Healthy Living Heritage

Good tasty food is a guilty pleasure of mine.

I love good food.

I've always been interested in healthy living, and have strived to make it my lifestyle.

It started early in my youth, having a fit active hard working father, and a mother who created wonderful tasty healthy meals from whole foods - a big portion of which were home grown and raised.
One way I knew she loved us kids was by her diligent dedication
in feeding us and making such wonderful food.
She would often ask me what I wanted to eat and a few days later,
there would be the requested dish for dinner!

We always had:

* Regular meals as a family

* A vegetable garden & fruit trees - I would often sometimes help plant, weed, 

water, pick, cut and help can our goodies.
My favorite caned good would be the cherries from our Cherry tree or the plums...

* Chickens
 I loved collecting the fresh eggs as a kid!

And lets not talk about how much I loved the oven roasted young chickens from heaven where a few of us 4 kids would fight for the golden delicious drumsticks!

* Ducks
The baby ducklings were too adorable!

* Rabbits
 So cute as babies, which I was careful not to get too attached to as they ended up in a
delicious stew on my dinner plate!

* And the occasional goat
Fresh goat cheese, which I never ate as a kid, I soooo regret it now!

Let's face it, French cooking and food is the best on the planet!

We were not "rich" as to money but "rich" as to food goodness! 

Our physical needs were always met, I never had to go to bed hungry.

I feel so blessed to have had such examples in my early years.

And blessed to have grown up in France.

Merci Maman et Papa!

I strive to pass on a little bit of this way of living to my kids.

It hasn't been without challenges.
We had dinner every night as a family and I am saddened that this tradition has been mostly lost...

SometimesI think that I have failed in so many ways...

I feel sad to think that this healthy heritage from my parents will be lost.
But there is always hope... Especially as you kids get older.

Also I've had some picky eaters - you know who you are!
Amelie has been my try-everything-eat-salad-and-fruit kid from the time she was a baby!

There are other food influences in our home that have not been cultured in quite the
same way in their upbringing. 

[Food 'snobness' intended]

I find the American way of eating not the best to say the least.

And yes, a lot of it has influenced our eating as it is often fast, instant and convenient.

I hope my Kids - you reading this? - will see some value in what I have tried to teach them and feed them. Even if it's later on in life.

My philosophy has been.

Try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. 

But try it again later on, then again and again. 

One day you may like it.
Partake of Mother Earth's goodness!

 I was a little picky as a child too - for french standards - and now regret not eating all the wonderful things my maman would make.