We Made It!!!!!!!

While we were invited to THREE different parties last night, Andy and I ended up toasting the new year with Nyquil.  We long ago had to decide medicines were "exempt" as we don't really know what ANY of the ingredients in them are, but I did make a stab at getting only medications without artificial coloring.  Not that it worked--except for a box of "Cold Ease" which had no artificial colors or flavors, and didn't do anything anyway.  So far I think the worst offender is Robitussen.  They've added coloring AND flavoring and their cough medication is still completely vile.  I can't imagine what it tasted like before they added flavoring, but it must have been rancid.  Or their tasters are just plain crazy.

Andy did use up his last official "cheat" with a white chocolate martini, but I ended up using mine on Campbell's chicken noodle soup.  So anticlimactic.  It reminds me of the line from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men:"

     This is the way the world ends

     This is the way the world ends

     This is the way the world ends

     Not with a bang but a whimper

This is the way the Year of No Processed Foods Ends--not with a bang but canned soup. 

So what is next?

Well, we can't go back.  Sadly, we are now certain that we are better off without processed foods, so it would make no sense to recondition our bodies to allow processed foods again.  But I would like to allow certain "forbidden" foods once in a while.  And maybe a soda once a month or so, as I still have not lost my taste for diet Pepsi.  But I think one of the things we have decided is that our "fake" foods (lite, nonfat, etc.) really aren't better for us.  The real foods in very small amounts provide more flavor & are probably healthier.  We have learned to appreciate unadulterated tastes--roasted onion, grilled pineapple--and have become genuinely spoiled by having homemade bread & homemade mustard regularly.  We wouldn't go back to the commercial varieties of those even if we could.  We will be glad to have chocolate candy back (Andy having just enjoyed the first piece of the year) but realize that so much sugar all at once is a pretty big shock to the system.  We will continue to expand the garden--I'm thinking of starting cold frames this month, but I might have to wait until some snow melts--and the insane canning adventures will continue (in fact, if this cold refuses to go away, I might can mustard this weekend as I can think of nothing that clears out the sinuses like cooking mustard).  Aside from a few locally-owned restaurants, we'll continue to not eat out as the food is expensive, not very good, and makes us sick for 24 hours. 

As to what my project for this year will be--I still have a long list of food topics I want to research.  This year's experiment actually raised many more questions than it answered.  I've tracked down several old cookbooks, books on food history, and old home economics texts, so I have a lot of reading still to do.  And--finding a way to make this diet a livable way of life is going to take some time.  So, this is actually a two-year project it seems. 

Now I'm off to track down those M & Ms............:)