Have you heard?

Red meat is bad for you.

Your meat is full of antibiotics and growth hormones.

You will die of a protein deficiency if you become vegetarian or vegan.

Too much protein is bad for you.

Carbs will make you fat.

Brown rice and other whole grains are carbs.

Potatoes are bad for you.

Sugar makes you fat.

There is sugar in fruit.

Artificial sweeteners mess with your brain.

Natural sweeteners are too high in calories.

Eggs are full of cholesterol.

Eggs for energy!

Milk is bad, it has been homogenized and pasteurized, therefore it is not good.

Milk does a body good.

Bananas will give you belly fat.

Bananas help you lose weight.

Broccoli can cure you of cancer.

Acai berry is a superfood!

Same with cacao, put them in everything, you will be super!

Whole wheat products are good for you!

Wheat contains gluten and 1 in 100 people have a gluten intolerance, many of them are silently suffering and don’t even know it.

Corn, soy and canola are genetically modified.

Corn, soy and canola are in nearly everything we eat.

Nuts are a great source of protein and healthy fats, eat them everyday!

Nuts are full of fat and will make you fat.

Same with avocados.

Fruits and veggies are good for you!

Most fruits and veggies have been sprayed with pesticides and are bad for you.

Whole grains like rice, millet and quinoa are good for you.

Cooked foods are depleted of their nutrients. You should eat only raw foods.

You have to watch your food combining.

You should eat a variety of foods at every meal to get a variety of nutrients.

You should eat every 3-4 hours, 6 smaller meals a day.

Your biggest meal should be breakfast.

You should start off eating lighter and gradually eat heavier throughout the day.

Never eat at night, your food will be turned into fat.

Exercise before you eat.

Never exercise before you eat, exercise after you eat.

And on and on it goes.

Yea, I’m confused too.

I decided to write this post today because I feel that the world really needs a post like this! There is so much information about food these days, what is good, what is bad, which foods are super foods, which foods will kill you, etc. Basically a lot of information that places us into a fearful state, leaving us afraid to eat anything ever again.

I am so sick of it all! All of the scientific stuff that changes every month. Or is it everyday? One day something is good for you, the next day it will kill you. What do we do?

I want people to know the truth about food and their bodies! Yep, I have all of the answers! 😉 That typed with complete sarcasm of course. Here is what I have learned to be true about food and what has influenced me to make the decisions that I do about what I eat and what to feed my family.

1) Food is fuel. What you put in your body does in fact make up your body and your mind.

2) Your body is impermanent. It is not who you really are and your body is one day going to die.

I feel that so many people write so much about food and that there is way too much information out there that has scared so many people (myself included). We are scared of food. Scared to be unhealthy or not being the epitome of health. Here is the thing though, we are human and we can’t always be healthy all the time. We will all get sick from time to time and like I said, we will all eventually die. We are imperfect and impermanent beings.

Obviously I write a food blog and focus a lot on eating healthy. I desire to eat healthy and feed my family healthy foods. I think I do a good job at this too. I know it, because I feel it and I can see it. We rarely get sick and we exercise and get outside everyday. We are also a fairly happy bunch and we have a lot of fun together. I feel good about our food choices and I feel good in my body and I believe that my body is strong and healthy.

That being said, what works for me and my family may not in fact work for you and yours. I do not claim to have the answers for you and be the perfect model of health. I only know what works for me and my family and even what I believe to be true or work for us now may one day change as we change and life changes. Again, impermanence.

So what should you eat? When should you eat and how should you eat it?

The truth is that you already know the answers. You have an inner wisdom inside of yourself that knows exactly what is right for you.

I am not going to tell you what to eat. I am however going to tell you to listen to your body and learn what works for you. I don’t believe that there is a one-size-fits-all way of eating. I don’t believe in trying to attain perfect health or that eating should leave you feeling fearful or guilty. I have been there so very many times and I am still in the process of unlearning and emptying myself of what I have read and replacing it with my own inner truth. I think food should be fuel, fun and of course delicious. Or else why would we eat it?

I suggest taking all of the information that you think you know about food and basically discarding it altogether and instead find out what works for you. USE YOUR BRAIN! Is the food a natural food? Is it close to its natural state? Then it is probably good fuel for your body. Is the food hydrogenated? Genetically modified? Pumped full of antibiotics or hormones? Full of ingredients that you can’t pronounce or made up mostly of refined ingredients? Then it is probably not the best choice of fuel for your body and your mind if you desire to live a happy and healthy life.

The sad thing is that most people are so far removed from the inner wisdom that they possess. They have read and heard so much information that they don’t know what to believe anymore, not even just about food either. That is why I don’t follow the health trends anymore, or any other trends for that matter. I instead decided to unplug and find out what works for myself and for my family and go with it by following my heart, that inner wisdom.

I used to try and just eat perfectly. When we first went vegan, I was doing the macrobiotic thing and just eating whole grains and steamed vegetables. No oil, fat, sugar, fruit or baking of any kind. No bread. Basically no life. It was good for meditating and staying in my little bubble, but I realized that I have a family to feed too and not only were we lonely vegans, now we were isolated even more from people because of what we ate or rather what we didn’t eat.

I find this to be a huge factor when it comes to food. Food is also a social thing. Food connects us with people. This is something that I miss a lot about not being a vegan. I miss the company of a meal shared with loved ones. Food is also a great way to make memories and a lot of memories are tied to the food that we eat.

So I decided that I wanted to enjoy food again and allow myself and my kids to make some awesome memories with it. I wanted to have all of my old favorites, but have them in healthier ways, made with healthier ingredients. Thus, this blog was born. This blog was a way to find out what worked for me and was also a way to share and connect with other vegans, so that I wouldn’t feel so lonely.

Here is what I have learned and what I believe works…

If you can look down at your plate with meat on it and it bothers you, don’t eat it! If it doesn’t bother you, then eat it!

If you know that sugar makes you feel tired, sick and bitchy or turns your kids into crazy hyper monsters, don’t eat it or let your kids have it! If it doesn’t seem to be a problem for you, then eat it!

You see where I am going?

Find out what works for you and what truly feels right. And bottom line, be grateful!!!! We should all be so grateful that we even have food to eat instead of always being afraid of not eating perfectly or following the latest diet trends. We really are blessed beyond belief!

You are what you eat, but you are also way more than that! Don’t let food become an obsession and completely control your life. Get out there and live! Enjoy your food and your life. You aren’t going to live forever! 🙂