great place to document and share... the little things that God has given me.

Today I am very thankful for Elana's Pantry Chocolate Chip Cookies!!  My mom makes us a batch almost every week {another thing I am thankful for} and we ADORE them!!  Honestly, they are better than any other cookie out there!!!  Now this may not seem like much of anything to be thankful for, especially for those of you who don't have food allergies.  But for us... this is BIG {and yummy}!!!

2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup dark chocolate chips 73% cacao

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
2. Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry
4. Form ½ inch balls and press onto a parchment lined baking sheet
5. Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
6. Cool and serve
 

Teach Every Child About Food

Thanks to Living Without Type 1 for bringing this video to our attention!! Now its our chance to share it with all of you!!

Sounds familiar

http://greensmoothiesblog.com/

I guess we may be buying this DVD too... all this knowledge is keeping us on our toes, and rocking our world. Dustin's blood sugar levels have slowly begun to react to his dietary changes, and that is all we need to have the hope that this may actually work. There are moments when we think that taking the medication would be so much easier, but we know that God continues to provide us with this information so that we can make informed decisions about our health. We pray for discernment that we are making the right decisions in regards to our health, and that if we aren't making the best decision that it would be clear to us so we can start researching other options. But as for now, the correlations between health and food is the ONLY thing that is really making sense to either of us.

Food, Inc.

Monday night (which happened to be our 4 month anniversary), Dustin and I rode our bikes to Blockbuster and picked up a copy of Food, Inc. As you most likely know if you are reading this blog, Dustin was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and also learned that he was allergic to wheat and dairy among other things. Through a lot of research, we have learned that the correlation between Type 1 diabetes and food allergies, specifically wheat and dairy, is not all that rare. So we have been adjusting our diet... a lot!!

We have been told by lots of people since Dustin's diagnosis that we need to see Food, Inc. To be honest, I really didn't want to watch it after reading the book Skinny Bitch. I was afraid that it would show too much animal cruelty. Dustin didn't want to watch it because he was afraid that after watching it he might not want to eat meat any more, and that is one of the very few things he can still eat. But after spending some time with Kim Brown last week, we knew that we needed to get educated. And watching it was one of the BEST things that we have ever done. It connected so many dots between Dustin's diagnosis and the food that we eat. It really solidified for us how important it is to know where our food is coming from and what is in it (chemicals/hormones/pesticides/etc).

Here are some of the most interesting quotes and take aways from watching the movie...

• The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year.
• 70% of processed food have genetically modified.
• 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes; Amond minorities, the rate will be 1 in 2.
• In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.
• In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power.
  *** All facts from http://www.foodincmovie.com/img/downloads/Press_Materials.pdf>

I think that this movie really opened our eyes to how corrupt the FDA really is, and how important it is to take responsibility for our own health by knowing what we are REALLY putting into our bodies. It is absolutely sickening thinking of how many genetically modified (GMO) foods I have consumed in my lifetime, and I can only imagine what harm that has done to my body. I pray that my children will not have to worry about this, and we will live in a world where food companies and our government care more about our health than the bottom line.

I will leave you with this quote from Food, Inc.

“Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, we said we would be only successful if we had fewer people going to the hospital next year than last year? The idea then would be to have such nutritionally dense, unadulterated food that people who ate it actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much… now, see, that’s a noble goal.”
-- Joel Salatin, owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, which lets his livestock graze on grass, the way nature intended.