Blogging Dilemmas

Most of you already know that I am in the process of starting up a food blog. The premise of the blog is going to be showing people that eating organic is doable without breaking your budget as well as posting recipes and giving detailed information about why you should be eating organic and unprocessed foods. I feel at a little bit of a stand still. The concept of the food blog is very much on my heart. It's a topic that I feel passionate about and I think most Americans need to be better informed about the ugly truths behind our food system. With that being said, I am scared to start the blog. I don't want people to feel annoyed with me or to feel that I am trying to tell them what to eat. The concept of food is such a difficult topic to discuss because so many of us are very sensitive about others telling us how to eat. I want to make sure that this blog will be filled with detailed, useful information and I want to make sure that all content is posted very well. I probably won't be able to have it up and running until this summer, but I do hope that my readers of this blog will support me in my new food blog.  I hope that I can post content that is useful without sounding holier healthier than thou. I am putting some concepts below so that you all can know what to watch for:

Organic, unprocessed meal plans on a strict budget

30 days of no processed food challenge- my family will be doing this and we want readers to join us!

Tons of recipes for healthy snacks, desserts, and meals

How to teach your kids to be healthy eaters

Why you NEED to eat organic

These are just  a few concepts. Putting everything together is a daunting task. I am really hopeful to have things up and running this summer so please stay tuned :)

We Had So Much Fun!

I have to post this  quickly before all of the sweetness of today starts to dissipate from my memory. James was out of town this weekend and I knew that I didn't want to sit around the house all day with Sophia. The weather has been so beautiful lately and I have been stuck inside studying and unable to enjoy it for the past two weeks. Today changed that! I have been wanting to check out a local dairy farm in Gilbert called Save Your Dairy  for a few weeks now. Today seemed like the perfect day. When I asked Sophia if she wanted to go see the cows, the vote was unanimous. I grabbed an ice chest and filled it with ice before we headed out the door. Gotta keep that milk COLD if you want there to be any calcium in it! We drove about thirty minutes out to Higley and Riggs. When we got out of the car, there were cows everywhere. We asked a guy on a tractor if we could visit the cows and he said of course! We first met the baby cows and they were loving Sophia! We had the opportunity to watch them eat a grass filled lunch which was really awesome. Then we headed over to the mommy cows who came right over to say hello. We stayed at the farm for close to an hour before I remembered that we had come to purchase milk. Oh yeah, whoops! We walked into the farm shop and talked to the girl behind the counter for a few minutes about the benefits of raw milk as compared to pasteurized. In a nutshell, the only reason that pasteurized milk has calcium and vitamin D is because they fortify it. When they pasteurize the milk, all naturally occuring vitamins and healthy bacteria are destroyed. The raw milk is a creamy, white, delicious, liquid nutrient powerhouse filled with healthy probiotics and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). There is a lot of controversy over raw milk, but after learning all about pasteurization and calcium and vitamin D in my classes, I am very much in favor of raw milk.   I'll go into more details about this at a later time....

After getting our milk and waving goodbye to our new udderly amazing friends:) we headed to Joe's Farm Grill for a tasty lunch. We had to wait almost an hour to place our order, but that didn't keep us from having fun. We enjoyed playing in the grass and soaking in some vitamin D from the good old sunshine! When we were leaving the restaurant, Sophia starting giggling and turned to me and said, "We had so much fun mom!" That statement made my heart melt. I truly enjoyed the afternoon, but it was sweet to hear her say that she had also enjoyed the day. When we arrived home, Sophia grabbed my hand and said, "Mommy what's on your finger?" I told her, "that's my ring. I wear it because I love Daddy." She then said, "Mommy, I want a ring, I love Daddy too." Definitely my favorite Sophia quote thus far:) Today was one of those days that I especially want to remember. A day for just me and my sweet girl.

