"Real food"

I was recently inspired by this website to try to only eat real food - meaning no processed foods, no foods with ingredients I can't pronounce, and no food with sugar or white flour in it.  Now, I'm not doing it 100% - even my Stonyfield organic yogurt and my 100% whole wheat bread have sugar in them.  And if I go out to eat (which we do about once/week), I'm going to enjoy my meal and not ask a thousand questions like whether or not there is sugar in the soy sauce.  However, I did make my own plain yogurt the other day and so far, so good.  Hunter's still afraid to eat it, but he said he'll try it if I eat it for a week and don't die or anything.  :)  I also have plans to eventually make my own sugar-free whole wheat bread, but I'm not there yet.

The best part?  I have more energy than I've had in a while.  I was really surprised that after just a few days it made that much of a difference, but it did.  Nap/quiet time came around yesterday and instead of wanting to just go lie down, I organized my drawers and closet and cleaned out the pantry.  This isn't really a drastic change for us because we really don't eat many processed foods in the first place - we make pretty much everything from scratch - but even just cutting out little things here and there makes a difference.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of my favorite recipes/tips that I've found so far.

• In the mornings I've been drinking iced coffee (love this way of making it) and I add a little bit of almond milk and maple syrup.  Yes, maple syrup.  You really can't tell the difference and it's a natural sweetener.
• Love this whole wheat banana bread
• Here's my recipe for yogurt in a crock pot, and the berry sauce that I eventually plan to make to go with it.  So far I've just been adding a little bit of honey to it but the berry sauce sounds better.
• These cookies are SO good!  Yes there's some sugar in the chocolate chips, but that's it.
• And I love this granola recipe.  I make it with dried cranberries and for the nuts I do half sliced almonds, half pecan pieces.  Sometimes I reduce the amount of maple syrup, but I can tell the difference.
• I love eating this sandwich for lunch, though I leave off the green goddess sauce.
• Another way of satisfying my sweet tooth - mix a frozen banana, some almond milk (maybe 1/2 cup?), and 2 T of cocoa powder in a blender.  It seriously tastes like chocolate ice cream.