Where do you start when making a change?

SO..where do you start? Well first of all,  you start here and here:








The cabinets







The fridge



So what do you clean out of here?

1. Over processed, refined foods that have an ingredient list a mile long that contain chemical names you can pronounce. If your first grader can't read it..don't eat it.  There are a number of reasons not to eat these over processed foods. Click on them to learn why.  It's not just cancer, they cause us to be over weight, have diabetes, over work your organs, and lead to heart disease.  I didn't say all processed foods, I said over-processed.  There are some good ones still out there.  Try to minimize the ingredients list to three or four,make sure you know what those ingredients are. Try to eat the foods as close to their natural state as possible. If it hasn't recently walked, flown, swam, be on a vine, tree, or in the ground, you better check the ingredients to see what in the world you are eating.
2. High fructose corn syrup and sneaky refined sugar is in everything...flip over your spices, it's hard to find stuff without it in it.  I urge you to take your time shopping the first time and look at what is in your foods.  Here are the top reasons to get rid of those types of  sugars.  Look for evaporated cane juice, beet juice, sucanat, cane, honey, molasses..those are natural and healthy types of sugars.  Lots of foods have sugars that occur naturally, like milk and cheese.  Know how to read a label.  Look at the ingredient list for sugar as an ingredient.
3. Get rid of artificial sweeteners in anything..they are chemicals and your body recognizes them as sugar and starts the process of working your pancreas to break down the sugar that is not there..you won't lose weight...use one of these instead. I was drinking diet drinks at one time and had awful joint pain and found this article.  It's not worth the calories that I thought I was saving.
4. White flour..if it's enriched,bleached, and refined it's bad..those words sound like good things to do, right?? No! That means.. we stripped all the good stuff out to do other things with it and make it cheaper and improve the shelf life.  I am currently using hard red wheat (check the label) and ordering a grinder to grind my own fresh.  I will post about the reason why in a later posting. 
5. Saturated and trans fats
6. calorie dense foods with little to no nutritional value..what does that mean? A 100 calorie candy bar or 100 calorie snack pack is not the same as a 100 calorie apple. The calorie intake is the same, but it  provides your body with no nutrition...not all calories are created equal.

I have done a lot of research and read a lot of books on all this. I have 2 favorites that have great tips and recipes in them.