Perfectly Made

What if I could choose which of my traits my children inherited and which ones I don't want them to inherit? That would be amazing!!!! I was thinking about this the other day when we went over to a friend's house, and Sophia didn't want to get down and play for a few minutes and instead tried to hide her face against me. I thought to myself, "oh no! She is becoming shy like her mama!"  NOOOOO! Honestly, my shyness is one of my least favorite things about myself. I was the little girl who dropped out of EVERY activity I ever joined and made my mom walk me to my class on the first day of school even up through my freshman year of high school. Yep, true story. As an adult, I hate my child self for not being outgoing. I feel like I missed out on experiencing more activities in school and building stronger friendships. Now that I am an adult, I always worry that people think I am snobby, when in fact I am just REALLY shy and definitely not a social butterfly. I don't want my children to be shy. I want Sophia to be willing to try new activities and make lots of friends. I want her to be confident and social and experience everything that life has to offer her.

I most definitely do not want my children to inherit my ability to let everything stress me out. I am really good at turning a small problem into a huge catastrophe. Its a good thing I have a wonderful husband to calm me down and keep me grounded.  I definitely hope Sophia grows up to be laid back like her daddy and not uptight like her mama.  It amazes me sometimes just how laid back James can be when we are having a crazy day. I can't help but say to him, "why aren't you freaking out right now?!!!!" I hate to think of myself as uptight, but unfortunately, when it comes to things I care about, I am VERY uptight and opinionated. Darn it!

The quality that I hope my children inherit from their dad is not only his calm demeanor, but especially his ability to see the best in every situation. James is very much a glass half full sort of guy and I am grateful. No matter what we are dealing with in life, he always knows how to remain positive. I love this about him 

Ok so then what do I want my children to inherit from me? I love my ability to be genuine. I am very much a "what you see is what you get" sort of person which isn't always a good thing. If I am having a bad day, its obvious in the way I carry myself. I wear my heart on my sleeve because I don't know how else to wear it. I am very real. I don't consider myself flaky or fake whatsoever. I don't feel above anyone or better than anyone. I try to stay very candid and honest in my interpretation of things. I hope that my children will grow up to understand the importance of being yourself. Though I am shy and I  completely suck at meeting new people, I don't try and change this about myself because I know that I am perfectly made in God's eyes and he wants me to be me. I hope and pray that my children will learn from me the importance of being true to yourself and genuine. Whether my children are shy or outgoing or uptight or laid back, I hope they know that the Lord has made them perfectly and our God doesn't make mistakes!

I think I was in preschool in this photo. I was super duper shy in preschool to everyone except my boyfriend Michael :) Yep, I had a boyfriend when I was four. I love the look on my sister's face. She is probably saying," I can't believe you got a boyfriend before me, that's not fair!" Its probably because I like to wear awesome sparkly dresses from the 80s....

Since we are taking a walk down memory lane, here is an elementary picture of James! Isn't this hilarious! Nice necklace James :) Love you!

Juicy Juice Juice

A lot of people have asked me why I don't give my daughter juice. I wanted to post this to explain my thoughts on the topic. After having Sophia, I made the decision to keep my kids away from juice for as long as possible. This does not mean that I will never allow my children to have juice, it simply means that I will try to hold off on introducing it, and once Sophia does discover it, I will limit her intake of it. Whenever I tell people that my daughter doesn't drink juice, they typically look at me in horror
(not an exaggeration) as though I told them my daughter isn't allowed to play with toys. "Oh my gosh, your poor deprived daughter!" "If she doesn't drink juice, then what does she drink?" "But juice is so healthy, she needs vitamins". blah blah blah. For years we have been told that after introduction of solids, we should add diluted juice to our child's sippy cup while weaning them off breast milk. No one has ever questioned this because people just assume that whatever your pediatrician tells you, must be what you are "supposed" to do for your kids.

Let me present you with two statistics about juice: Juice is the NUMBER ONE leading cause of dental caries in young children and the NUMBER THREE leading cause of childhood obesity. The problem with juice is that if you introduce it very early in life then your child becomes accustomed to it and they will not want to drink boring, plain water.   I have chosen to wait until my kids are old enough to take an interest in juice, and at that point we will discuss the importance of drinking mostly water and just a small amount of juice. For right now, my daughter drinks only water and a small amount of almond milk and she doesn't think that she is missing out on anything.

