Day 219 – Back from Holiday and a Word On Resolutions

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Ah yes, it’s good to be back from holiday, to normalcy.  How I’ve missed it.

So this is the new year, 2011.  How did the holiday season fare, for you?  For me, amidst the joy and celebration, it was actually quite the hump in the road!  Exercise frequency dwindled, calorie intake increased…  Christmastime is indeed a time of great joy, and of great weakness for many of us.  But, all in all, I feel that Michelle and I handled it with finesse, managing not to increase our waistlines and glucose levels to the brink.  And, in doing so, we  managed still to pull off a hearty celebration.  I, for one, am satisfied.

Following Christmas day, I slipped into a sort of  ‘hibernation’ which entailed sitting my self in a cozy chair and waiting out this wicked, newly-discovered food allergy.  And this brings me to my new insight, which I will share with you now.

Cashews, in the raw, can give you poison ivy.  Now, you rarely will encounter a true raw cashew in stores.  But, I purchased a jar of Naturally Preferred brand cashew butter which turned out to have enough urushiol (the irritant utilized by poison ivy, oak, and sumac)  to surprise me with an intense allergic response.  Blast you, cashews!

I starting noticing that my lips were chapped.  Normally, an application of lip balm would cure it overnight.  But, in this case the dryness worsened, and was then joined by an unyielding itch in my mouth, eyes, and also a swollen rash on my arms and legs.

Now, I am very susceptible to poison ivy.  That is to say that I’ve had it enough to recognize it immediately.   Imagine my bewilderment when I first noticed the similarities between the rash I had gotten, and poison ivy.  I was surprised to find out that it was the cashew butter, a product I had not tried before.

I stopped eating the cashews,  took some Benadryl, and thus my symptoms began to ebb.  And that is my story of how I learned the truth about cashews.  I will never, ever, eat them again.  Looking on to bigger things.

Or, should I say looking back perhaps to 2010, the year my life was changed?

2010 represents to me the power of keeping a resolution.  Now, I’m not going to cheese on about ‘New Year’s resolutions’ in this blog, but I would like to meditate on the idea of a resolution.  Could you imagine a world where everyone kept their lofty resolutions?  Every year, on January 1st, the entire world would dramatically improve.  Surely by this time in American history, we would have achieved a utopia.

Have you ever looked up the word ‘resolution’ in the dictionary?

(the following definition is from Dictionary.com)

res·o·lu·tion

–noun

Let’s skip down to the fourth one on the list here…

“3.  the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.”

There.  When you put it this way, it takes on a different perspective, no?  Now we can plainly see that a resolution is nothing more than saying “I will do this thing”.  So what happens next?  One of two things, essentially.  Either you do it, or you don’t.  I’m speculating that there are more people that fail to do their resolutions than those who succeed at them, because making a resolution reality will mean change, and change means discomfort, and a touch of heroism.

Having said that, I want to encourage everyone to keep their resolutions.  Make them reality, protect them.  Let’s stop making light of the status quo.  There isn’t a single one of us that didn’t at least think of a way to improve our lives for 2011.  Now let’s all roll up our sleeves and own the year, for better or for worse!

Day 191 – Five Things To Make From Scratch

Here’s the deal:  There are just some things that are better, and healthier, when made from scratch.  Here is a short list of some things that are pretty easy to make from scratch, and taste better than what the stores offer.

1.  Ketchup – Ketchup is fairly easy to make from scratch.  Essentially, it’s tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar cooked down into a syrupy sauce.  When you buy it, you usually buy a product full of refined sugars or, even worse, corn syrup.  When you make it from scratch, you can use fresh tomatoes, honey, molasses, whatever you like.  Here’s a good recipe:  http://healthy.hillbillyhousewife.com/homemadeketchup.htm (I would skip the brown sugar and use molasses, personally).

2.  Pickles – These are fairly easy to make, and they taste AMAZING when they’re homemade.  Also, if you make them from scratch, you can forgo the copious amounts of sodium you get from the store-bought pickles.  http://www.picklethis.com

3.  Sorbet – You can make sorbet better and healthier than anything you buy in stores.  Check out this link:  http://healthrecipes.com/health_slushies.htm

4.  Pizza – Yes, pizza can be very good for you.    The secret?  Make it yourself.  Go to www.jamieoliver.com and take a look at his incredible pizza recipes.

5.  Salad Dressing – It’s almost impossible to find a dressing you can trust at the store.  Make it yourself!  Check this list out:  http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2008/04/cheap-healthy-salad-dressing-102-light.html

Once again, this is a very short list.  Some of these things are very quick to make.  Others, namely pizza, can take some time.  Pizza is a great thing to do as a family, for instance.  It’s fun, and creative.

The point is, if the store doesn’t offer things that live upto your health standards, don’t just do without!  You can do it on your own.  So get inspired.