Nutrition: A Complete Guide to Eating Healthy

Here is a list of nutritional information and tips I have learned over the last few years. The information is collected from online and televised news, studies, and different people of varying degrees of knowledge on this subject. (Note: This information is regarding the general population, not individuals with health conditions that require a special diet.)

1. Take vitamins and other supplements, such as iron, vitamin D, and calcium.

2. Don't take vitamins. They will harm you if they do anything at all.

3. Don't eat meat.

4. Not eating any meat is dangerous.

5. Only eat whole grain.

6. Don't eat any grain.

7. Human beings aren't meant to eat meat or grain.

8. It doesn't really matter what you eat. As long as you live long enough to reproduce, you've fulfilled evolutionary requirements.

9. Don't drink juice.

10. Give up milk. 

11. Give up all dairy.

12. Don't eat gluten.

13. Some sugar is ok.

14. Only sugar occurring naturally (i.e., in fruits) is ok. 

15. Don't eat/drink sugar. Use artificial sweeteners.

16. Don't eat/drink sugar. Don't use artificial sweeteners.

17. Use honey as a sweetener. But it has to be a special kind of honey. Or you can use molasses.

18. You should eat fruits and vegetables raw. If you must cook the vegetables, only cook about 10% of your daily vegetables, and only warm them up a little.

19. Only use organic.

20. The things they have to do to the food to make them organic doesn't make them any healthier than the chemicals they use for non-organic.

21. Almost everything you previously thought was healthy actually isn't. In about 4 months, there will be a ground-breaking study denouncing all other food you currently think is healthy.

22. Don't eat processed food.

23. Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce or don't recognize. 

24. Stay away from corn syrup.

25. Chocolate is good for you.

26. Chocolate is bad for you.

27. Preservatives are good because it keeps food fresh enough to eat. 

28. Preservatives are bad.

29. The only way to truly be safe is to plant and produce your own food. 

30. The government won't let farmers use their own seeds. They make them buy seeds which have who-knows-what growth hormones and alterations in them. Any seeds we have access to possibly have the same contaminants in them.

31. You can eat chicken and eggs, as long as they're from free-range chickens who have had a happy life.

32. Meticulously count calories and fat in everything you eat.

33. Follow the new food-guide pyramid.

34. Don't drink soda. Especially diet, because of the artificial sweeteners.

35. Nuts are good for you.

36. Nuts are bad for you.

37. Pasta gives you energy. 

38. Rice and pasta aren't good for you.

39. Most breakfast cereals aren't good for you.

40. We are fortunate to live in a country with clean water widely available.

41. You need to filter all water. Even bottled water contains impurities. 

So, have fun with these nutritional facts while you plan your next meal. And remember, don't stress! Stress weakens your immune system and you'll get sick!

Please Do Not Touch the Babies

I few months ago, I was sitting in a crowded waiting room of a doctor's office. My baby was fussing, so I took her out of her car seat and held her on my lap. There was a lady in the room who kept smiling and talking to my baby. She was a grandmother who was there with her husband, daughter, and grandson. After a few minutes, she stood up, walked over to me, held her arms out to my baby and said, "Mind if I hold her?" She seemed surprised when I said "I'd rather not, sorry". There have been others I've come across in stores and waiting rooms who have not tried to hold her, but they have no problem sticking their hand in her car seat and touching her feet, her hands, and her cheeks.

You know those signs you see at zoos everywhere that say something like, "Please Don't Feed the Animals"? Because what you feed them, and the amount you feed them, could make them sick, along with the possibility that the animal could try to attack you or bite your hand off if you've got food you're offering them. Well, I think there should be a public service announcement, and signs everywhere that say, "Please Do Not Touch the Babies." (And while we're there, we'll go ahead and add "Please Do Not Feed the Babies and Children" as well, but that's a topic for another time.) And by 'babies', I mean babies that do not belong to you, or at least babies that you do not know. I've found that this act of touching other people's babies is especially prevalent in older generations, ages 60+. Just so you know, I am also generally uncomfortable if strangers touch/pick up my 4-year-old, but this is not a very common occurrence, so I'm focusing on babies for now.

