The Food Project

I'm taking a left turn from adoration of the babe to tell you about the other major thing in my family's life. The food project didn't start as a food project, it started as a series of blood pressure tests. Len was feeling really off all winter, tired and achy and listless. He started checking his blood pressure at the drugstores about two months back and it was up, really up. Thus began the food project.
To give some context, we didn't eat badly comparatively speaking before. Typically we were eating red meat once a week or less, vegetarian once a week and the rest chicken, pork and occasionally seafood. We were big eaters of sandwiches, breads of all of kinds and cheese, my goodness, do we all love cheese.
And then Len started feeling poorly and we all started looking for solutions. On the suggestion of several friends we started by cutting out wheat. In Toronto, this is a pretty easy thing to do as there are lots of alternative breads and crackers and such, so we thought, why not, let's give it a go. It took more then a month but Len's energy came back and he felt much better.
Next went the salt. We started looking at everything and cutting it everywhere. And from there it's just snowballed into a whole lifestyle change. More tofu, vegetarian three times a week, less sandwiches, way less cheese, more vegetables, less of everything. As Michael Pollan says in his wicked awesome book "In Defense of Food" "Eat food, not much, mostly plants". For those of you who haven't read it he means real food,not packaged, not processed, not with all of the fats replaced with oil.
So, some things have been unexpected. We switched the low fat cream cheese for a real organic gorgeous real whipped cream cheese, and the no fat yogurts for the more real stuff.
It's working. Len has lost probably eight to ten pounds, although there's no scale in this house so we don't really know. I'm down a couple as well. Len's blood pressure is just starting to get back into the normal zone. But more importantly, I'm excited and energized by this challenge.
Three weeks ago we switched to having organic fruit and veggie boxes delivered to the house. I am like a kid in a candy store! I can't wait to see what this weeks challenge is! Swiss chard, bring it! Watercress, wait until you see my watercress, roasted beet and orange salad with homemade orange salad dressing that I mixed with peach balsamic white vinegar. Kale, I can take it, keep it coming! Suddenly, the making of food has become something to dream about and imagine how creative I can be.
So, that's the start of the food project. In the next while I'm going to post an occasional description of triumph or failures and maybe even a recipe or two. I'm thrilled by what's happening at home and how it fits with my work and can't wait to share. As always, amidst pictures and stories of Adoring Adara!