My Next Project- Cleaner Eating

One of the things I love most about travel are the things I discover along the way. One thing I noticed on this trip (about day 3) is that I felt great- really great, no matter what I ate. I realized years ago that I was sensitive to wheat, and when I stopped eating so much of it, my migraines stopped entirely, and my allergies improved a lot. I recently stopped drinking alcohol for the same reason. Even a little bit made me feel terrible the next day. But I went to France, and France makes the best bread, pastries, and wine in the world. I wasn’t going to skip bread, or croissants, or wine in France. I had them all. And all of those things, which make me feel terrible in the U.S. did not make me feel terrible in France. In fact, I felt really, really good, every single day.

When I was telling my friends about my trip, two different people related how much better they felt in Europe too. One of them mentioned it after I did, but one of them mentioned it before I even brought it up. What if it isn’t the wheat and alcohol that make me feel bad? What if it is the additives that American food manufacturers put in nearly all of our food, that European nations do not allow? A friend of mine from Ireland once asked me what it is that Americans put in bread that makes it last 3 weeks, because it starts going bad after 3 days in Ireland. Interesting question. I googled it, and we put a LOT of additives and preservatives in our bread- perhaps that’s why I’m so sensitive to it. My friend who makes wine says that the big producers here put a lot of additives in wine here that aren’t allowed in France. I had no idea. I was discussing it with my family and my oldest son (who loves trivia) told me that American corpses decay more slowly than they used to- because all the preservatives we are consuming are preserving us too. That can’t be good for you!

I’m going to try to eat cleaner than I have been. I do pretty well, though. We eat very little fast food or packaged food. I cook nearly everything from scratch except for bread. I even make my own mayonnaise. We eat fresh fish (that we catch) and game that we and our families kill. And of course we eat from our garden and fruit trees, and we get fresh eggs from our neighbor across the street. I haven’t been paying close enough attention to some ingredients though, and I think I can do better.

The first few days I was home I woke up with crushing allergy headaches. Its worth a little extra effort not to feel like this in the morning. I am envious of Europeans though, for whom eating clean is easy. I loved shopping at local markets in France. We bought the best olive oil we’ve ever tasted from the couple who grew the olives and processed the oil themselves. We bought fruit from the owners of the orchard and cheese from the lady who made it. It is a great deal more difficult to do that here.

Today I went to my local store to buy a few things, including some unbleached flour. They didn’t have any. I’m going to try stores in a slightly larger town down the road. And as shocking as grocery items have become, there may even be a few organic items in my cart. If I feel as good as I did in France, it will be worth the extra time and money- I will let you know how it goes.

I think I’m going to end every post with something I did this week that I couldn’t have done if I hadn’t retired early. This week, I dragged my teens out of bed because the cleaning lady was coming and I wanted them out of her way. We did an errand in town and then headed to our river cabin. We have been in a heat wave here, and the wind died, which made it miserable unless you were water-skiing. So that’s what we did. We skied on a glass smooth river all the way down to a sandbar that is jam-packed on weekends. Because it was a weekday, there were only 3 boats there. We cooled off in the water and then skied back to the cabin before heading back to a clean house. It was a good day!