Why do people feel the need to touch strangers' babies?! I mean, I get the appeal. Babies are precious and adorable. I think mine is especially irresistible. But why do people think it's ok? Babies are not public property. This starts before a baby is even born. People cannot keep their hands off of a pregnant woman's belly. Fortunately, I have not personally experienced this, but I know lots of women whose bellies have been touched by mere acquaintances, or even strangers, without permission. Babies are not public property, and neither are women's bodies. 

I am simply uncomfortable with strangers touching my baby. If you really want to, ask. Some people may be ok with it if you ask first. But please don't be surprised or offended if I say I'd rather you didn't. I'm not saying that you look sick or that I think you look like a psychopath. But you are a stranger, and I do not know you. If you're a family member or friend, it's ok to touch my baby. I only expect that you have the common sense to only touch my baby if your hands are clean and you haven't been sick or caring for someone who is sick. It's still a nice touch if you ask first. And please, there is never a reason to ever put your fingers in my baby's mouth, unless she is choking or on the verge of choking. Likewise, if there's an emergency, and you need to touch the baby to save her, by all means, go for it. But as a general rule:

Please Do Not Touch the Babies! 

My Recent Frustrations

-I am soooo emotional with this pregnancy. The smallest things make my facial muscles tense up and my eyes sting, like I'm going to cry. But any time I get emotional, I feel so sick, and crying almost guarantees that I will throw up, or have to work very hard to force myself to stop crying so I don't throw up. I've been on anti-nausea medicine for a week or so, which has been working well, except for when I get emotional. I've gotten emotional with: Christmas songs, sad scenes in movies or on TV, watching the news, hearing people's tough stories...I cannot handle it right now. I've started avoiding these things like crazy.

-I am so irritable. I'm having a hard time with a lot of things....so tired of chores, the endless cycle of cleaning dirty stuff, only to have it get dirty again almost immediately. Washing dishes, putting them away, washing clothes, folding them, putting them away (more like cramming them away, I feel like there's never enough room in our closet/drawers), the constant nagging of ironing clothes and mending clothes (which I know I need to but rarely do), getting stains out. And DIAPERS!!! I'm so exasperated with diapers! I've got a baby on the way, and I'm fine with the fact that I've only got more diapers coming (with this new baby), but my 3-year-old's diapers! Arghhh!!! We've been working on potty-training for a long time, my daughter has done fairly well for a week or so at a time, one time, for like, 3 weeks, she stayed pretty much dry all day long (still wetting night diapers and still taking care of #2 in her diaper/pullup), but I thought we were past that. But NO! She went back to wetting more often during the day. Then, she stopped wiping (without someone telling her to); she'd pee in the toilet and slip off as soon as she was done, which was frustrating.  And now, she has like, completely given up all together. She NEVER uses the potty. I know she knows how to. I've offered incentives that she acts all excited about. She acts like she totally gets it and understands it. But she WON'T use the TOILET!! She will go in her diaper, in her pull-up, in her panties (she'll go all day long in different pairs of panties...she'll go through 5 or more panties a day...she doesn't like being wet, but she's changed right away...I can't let her get pee all over the carpet, furniture, etc), and she'll go au naturel. Lots of people swear by letting their kid run around with nothing on. It worked one time. My daughter said, "I have to go potty! No diaper on!" But other than that, it didn't work. She'd just stand in a puddle going, "uh-oh" and do it again. She's even gone #2 while standing up, with nothing on, standing on the carpet. That was not a good day. I've tried keeping her on the potty for a long time. She won't go, but then she'll mess up her diaper/pull-up/panty as soon as she gets it on again. I've tried sitting her on the toilet frequently. She has a princess potty seat that we put on top of a regular toilet (although she's used a toilet successfully without one on, both at home, and in public), but I have REFUSED to get her a mini, portable potty that sits on the floor. If they're potty-trained just with the mini-one, that's NOT potty-trained. I don't want her to take that thing all over the house. That's no different that just wearing a diaper, and that is DISGUSTING to clean up. I could just limit it where the thing HAS to be in the bathroom at all times, but I still don't see how that's any better than just going in a diaper. At least you can just trash an icky diaper. To me, the mini potty just adds an unnecessary and disgusting step to being potty-trained. Anything I've read, and the only thing I can come up with now, is we just need to wait. Wait until she decides she's done with diapers. I remember being really hesitant to do new things when I was little. Apparently, I was a nightmare to potty-train too, although I don't think I was this bad. But what I don't get is that she's done this before (she's never really done poo in the potty, but she has with pee). I know she can do it because she's gone through periods of staying dry before. Soo frustrating.