Is juice bad? No juice is not bad. 100% juice is healthy in moderation and provides a small amount of vitamin C. The "bad" thing about juice, is letting your kids drink it all day long and not teaching them the importance of whole fruits. The lack of fiber in the juice provides for a higher sugar spike and higher glycemic load.


Does juice count as a serving of fruit? that depends on who you ask. I personally do not count juice as a fruit, I count it as discretionary calories.   Unlike whole fruit, juice lacks fiber which contributes to feelings of fullness and satisfaction after eating. Although juice has Vitamin C, it is a miniscule amount. You see, vitamin C is a highly liable nutrient, which means it is very sensitive to its environment. When a carton of juice is packaged, it may provide 30% vitamin C for a 8oz glass, but after that juice sits on a shelf for a few weeks, the Vitamin C literally dissappears! That means most juice you drink, can have as little as 1% of your daily needs!!!! Shocking, but true.

To sum everything up, choosing to not give your kids juice is not cruel. Kids do not "need" juice. If you choose to give your kids juice at a young age, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Every parent has to make their own decisions based on their child. Make sure you choose 100% juice and preferably organic so that your young ones are not drinking pesticides. I would also encourage you to monitor the amount of juice. If you are not careful, your kids could be consuming hundreds of grams of sugar each day just in their juice! Yikes!
For those of you who have been convinced that juice is an essential part of your child's diet, I hope this post will at least make you think a little bit:)

Seeing the Blessings Amidst the Storm

My life feels like complete and utter chaos right now. Most days I throw up my hands in defeat because either I didn't get my studying done, or the house is trashed. And when I say trashed, I mean you can't make it through the living room without stepping on a toy or a peanut butter cookie crumb. In addition to feeling this distress, I am constantly tired. I mean constantly. There is such a delicate balance between having time to study, clean, and spend time with Sophia and James.  I have to think of school as my career right now because it is the only way to get through it. Being a student means going to class and then devoting every minute of my evening to studying. Its truly the only way to get through it. Nutrition is not an easy field to be getting into! 

I graduated high school in 2005. The fact that I don't have a degree yet makes me sad. The fact that Sophia doesn't have a sibling yet makes me even more sad. The fear of graduating and not getting accepted to an internship and not becoming a dietitian makes me furious. The other day I had a huge ah ha moment. We had just finished making dinner, there were toys everywhere, I was doing dishes and then I looked over at James and Sophia. They were both wearing silly hats and playing "horsey" where Daddy is the horse and he runs around with Sophia on his back. I couldn't help but stop and savor this moment. God told me in that second, "Delia stop it! Stop wondering about the future, stop trying to micro manage, I will give you a child when its time, and I will guide your vocation to whatever I call you to. Enjoy the moment and love the child that is here with you." This moment almost brought me to tears. For every stressful day and every messy peanut butter and jelly grossness that I wipe off the table, I am abundantly blessed in a way that most girls dream of. I am married to the love of my life and I have a daughter who is more special than I ever realized she would be. The chaos of my life is the joy of my life. I love picking up toys and sticky messes, because it reminds me of the sweet girl that I have the opportunity of raising and forming into a daughter of His.  I am grateful for where I am in life and I know that His plans are greater than my own. I will endure however much chaos it takes so that I can live my life according to His will.

I love these two so much! Just another fun night at the Salas house!

