My Story: What I Learned from My Mother

We all do a lot of things because it’s the way “Mom” did it. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not so great. Fortunately for me, my mom’s a pretty great woman with a lot of common sense, practical knowledge and foresight. I learned a lot from her.

After understanding my conscious thought process and being born a conservationist, the next part of my story is the first of three lists. When I was digging deeper into nutrition last winter, I decided it would be interesting to see how far I’ve come and figure out how one goes from being a happy-go-lucky kid to being a nutrition/kitchen geek. My life is in three sections:  “Things I’ve Always Done”, “Things I Learned Because of Children” (having kids makes you look closely at health and nutrition; for me, it started with our birthing classes), and “The New Revolution” (anyone who’s ever read Nourishing Traditions will know exactly what I mean by that phrase).

Welcome to “Things I’ve Always Done” in the kitchen, otherwise titled “What I Learned from my Mother”:

• Homemade stock
• Tried to be “healthy”
• Cooked some things from scratch
• Shopped sales and frozen extras
• Eaten real cheese instead of processed
• Canola oil instead of corn oil
• Skim milk and low-fat dairy
• Eaten salads and vegetables
• Reused alum foil and plastic bags
• Recycled what I could
• Been “green”
• Some vinegar in cleaning, used rags sometimes instead of paper towel
• Homemade biscuits
• Reused plastic water bottles

I look back at some of these things and disagree with myself now. Some of the choices I made to try to be healthy were either misinformed (there’s soooo much bad information out there!) or just my best attempt with the resources I had at the time. There should probably be a lot more items on this list, but I can’t even remember them because they’re no longer categorized in my brain as “healthy living” after my new paradigm.

This part of my list was fairly interesting to create, but wait until you see the entire page I could come up with for “Because of Children” (that’s only 4 years worth of my life) and “Since December 2008” – two pages and counting! It’s fascinating to me what can be accomplished with a little gumption, prayer, and Baby Steps, one little change at a time. Please continue to join me to follow my journey to real food and sign on for Kitchen Stewardship^®‘s Monday Missions, so you, too, can have an exhaustive (but hopefully not exhausting!) list of positive changes in your kitchen., and if you missed the last Monday Mission, catch up here.

Read more folks’ stories, recipes, and activist articles at Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays and appreciate the Finer Things in Life with Amy at Finer Things Fridays.

What fun – I’m a new columnist at CatholicMom.com! You can read my first article, a piece from the beginning of the Super Foods series titled “What Does ‘Eating Healthy’ Mean?” here.

Other Interesting Posts:

• 10 Easy Prep Foods You’ll Always Find in My Freezer
• How Much Does my Dishwasher Cost?
• Dishes Workout
• Praying in the Kitchen