-I got married 2 weeks after I turned 20. Had my first child 2 years later. Can't say I'd do it any differently if I could do it all over again, but lately I've been having a lot of "what-if" thoughts. My whole life, I thought that being a wife and mom (furthermore, a housewife, and a stay-at-home mom) would be my thing. I felt like I was MADE for those roles, and that I'd fit in so comfortably, and would so enjoy life when that time came. Sigh. Let's just say that's not how I'm feeling now that that IS my life. I mean, I love my family, and I'm glad I can stay home and take care of my child during the day, but when I see pictures of someone's wonderful European vacation, and I'm at home with the theme song of "Busytown" (a cartoon) stuck in my head...it's hard.

-I hate school. I HATE school. I hated school, and I still hate school. Technically, I don't have to deal with school right now. My husband and I both graduated college, him with a master's degree. And my daughter is only 3 and I haven't bothered with preschool. But my husband has all these tests and extra stuff to do as part of his career, so he's got to spend so much time studying outside of his work hours. And I just found out that if my daughter starts Kindergarten here, she can start fall of 2013. In a year and a half. I thought I had 2 1/2 years left til that happened. So, between all that, I feel like I am never going to get a break from being involved with school. Oh, I hate school. I hate how much time it takes out of each day, even for very young kids, not to mention that transportation to and from school (here, they bus kids all over the city so that each school is "diversified" or something), and the homework. I did well in school. I was well-behaved, though very quiet and shy. I got into, and graduated from, a good university. I like the having done it. But I did not like the doing it. I could have made much better grades in college, I think. If I had felt compelled to study and work at it more than I did. But I HATED it. Few people actually ENJOY studying, but I seriously hated it and was repulsed by it. College was better than high school. It was more of the college life and the freedom I enjoyed. It's not like I did crazy things with the freedom. I just liked being on my own, arranging my own life, more or less. Not being under the constant eye of authority. Had I had a different high school experience, I might not be so hateful toward school, I suppose. But I lived in an area where they had to be really strict to keep the school from falling into a truly scary place, from being a really "bad" school, like most of the schools in the next county were. But I remember not liking school when I was younger (ok, not many little kids like school, but still). In Kindergarten, my mom and I had this routine every single day on the way to school. I would say/whine/cry, "I don't want to go to school, I don't want to go to school!" And my mom would reply each time in a sing-song voice, "But you have to go to school, because that is the rule" And I only went to Kindergarten a couple hours a day, just a few days a week. I did have some good teachers throughout the years. Teachers who were inspiring, and who kept me going, kept me from insanity. And I am very grateful for them. I don't know what my perfect solution would be. Education is important. And I think kids should go to school, as opposed to like, homeschooling, in most situations, for the social and real-life experience. But I hate the politics. I hate the way it can take over your life, even when you're not necessarily trying to be the best at everything. I don't like the useless and busy work. I don't like how some teaching procedures work, how, especially in math, kids have to do things a certain way. Sometimes we'd have to show our work, show how we figured it out, but we had to do it a certain way. Husband says I need to stop saying that I hate school, and I know I do. My daughter doesn't need to hear that. She's already genetically predisposed to dislike school; hearing it from mom all the time isn't going to help. I've got to figure out some way to cope. All I can say is, I really hope she likes it more than I did. Because, if ever she comes up to me and says she really doesn't want to go to school that day, especially if that statement involves tears, I'm gonna have a realllly hard time encouraging her to go, and not saying every time, "Oh, it's ok, sweetheart, you can stay home with Mommy today!"

