putting my money where my mouth is..a follow up

So it has been a week or more since I have decided to put my money where my mouth is. I have had a few conversations with friends since then about the changes I am making to our diet and I feel now that I am in a better place to be able to put into words why I am trying to make these changes.

I have not always had a good relationship with food. 

This is mostly to do with the fact that I have not always had a good relationship with my body. 

In fact from a very young age I would even go so far as to say that I hated my body.

 I didn't like being over weight, I didn't like what that meant for me in terms of how society viewed and talked to me. I felt wrong and ugly.

 So consuming food for me was not about nourishing and cherishing my body. 

At times it was a comfort. It helped me to feel better when I was feeling bad. A packet of biscuits gave me the energy to get through the day when Rebe was a tiny prem baby and wouldn't sleep for longer than 45 mins, night or day. 

At times food was a punishment, it was a way for me to say 'fuck you' to myself or to the world.

But I am in a different place now, I love who I am and I love my body. So I am experimenting with also loving food. Not just loving the taste of food, or the making of food, but also loving the buying of food and the growing or gathering of food. 

I want to eat consciously, in way that expresses love for myself, the planet and all people. So for me this means being conscious of where my food comes from, what impact it has on the planet, animals and people. I want to feel good about eating so I need to feel good about the food I eat. I am experimenting with trying to eat a mainly plant based whole food diet, that also takes into account fair trade, carbon foot print, waste production and the impact on the environment.

Of course making this sort of change means lots of research and re-thinking menus and planning and seeking out the best resources.

I think I have found a pretty awesome resource. I heard about the Irish Health Food warehouse about a year ago. It is about an hour's drive from where I live and they sell whole and health foods to health food shops and other businesses and lucky me, they open the doors to the public on Saturdays.

So with a list of the foods I wanted to buy in bulk and my hard saved cash the kids and I piled into the car for the beautiful drive over there. We arrived just before 10am and there was already a queue of people there. 'A queue?' you say. Well yes because they also sell off all of their short dated refrigerated and frozen items and anything that is being discontinued at a crazily cheap price.

we picked up all of this for a mere 17 euro!

It was really funny actually watching all these earth loving hippy types elbowing each other out of the way to grab all the organic butter and tofu they could. I tell you there is no peace, love and harmony when it comes to who is getting all of the vegan cheese!

The kids and I mooched around picking up the things we thought we'd like. Rebe got into the spirit of it and kept coming back with more goodies (that I think she had taken out of other people's bags).

I got some superfoods that normally would be soooo out of my budget,

and I got yoghurts to last (even Joa) a week or 2, and lots of other tasty goodies including some mineral sunscreen that would have cost me 14 euro  in the shops!

 After the free-for-all the kids and I wandered around the warehouse trying to locate all of the other bulk items that we had come to get.

 Being really honest, it was super hard work with the kids, they were bored and had been cooped up in the car for too long, so they sort of ran riot while I tried my best to steer the big trolley thing and hulk 25kg sacks of flour around.
 But it was worth it we stocked up on essentials like cordial for Benny's hot squash

 and organic spelt flour

 and fair trade coffee, organic honey and apple cider vinegar

 The whole lot cost me 170 euro (plus about 5 euro petrol) but it should last a good few months. I will definitely be going back there again regularly, (without the kids) and I am hoping I might be able to set up something with friends to take it in turns going up there.
On the way back we stopped at the farmer's market to get the fresh fruit and veggies we'd need for the week,

 Infinitely nicer than shopping at a supermarket

 the goats cheese and wild garlic flat bread was to die for!
 So, over all our change in eating is going well, I am excited to have found some great resources and the kids and I are feeling light and healthy and full of energy.

Oh and the other exciting thing that happened yesterday...

tooth number 5 :-)