A lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency

Because you guys are all awesome I think we have come up with a couple different solutions for Hubby’s Crystal Light addiction 🙂

1. Crystal Light Pure-Made with Stevia. I am not really familiar with Stevia so I will be doing my research. Please feel free to leave some feedback in the comment section.
2. Water with infused fruit-Hubby loves cherries and lime. So I am going to try and come up with a cherry lime concoction.

I also love this artical from Lisa about artifical sweetners:

Sweeteners 101

–By 100 Days of Real Food

“Ever since we started our 100 Days of Real Food it seems like we have been getting a lot of questions about sugar and other sweeteners. Can’t we have sugar? Isn’t it natural? Yes, I suppose it is technically “natural” since it is made from the sugar cane plant, but it is also a highly processed version of this plant similar to how white flour is made from the wheat plant. If we are going to start classifying things in this manner we could also technically say high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is “natural” since it is made from corn. And despite the mixed research on if HFCS is really worse for you than good ol’ white sugar, according to Michal Pollan, it just happens to be “a reliable marker for a food product that has been highly processed”.

A sweetener like honey can also be considered natural and somewhat “processed”, although the work is done by bees out in nature as opposed to in a factory. All of these (as well as other sweeteners) are high in energy and low in nutrients, although an alternative like honey or maple syrup might be slightly better in the nutrition department. According to Michael Pollan the moral of this story is that “sugar is sugar” and “organic sugar is sugar too.” In processed food there are “now some forty types of sugar used” including:

barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, dextrin, dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, sucrose, turbinado sugar

There are also the sweeteners you can find in the grocery store baking aisle such as:

Splenda, Equal, agave syrup, corn syrup, molasses, maple syrup, Sweet-n-Low, brown sugar

No matter what kind of sugar you decide to use we think there are a couple of key takeaways:

Consume any and all types of sugar in moderation mainly trying to reserve them for special occasions.

When it comes to store-bought foods avoid those “that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients” according to Pollan.

Given the choice go with a natural option like honey or even white sugar as opposed to the artificial stuff like aspartame (or Splenda).

As far as our 100 Days of Real Food rules go, we chose honey and 100% maple syrup as acceptable choices because they are made in nature and less often found in highly processed foods. This rule has resulted in us having to make from scratch anything we eat that contains a sweetener. Trust me when I tell you, I have searched high and low for a store-bought product containing 5 or less ingredients and honey or maple syrup as the sweetener. One may exist, but I have not found it. So this rule greatly helps us not only reduce, but also regulate our consumption of “sweets” since we have to make everything ourselves.”

 

I think we will stick with honey, agave nectar, and pure maple syrup. I know from doing my detox a while back that almost everything packaged has processed sugar and salt.

MORE Preparing for the Challenge :

We are really taking this challenge seriously and trying to get as much information out there as possible, but it is a bit overwhelming.

It should be easy to eat REAL FOOD, right? WRONG! As I go through our freezer and pantry I am realizing that there are so many packaged foods we eat on a daily basis that are NOT REAL FOOD, baked lays, granola bars, cereals….the list goes on. I am really excited to started eating pure 🙂

{I am sure this is going to be a lot harder for my picky Husband, but that is why I am excited for you all to see that it can be done for even the pickiest of eaters.}

As we prepare here are a few new  lessons we are learning:

1. Going out to dinner will be very limited for us.
2. We need to set a food budget we can stick to.
3. We need to inform our friends and family that we are doing this.
4. Date night might be at home…or picnics.
5. We will be busy in the garden soon, so we can eat our own veggies.
6. PREPPING IS THE KEY!

Here are some great blogs I found while researching how to be frugal and live off real food: Most of them are about Homesteading.

• http://www.livingasimplelife.com
• http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/p/about.html
• http://frugalhomesteading.com/blog/
• http://100dollarsamonth.blogspot.com/
• http://heatergirlie.blogspot.com/

I am becoming really intrigued with Homesteading!!! 

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.

Question: Have you heard of homesteading? If so what do you think of it?