One Step at a Time

I’ve been finding recently that learning new things about health and nutrition can be kind of addictive – addictive to the point of borderline obsession.

There are so many things to learn when you start exploring the world of real food prepared in traditional ways. It can seem a bit overwhelming at times when you’re making the transition from junky processed foods to homemade whole foods.

Traditional old-fashioned cooking often involves learning new preparation methods and techniques. I’ve tried quite a few new projects in the past few months, projects like rendering lard, making bone broth, and soaking grains for baking, but there are so many things I still need to try – sprouting grains, finding a good source of raw milk, making homemade yogurt, making lacto-fermented condiments . . . and so many more!

I’ve been realizing lately how important it is to try to just take things one step at a time when it comes to making the transition to healthier foods. There have definitely been times that I’ve let myself get too obsessed about food. Many nights I’ve stayed up much later than I should have researching about food on the internet, and many times I’ve made extra trips to the health food store to get organic ingredients I can’t find at the regular grocery store (even though I didn’t really have the time to be making the extra trip out to the store.)

I really do enjoy researching about health and nutrition, but all of that researching will probably do me more harm than good if I end up staying awake past midnight reading articles and blog posts rather than getting the full night of sleep I know I should be getting. And as important as I think it is to have organic produce, having conventionally grown veggies for one week might just be more beneficial than the stress caused by trying to squeeze an extra trip to the health food store into a day already packed with activities.

Is it important to learn about health and nutrition and to try to prepare the healthiest meals possible? Yes, of course it is, but I’ve been realizing that it’s equally important not to stress over food and food preparation. I could buy, prepare, and eat the healthiest meal possible, but I don’t think it would do me much good if I had to stress out about food preparation and scarf down the food in a hurry because the extra time it took to prepare it put me behind schedule.

There are a lot of things I still want to learn and a lot of new projects I want to experiment with, but, I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t have to do them all this week, or this month, and maybe not even all this year! The transition to healthy traditional foods doesn’t have to happen all at once. It can happen step by step by focusing on making just one small change at a time.

Have you ever tried to make too many healthy-lifestyle changes at one time?

~ Lori

This post is linked to Make a Move Monday at Simply Made Home and Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.