The Road from McShock

Immediately following our McShock revelation, the Lord brought a sense of urgency and inspiration to my heart that couldn’t be ignored, about our need to begin changing our eating and health habits now.

I began—as I often do—by making a “To Do” list. In no particular order, I listed dietary changes for our family to pursue—things to eliminate, things to research, things to substitute, things to try, etc. My initial thought was to pick one or two line items at a time, implement those and get comfortable with them, then add one or two more, etc. I reasoned that this way, we wouldn’t be making radical changes that we would be unable to sustain for very long, thus setting ourselves up for failure.

But God’s ways are not our ways, and He had other plans. As I looked over the list, I quickly saw that the changes I felt in my heart we needed to make were going to take us in a whole new direction of eating and living. When all was said and done, it would be a substantially different approach to food and health in general. My dear friend A.L. said it best: “God knows what is best, and He has provided all we need.” We needed to look to His creation as a first line of defense regarding our eating and overall health. In other words, I sensed God urging me toward a more natural way of eating.

My first reaction was, “Oh, my. This is huge.” Being in the homeschooling community, I had rubbed shoulders with many of Those Natural Eaters, and while I admired their fervor and passion for all things organic, I was certain I could never find the time to cook and eat and garden and feed chickens and live the way they did.

But don’t you know I serve a BIG GOD?? "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. (Is. 65:24)…”Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jer. 33:3).The Lord immediately brought a host of resources and mentors and strategies—not to mention many willing hands in our own household—who have inspired such excitement and passion about all this, and taught me so much right away, that I just knew it would be VERY possible to do! What’s more, even though we are implementing many of the changes at the same time—sort of an integrated, unit study approach to eating, rather than an isolated, compartmentalized approach—I haven’t felt overwhelmed. One change has just naturally led to another, and then another, and those have blossomed and sent out shoots in different directions, and so on.

Now for the disclaimers. First, although we are making lots of related changes, we have much fine-tuning to do, before we can claim success. It is very much a process, and one that will take time to fully realize. Just as gardens don’t grow overnight, neither do eating and health habits all change overnight—particularly when we live in a culture which is saturated with chemically altered food.

Second, even though we’ve attacked more than one or two things on our list, I will share just a few of them on today’s post, and the rest in future posts. By so doing, I will avoid making this post too long to keep your attention. (Memo to self—stop writing novellas on the blog.)

* Strategy One: Eliminate the worst offenders, and replace them with healthier alternatives. For us, this meant: no more fast food. No more pop-tarts. No more pop. No more boxed cake mixes. Instead, we eat more healthy meals at home; we bake our own muffins and breakfast breads using good, healthy ingredients; we drink more water; and we bake cakes and other treats from scratch. Besides saving money and calories, we have the added blessing of knowing exactly what goes into our food. And we can pronounce all the ingredients.

In a natural branch-out, we were soon replacing white refined sugar with honey or agave nectar or pure maple syrup; using more whole wheat flour rather than white; replacing unhealthy store bought cookies with healthier, organic ones (see this post) and drastically reducing chocolate chips in our recipes, replacing them with malt-sweetened carob chips instead.

Which led to our next move:

* Strategy Two: Investigate healthier food sources and shop there. We learned of a food coop operated by a fellow homeschooler in town, which purchases items in bulk from Country Life Natural Foods. We placed a small order to check it out.



Picking up our order from the food coop



Some of the delightful things we bought. We’ll tell you more about them in future posts.



Instead of fast-food French fries, we have been enjoying homemade Oven Spears. I’ll end this post with the recipe—they are easy, fast, healthy, and so delicious!



Our Oven Spears (on the right) along with cornbread and veggies for our Veggie Night.



Baked Oven Spears

One potato per person, and a few extra (try red, golden, or other potatoes)

Olive oil

Garlic powder, salt, black pepper, or chili powder (as desired)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil (for easier clean-up).

Wash potatoes well. Do not peel. Cut each potato into quarters lengthwise. Pour olive oil onto your (clean) hands, and rub each spear generously. Lay in single layer on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and pepper or chili powder. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until they are golden brown and fork tender. Enjoy!

(Posted by Betsy)