Out with the Old ways....

Well, my goal for this post is a sort of year in review of our lifestyle changes of 2010. I wish I had done it last year, since there were a few things I"m happy to have changed for the better.

Here's the simple list:

RAW DAIRY
GRASS FED BEEF & PASTURED EGGS
YOUNG LIVING THERAPEUTIC GRADE ESSENTIAL OILS
NO CAFFEINE
NO VACCINATION
NO FLUORIDE
COMPOSTING
NATURAL CLEANERS
TRADITIONAL CHIROPRACTIC
KANGEN WATER
NO CIRCUMCISION

It seems like I've been a Nourishing Traditions fan for much longer than just one year, but It was just Christmas of 2009 that I unwrapped this life changing cook book. We may have not stayed on the bandwagon all year long, but there are a couple things that we've changed and have become "standard" rather than new and improved!

Raw Dairy! We now enjoy milk from healthy cows, who spend everyday in the sunshine, grazing on chemical free pasture. I make the 30 mile drive out to the Swan Brother's Dairy every 2 weeks to pick up 14 gallons of milk, 6 pints of cream and 2lbs of cheese. Which leads to...Homemade butter! I make the majority of the butter that we consume at home in the handy Kitchen Aide mixer. Perry usually helps me out and it takes us an hour or 2 to get it made, which is well worth the investment, since purchasing raw organic butter runs about $10 a pound!

We also started picking up farm fresh eggs from pasture fed chickens. The shells are so much thicker and the yolks are orange rather than the pale yellow from the store. Chicken's aren't supposed to be vegetarians by the way. For a little while at the end of the year the hens stopped laying and I had a terrible time going back to eating "store-bought" eggs...we pretty much just did without!


In April, we got together with our friends, the Stanley's and the Childress's and purchased a side of Grass fed, grain finished (corn and soy free) beef. It has been wonderful to have a full stock of meat out in the freezer and It looks like we will have enough to make it nearly a full year.

Some of the smaller things we've changed are

Produce: we are buying more organic fruit and veggies.
Salt: We use RealSalt and just received some Himalayan Pink Sea Salt from my friend Carrie to give a try rather than the synthetic variety from Morton.
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil: YUM, we gotta 5 gallon bucket! Its delicious (unless you ask Eric...but yea, I think he must have some emotional issue with coconuts, definitely need some oil therapy there.) But he has allowed me to start cooking with it more and more in the recent months. It is the best option for baking besides animal fat or butter.
Fermented Cod Liver Oil (FCLO) It's one of the best supplements you can buy. We get ours from Green Pasture and don't recommend any other brands from the US. Vitamin D deficiency is one of the main causes of sickness for Americans, we just aren't getting enough from the sun, and most of the products we use on our skin prevent us from absorbing it anyway, but sunscreen is a whole other topic that which we have given up as well!

Composting...just getting started here, but collecting all the good organic leftovers that we can...and just maybe spring of 2011, we can do some of our own growing!

TOXIC Cleaners....we've pretty much rid our house of chemical cleaners like bleach, windex, ajax and 409. We have switched to baking soda, vinegar, Hydrogen Peroxide, Kangen Water, Lemons, Thieves Cleaner and hand soap, and AromaSilk body wash. We still have a few products to go, but they are all on their way out!


That is about it on the food front...then comes Health Care. Oh this is where it gets a little ranty and even more controversial. Some of you will loose interest, or maybe you would just rather not know. It's true ignorance seems to be bliss, until something happens to YOU. Well, something happened to us. Thankfully it wasn't life threatening and it was resolved. I am also thankful that it lead me to research, dig a little deeper, and find better ways to care for my family. Ignorance is not bliss. It leads to destruction and the reminder is one of my favorite verses. Hosea 4:6. Everything we need to know pertaining to health is in God's word. But it takes seeking the truth to find it. Maybe this will be a good place to start for your family.

