Come and view this post on my new page: Red Hill Recipes
Post #1 is an odd thing isn’t it? You kind of feel like you ought to explain yourself, and justify to the general public (who may potentially someday read about a portion of your life) just why it is you think you have anything of interest to put out there.
I mean there are millions of kitchen/cooking/baking based blogs and websites out there already, right?
Here’s the thing. About 15 months ago I was looking for answers to some health issues I was concerned about. Ok. I’ll be honest. I wanted to lose weight. Was trying and couldn’t. Along with half the population of all first world countries no doubt. That may be an exaggeration. But maybe not. There is certainly no doubt at all that we are seeing an epidemic of obese/over-weight people in our culture. I’d rather not be numbered part of it though, thanks.
The trouble is I am not a scholar. I’m not a medical practitioner. I’m not even trained to understand how studies are done and whether or not they are trustworthy. I’m a run of the mill girl who didn’t know what to make of all the conflicting health, nutrition and diet information out there. Have you ever looked up this topic in a bookstore? It’s bewildering! You will find an entire wall full of books that disagree with one another as to what a person ought to do. Blood types. Vegan. Raw. Liver cleanse. You name it. Then beyond the book store, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Blah, Blah, Blah. And online it is worse. I can't follow all of them. Who's advice should I believe?
So, luckily for me I know some really smart people. Am actually related to some. On one hand my husband’s sister is a medical specialist who is currently researching treatment and/or cures for obesity (and by association, help for all it’s nasty friends : diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, dementia et al). And on the other hand my husband’s parents are both highly respected naturopaths (definitely no quackiness) who help people with their health and weight issues every day.
Yes they can sometimes be scarily intimidating in their smartness, but they have also been quite happy to help me pick through the myths and the hear-say and find the facts. And so I’ve become armed with some solid scientific, and medically proven tools that a person like me can really use to help themselves. Between all of these clever brains to pick, I have been able to come up with some answers.
Sadly, (for my tongue) those answers turned out to pretty much all lay at the feet of simple carbohydrates - in particular, sugar, which is half composed of the evil fat-inducing demon fructose. If you want to read a couple of books that will really help, you can start with this book by David Gillespie: "The Sweet Poison Quit Plan", and follow up with this one by Gary Taubes: "Why We Get Fat - and what to do about it".
The facts led us to decide that we will no longer eat sugar in our house. Well, fructose anyway. I won't bother explaining why, since I assume that people who find themselves reading a thing about a fructose-free kitchen already understand that it’s an addictive poison and should be avoided.
This blog is not meant to be a soap-box descrying the evils of the food industry and the misinformation in the nutritional guidelines (although I probably won’t be able to resist getting my high horse out for the odd gallop now and then). It’s actually meant to be a platform for sharing recipes that I’ve developed for our family (so I'll leave the high horse stabled for now).
See we still wanted to enjoy some sweet things in life! And also try not to seem like aliens to our sugar-eating friends. Which is where we (finally!) get to the point of this blog. I have learned lots about what doesn't work. To the point where I am starting to learn what does. And now I have people asking me about my recipes. So this blog is a place for my success stories. (Now that I have some!) Recipes and photos coming soon!
