Eating Ourselves Silly

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For a while I've been wanting to do more to make things more simple. Does that even make sense? Doing more to create less? It's been ages since I first started thinking that there must be a better way - to go about things, to go about life(wow, sounds epic!). There's so much that I'd like to change & to get back. Life gets too busy & you start to take short cuts. One area where that has been happening a little more is food. When the girls were younger I was very much the food Nazi in this house. There was no crap eaten. We didn't have potato chips in the house, they weren't allowed to eat crappy food that came out of packets. They rarely ate processed foods. When they did you could tell(behaviour wise). But then I had to go back to work(albeit part-time), I got pregnant, life kicked me in the arse(oops! There goes my trying not to swear goal!) a few times, I got pregnant again, Piper started school, etc, etc & my nazi-ness was reduced. The Man of the House would do the shopping, Piper would ask if she could pretty-please have chips to take to school, real chips, not Mumma's chips(from the junk aisle, not the health food aisle!), they go to Nana's house for a visit & fill up on crap, they'd visit Grandma & she'd pack them a little snack bag - fruit, a packet of biscuits & some lollies('oh come on, it's only a little bit', says my Mum. Mum! How much crap did you let me eat? Zero!). 

Now we're at a point where we are having some 'behaviour issues' - don't we all? No seriously, you do to, right? Right? We've tried everything & the only thing that I can come back to is the crap. The over-processed food. Even the Man of the House agrees. Don't get me wrong, the girls still don't have take away on a regular basis or anything like that but sometimes it's late & I haven't thought that far ahead for dinner & the Man of the House bought frozen chicken nuggets & other various weirdly shaped pieces of chicken so they get served up with a side of veggies to make it all better. And he's a sucker - he has his stash of treats & when the girls ask him, he can't help it. Yes, it's all his fault(sarcasm).

I've gone back to reading up about all the scary things in food these days. To freak yourselves out along with me, have a look at some of these websites & read about the additives that we can find in our food & what they can do - Additive-Free Pantry, Cut Out The Crap & The Trusted Trolley. Just the other night we decided to have Tortillas for dinner. easy, right? Nothing sinister, just Mission brand wraps(nice & healthy supposedly), lettuce, tomato, mince & some spices. Then I came across this blog post on the Additive-Free Pantry blog & I think I brought up some of my dinner from the night before. There are additives in these 'healthy wraps' that are also used in cosmetics, perfume & toothpaste as well as having potential effects such as depression, fatigue, behavioural issues, developmental delays, learning difficulties & neurological problems. In a wrap - a bit of flat bread. What business does this crap have being in bread!

So I went to my old friend Google & found a Tortilla recipe - there are about a zillion, but this is the first one that came up - they are so easy to make & contain nothing more sinister than flour, olive oil, salt & water. And they take about 5 minutes to make. And they'll cost you nothing near the $5 or so it would cost you to buy them from the supermarket. 

It's not going to be something that I can change entirely in one fell swoop but I'll be starting with my shopping list for tomorrow's grocery shop. And slowly, but surely, we'll get back on top of it again & hopefully see some changes not only in the girls behaviour & moods but in ours too. 

Have you decided to make any changes to your family's diet lately?