We are slowly finding a true sense of Health Care for our family. It is interesting how many pieces came together this year just one after the other. We have chosen to walk away from the traditional "sick care" that is practiced in this country. Food is a major part of that, but also the medicines and "preventive" measures we take. The protocols and medicine used to treat patients are the number one killer in the United States...not a disease. Unfortunately, they are the demise for many of the uninformed.


In February I was introduced to Young Living. There is a post about it here.
Essential Oils have taken the place of many pharmaceuticals in our medicine cabinets. We hope one day to be able to rid our cabinets of all of them, especially simple, but dangerous over the counter drugs, like Tylenol, Advil and Tums. There is so much information on the labels that we simply over look, and we rarely notice the symptoms because they tend to show up later in life and manifest as organ failure and heart attacks, or things we see as just normal bad genetic luck, like asthma, allergies, and eczema. Ask me about the alternatives we use, they work surprisingly well and the only risk (side effect) you face is healing and detox. (which are both good things, by the way.)

September 16th I got an email from Eric and I was sure someone must have hacked into my hubby's work email and sent me a message about quitting COFFEE? It couldn't have possibly been my honey, who never left the house without his trusty, stainless coffee mug with a piping hot 16oz of Black goodness in it..but he did some research himself and found this little bit of truth: Caffeine: Cup of Pain, Liquid Stress I am SO proud to announce that he gave up Caffeine (coffee and pop) and has been going strong for over 4 months. He has replaced his hot morning beverage with something healthy. There is always a pot of Red Raspberry Leaf tea brewing at this house.

We've also learned the Truth about Fluoride. It is toxic waste, and used as rat poison, other countries BAN it...but not the good ol' USA, they add it to our water supply! I do not deny that there may be some medical advantages for its use, but it is NOT for ingesting! We are consuming it in almost thing we eat. Any product that contains water on the label, likely has fluoride in it, produce and animals also drink this tainted water...the drug is EVERY WHERE. So we have started by changing our water source, our toothpaste and denying fluoride treatments at the dentists office. Short of moving to another country, that's about all we can do to avoid it other than pray over our food, and know that God has blessed it...but prayer is not an excuse for lack of knowledge and making better choices.

So, we had already slowed down the vaccinations that our little ones were receiving. I was mislead by trusting my doctors relationship rather than trusting research. Please do not fall victim and let your children risk the consequences. If you have not done any research do it now before any more toxic poison and contaminated disease can be injected into your sweet little one's body. I'm not asking you to agree with me, but just to get a little knowledge and make an INFORMED decision. Here is a great place to start:Why Fear Sells It takes a lot of guts and responsibility to tell a "trusted professional" that they are wrong, but that white coat and PhD doesn't make them right, remember they are PRACTICING medicine. I believe the heart of most doctors is to help, but they are being taught and regulated by good ol' FDA and the drug manufactures supply the majority of their "continuing education" At the very least ask for an insert of the vaccination and review them BEFORE you are at the office, and know this...NONE of the vaccinations have been tested together. Your 4month old will have received the same amount of vaccinations as you did in the first SIX YEARS of life. Just because you turned out okay, does not make today's vaccines safe for your child. The vaccination schedule has multiplied from 11 to 36 in the first 6 years of life, and ALL vaccines contain harmful toxic chemicals that you would never allow your child to ingest knowingly. They are not safe at any level, do not be fooled. We are thankful for Doctors like Sherry Tenpenny who take a stand for Children and are doing what they can to educate parents and share the truth.