Spilled Cereal and A Person's Worth

The other day, my daughter dumped out half a box of cocoa puffs all over the floor, table, and highchair. She was sitting in the high chair, picking up and eating pieces of cereal from around her legs and on the table as I swept the cereal on the floor into a dust pan and put it in the garbage. A few times, she went to grab a cocoa puff to eat it, but would drop it on the floor. She'd look down at the one single cocoa puff, among all the others on the floor, and point, saying "UH-OH!" I was just thinking, there's like hundreds of these on the floor, and about a hundred up within her reach...why is she worried about dropping ONE?! That one cocoa puff would attract a full 20 seconds of her attention before she'd move on.
As I continued working, I suddenly thought of some parallels between this experience and the way Christ sees His children. There are so many of us; yet if one falls astray, He has so much care and concern for the one that He'll "leave the ninety and nine" to rescue the one. There are tons of us who have fallen astray, and tons who are on the path Christ has laid out for us. So it may seem insignificant if just ONE person falls from the right path. But it is not insignificant. Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father love us individually and unconditionally. They care about the ONE and want what's best for the ONE. Each one.
I was sitting on the floor with the dirty cocoa puffs and my daughter was sitting in her high chair, with all the clean cocoa puffs. I had to look upward to see her. I imagined the table legs around me to be pillars, and the cocoa puffs, fallen people. With so many, I'd think one little cocoa puff falling would go practically unnoticed. And really, a piece of cereal isn't a big deal, but I'm glad my little girl was so interested in it that it gave me a little spiritual reminder. It just seems kind of amazing, that with all the people that are, were, and will be, in this world and others, ONE person can have the love, care, concern, and attention of our Savior and Heavenly Father.

Back in Utah

We got back last night. I feels really really weird. I swear, we were just packing up the car to LEAVE Utah. Now we're back and we've UNPACKED the car. Husband and Daughter and I are all kinda weirded out. Daughter doesn't quite know what to think of everyone around. We're in a bit of a funk. This summer was so much fun. We loved being in Louisville, and being on our own for the summer. It's good to be back and see family and friends, but it is supremely weird, too. I can't imagine how missionaries or anyone who's been gone for a lot longer feel when they come back home. Husband said this feels weird, but coming home from his mission was 10 times weirder. Some things are exactly the same, some things have changed. This whole internship thing seems like a surreal dream sometimes. I guess it'll take some time to get used to things and put things into perspective.

Summer Treats

Fruity popsicles are usually just too sugary for me. I recently bought one of those popsicle-maker containers, and filled them with juice. Soooooooo much better than the factory-made sugary ones!!!! A lot more nutritious, too. I'm surprised some company hasn't come up with it yet. Maybe one has...I don't know. Husband filled one of the little cups up with pickle juice. I tasted it, and it tasted....exactly like pickles. Just not really the flavor I want in something that is to be eaten frozen, ya know? Husband said it was a bit too strong, and that he'd have to dilute it next time. I plan on putting yogurt in those containers next, similar to putting Gogurts in the freezer, which I really like.

Happy Birthday! I love you!

We went to Toy Story 3 tonight for Husband's birthday. It was good; we liked it. We never go to any regular movie theaters--only dollar movies sometimes. (And we do Redbox sometimes, as well as renting movies [free!] from the library.) So this was special.