Cleaner Eating

I haven't always been good in the kitchen. My sister is a chef and my mother was always in the kitchen growing up. So why would I need to cook? I started cooking in college when my boyfriend said I could move in if I fed his roommate and himself. Little did they know I burned everything, even mac & cheese from the box. I kept with it though and several years later our roommates were paying for dinner every night. 

In 2011, after battling stomach cramps, bloating, and nausea everyday from what my doctor thought was lactose intolerance, it was suggested I try omitting gluten from my diet. All my issues were gone within 3 days. This was probably the hardest point in my life in regards to food. Prior to going gluten free, I was eating bread, cereal, and pasta for almost every meal. Instead of trying to eat differently, I just wanted to eat the same items but gluten free. That just didn't work and was even more frustrating. My stress reliever was baking and I quickly found that gluten free baking didn't work out the same as traditional baking. 

Fast forward to 2013 when my hubby brings up wanting to eat Paleo. I was 100% against it but said we could give it a go. The food was almost the same every day with limited variety, was costly, and way too much work for me. We would just have a protein and vegetable for dinner nightly for weeks until we were bored of it. This started our on again off again Paleo eating for the next 2 years. 

People say everything changes when you have a baby. They are completely true. When we welcomed our bundle of joy in late December 2013 we had no idea what we were in for. Not only were we the sleep deprived parents with an always hungry newborn, we were dealing with a large amount of reflux from our newborn. After researching reflux in newborns, I quickly found that removing dairy from mom's diet can help so that was the first to go. My husband had already been showing signs of lactose intolerance and was mostly dairy free at this point anyways. When we removed all dairy from our diet, the most logical move at this point was to eat Paleo. My mom and sister were bringing us dinner nightly to help out so when we told them meals needed to be dairy free in addition to gluten free, it wasn't easy. This made me realize that we had gotten so used to food having so many things added to it, we weren't eating clean food.  

This time around we purchased cookbooks that had recipes of meals that weren't just a protein and a vegetable. This started the creativity and hooked us on our new way of eating. As a nursing mom I was starving all the time so proteins were our #1 focus. I've been learning how to buy seafood on sale and utilizing our frozen foods is key for our ever important budget. Through this blog I hope to show how we've transformed how we look at food and try to live cleaner and healthier.