Day 19 over here, friends, and our cleanse has been good and bad and everything inbetween.

As Mary pointed out, we’ve broken our cleanse more than twice. And mostly, it’s because I work in food. Both my real job and my side job (aka GMS) are entirely involved in food, and cakes don’t frost themselves (although if we were in Harry Potter, they might, but that’s another story for another time.) So I’ve been busy whipping up cakes, frosting them, dipping pretzels in chocolate, and making homemade tortilla chips along the way. And every chef knows you can’t serve something to someone without first tasting it.

I still believe I am learning tons – I have mainly been snacking on whole foods, my stomach has calmed down over the past few weeks, and mostly staying away from white flour and white bread products has taught me to be satisfied with less (which is really more, because whole grain products have more nutrition!)

Our cleanse officially ends a week from Monday, but I think I’ve learned to make better choices and continue parts of the cleanse on. Mary, Corelyn, and I made homemade cereal (which is really just a few ingredients away from being granola) the other night, and it’s delicious, so easy, and makes a ton (we split it three ways and so far it’s looking like my 1/3 will feed me for 7 breakfasts!)

I was reading something for work the other day, and it really struck me as exactly what I’ve been trying to get across to my GMS and PL readers for the last few years:

“Cooking today is treated as a hobby,
a luxury for folks, when in fact it’s a basic skill we should all learn how to do.”

– Tracie McMillian, The American Way of Eating

This cleanse is about taking back what our grandparents knew, and our great grandparents. Eating affects your whole life, and it’s what keeps you going. So what shouldn’t it gain at least an hour of your attention each day?

Here’s a little secret: what I do is not special. It is not extraordinary. It is possible for each and every one of you to do what I do, to cook most nights from scratch. You just have to respect your basic needs enough to do it.

If you need me to show you, I’ll be in the kitchen.

Happy Friday, folks!