Thursday, October 25, 2007

Health notes . . .

A link to this article was in my in box this morning. Now, on the one hand, I am a vegetarian! For a variety of reasons, including health & religion, and the fact that the thought of eating a dead animal grosses me out (& yes, logically I realize that eating an egg is just as gross or more so, but I grew up eating eggs, not meat LOL), and that's not going to change! For both environmental and health reasons (due to the contaminates in our world) I'd love to go vegan, but I'm also realistic enough to know that I'd never convince dh to eat vegan and (a) I'm too lazy to fix him a separate meal from the girls & I and (b) the girls and I both enjoy dairy products enough that if they're in the house we're going to eat them.

But on the other hand, the article, as long as not taken to the opposite extreme (why is it so hard for society to accept "all things in moderation" as a possible option?), supports what I've been trying to move toward for our family. Less processed foods, more whole foods, moderation in all things, avoid the chemical fillers that are so rampant in low fat, sugar free, etc. foods (low fat foods generally are higher in refined sugar, and yet so many people in an effort to be healthy/lose weight will eat a diet made up primarily of "low fat" processed foods and "sugar free" (but full of chemical sugar substitutes) foods, which seems rather counterproductive. Now, yes, we eat out, and when we eat out we are obviously eating preservatives, refined flour, refined sugar, etc. But at least at home if I can limit or eliminate these things, I feel that we're making a step in the right direction and approaching a more overall healthy lifestyle than if we're replacing fat with refined sugar &/or replacing sugar with potentially cancer-causing chemicals.

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