So, about the time we decided to completely do away with vaccination, our pediatrician decided in September that he wouldn't be seeing patients who choose to not vaccinate anymore. It was a timely decision, and helped us easily choose to just walk away from typical pediatric medicine all together. Well check-ups are a thing of the past. We also just happened to be led to a new type of care, through Traditional Chiropractic. As I was filling out paperwork, listening to the information shared on the television in the office, I was hearing a synopsis of nearly everything I've been studying...vaccine, drugs, fluoride, poor food knowledge in combination with a very familiar subject much like our 2M ministry training class, God's promise to heal. I was certain I was in the right place. In the next couple of weeks we were educated in Traditional Chiropractic. It is unlike the type of Chiropractic I was familiar with, which focused on symptom relief and is headed in the same direction as internal medicine, not helping people stay or become healthy. Health is our goal, not to merely to manage sickness and pain. We now attend Body by God Chiropractic Sanctuary as a family and all 8 of us are adjusted 3 times a week. Dr. Dick came to our house the day after Wyatt was born and adjusted us both. Wyatt seemed to not like nursing on one side...which in the past I would have attributed to a problem with ME...but right after his adjustment he had no problem at all. We recently returned for our 90 day X-ray consultation and the older kids necks are all now with in range for proper alignment. Eric and I still have a little way to go, because we are, well, "old" but there were great improvements. We have learned the importance of taking care of our spines in much the same way that we take care of our teeth. It is so important, because although teeth are easy to repair or replace our spines ARE NOT! Maintenance is important. Our central nervous system stems from our brain and through our spine. Without proper alignment, the messages can't be received properly and no amount of proper nutrition or exercise can save us from subluxation. Now to not scare our friends and family, we are not opposed to medical treatment, but we chose to treat our symptoms in natural and non-toxic ways, rather than blindly follow fear induced advice with harmful medicine as a first response to illness or disease. There is a better way, you just have to be informed and take a little responsibility for your health.

In November, for our 4th anniversary, we decided to treat our family to some healthy water. It was the major change missing from our new lifestyle. There are many types of water available to us...tap, filtered, spring, purified, distilled, reverse osmosis, mineral, and ionized to name a few. The human body is between 50-75% water, so proper hydration is a key to good health. Earlier in the year we sampled Kangen water for 30 days. We noticed how much better we felt drinking this water, it didn't make us full feeling even when we downed a quart at a time. Eric noticed his normally sandpaper hands were not so scratchy, headaches were quickly gone after drinking, Parker our poison ivy magnet was cured in days without is chasing the spreading itchy rash for weeks like has happened in the past..Yes, all this help by drinking or using this WATER topically. So, we chose to purchase a Enagic water ionizer that turns our tap water into Kangen Water, a healthy, filtered, alkaline, micro-clustered, anti-oxidant water. This machine is a medical device used in many Japanese hospitals. Japan, is ranked #1 in health care and longevity of life...the US? #38...in both areas! Don't forget that our Doctors care is the #1 cause of death in our country (meaning what the Doctor does to help us get better: medicines, surgeries and overall care; not the sickness they are trying to stop.) Our machine produces several levels of water that can be used in many different ways from Stron Water for cleaning the laundry and vegetables to helping you recover from poison ivy and sinus infections! There is a beauty water that can be used to replace all facial cleansers and feed your plants. The drinking water seems to help turn around all kinds of health issues around. So if you have any type of health issue, from allergies, cancer, infections or diabetes let us know and you can give it a try! We can't wait to share it with our friends and family and watch it change their life's from sickness to health! We also use a simple shower head filter for bathing. Our skin is the largest organ of our body and the contaminates in tap water are just as easily absorbed through our skin.

Last but not least...We decided to spare our newest one, and any future sons from Circumcision. It was one of the things I really regretted doing with our 4th son. Homebirth was a nice first step out of the normal and I'm thankful to have spared him from all the routine interventions at birth, but I was not up to speed on the Truth/Myth of Circumcision and unable to help my husband see the benefits of being uncut and intact. I'm thankful for all the other things we learned this year, because I believe it was an integral part of being able to make this last lifestyle changing decision of the year. I was so relieved when Eric told me we'd leave our sweet Wyatt Foster as God designed him!

Because the FDA is a bunch of money hungry bullies (food and drug industries are the top two money makers in the US), and they don't want to know how natural options are saving lives. So they do not allow us to claim benefits since they have not "approved it", even if science has proved it. FDA Approval is not about effectiveness or safety (although that is their purpose) Our system is corrupt and it is sickening....to death. Literally. Eric has coined a new acronym for the FDA= Future Death of Americans. Watch out for them, they aren't protecting you. So, because of that I have to add this disclaimer:

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