A New Endeavor, Herb'n Flavors

When James picked me up from the light rail this afternoon, I was completely famished! My mom just told me about a new restaurant in Tempe that is organic and local. I knew this would solve our problems for a quick and healthy lunch. We picked up Sophia and quickly headed to Herb'n Flavors for some delicious food. When we sat down, I asked our waitress what was organic on the menu and she kindly replied, "If its not organic and local, its not on our menu". I clarified this even further because it seemed too good to be true. "Okay so your beef is grass fed and your chicken is free range?" "Yep" This is amazing! How can it be that there is a restaurant that offers ALL organic and local? This is the first restaurant that I know of. There are several restaurants that offer a few organic options, but this place has it all. And the prices are very reasonable! If they are able to offer an entirely organic menu with reasonable prices and still make profit, then why are more restaurants not doing the same? I am trying to gradually stop eating at conventional restaurants all together because I am sick and tired of having to look at their disgusting kids menu full of junk food items and nothing but refined pastas and breads. I want to eat real food. ALWAYS. Not just at home. I believe that we deserve to eat fresh, real ingredients, the way that food was meant to be made. Is that too much to ask? Check out their food here

Hummus and dip platter included a vegan spinach dip that was seriously amazing!

My veggie and rice and bean pita. Delish!

James' turkey pita. Yep even their deli meats are organic!

I will be a frequent customer of this place! I want them to stay open forever!

This brings me to my next point. As you all know, I am CRAZY when it comes to food! I really am. I admit it. I think that in order to evoke change, it requires being radical and a little crazy. There is a food epidemic in our country. We are the only country that allows meat to come from factories rather than farms. People are very uninformed about what is in their food and I want to change that!!! I have a huge desire right now to start a website/blog devoted to unprocessed, organic eating on a budget. I want to evoke change in everyone around me and teach people that eating unprocessed foods doesn't have to be a daunting and expensive task. I want to get the message out there to my readers of the severity of conventional food items from a conventional grocery store. I haven't bought meat at a conventional grocery store in three years! All of my meat comes from farmers markets and I will explain why. I am way too busy with school right now to put this website into action. My goal is to start building it slowly and have it up and running in March. My question to all of you is what do you want to learn from the website? What are your areas of interest? Organic meat, factory farming, hormones, pesticides, wild salmon, refined oils, etc. I want to hear your thoughts on this endeavor!

A New Year

I am really looking forward to 2012. I have such a good feeling about this year. I realize that sounds very cliche, but its true! The Salas family needs to have a good year! The past few months have been really stressful between school, finances, and the emotional toll of experiencing a miscarriage.  God has carried us through everything, and I am grateful.  Okay okay, I hate making resolutions because most of the time people make ridiculous resolutions that they cannot keep. I am making my resolutions because I want to see how many things on my list will happen. I think it will be so fun to look back on this list next year and see my accomplishments and growth. Think of these as goals rather than resolutions. Goal just has a nicer ring to it, don't you think?

New Year's Resolutions (goals)

1.Graduate with a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics. Can I get a woot woot! I am scheduled to graduate fall 2012.

2. Band success. This is more a goal of my husband's than mine, but it is also my goal because I support his dreams.  It is my hope that the release of their new album will bring a lot of success and greater opportunities to play music and spread His word.

3. Have a baby! I realize that this is really not in my control. I guess this is more of a desire than a goal. I desperately want to ring in the new year for 2013 with a little baby in my arms. My heart is aching for another  baby in a way that only my fellow mothers can understand.

4. Get our finances in check. We have some debt right now that I am really stressed about and sometimes it keeps James up at night thinking about... I'll spare the details here, but I hope that this year will be the year to get us to a very financially secure state!

5. I want to be more assertive in my desire to feed my family organic, unprocessed foods. This is a really hard topic to try and make our families understand. A few family members will continue to try and give Sophia junk food and I hate feeling like the bad guy and having to repeatedly tell them that we don't like to eat processed food. I want people to have an understanding of why I choose organic and to not think that I am a crazy ridiculous snob for not letting my daughter eat very much junk food. I guess my goal is to help my family have a greater understanding and maybe even hop on the "whole, unprocessed foods bandwagon" with us!

6. Possibly my greatest goal for the new year is to delve deeper into my faith. I have recently had a really strong realization that teaching my daughter about her faith does not start at any certain age, it starts now! I hope that this year we can develop stronger prayer habits as a family and begin to teach Sophia in more and more ways about the church and our beautiful Catholic faith.

Happy New Year!