My plan for the year 2012 is to eliminate all processed foods from my family’s diet.  I think it was during the twins’ first year (2011) that we began to rely on processed foods a little too much.  Taking care of the babies was so all-consuming that I made more and more convenience dinners.  We were lucky dinner got made at all!  And even though most of the things we ate were “healthy processed foods” such as organic mac and cheese and vegetarian chick’n nuggets, they are still filled with tons of ingredients not found in the home kitchen.

So, this year as we start to come out of the haze of our first year with twins, we will take up a new challenge.  Each month we will eliminate a different category of processed food from our diet.  Hopefully this will be a more feasible plan than going cold turkey.  The idea is that by the end of each month we’ve become accustomed to going without that food and will be ready to tackle the next thing.  I plan to learn as I go and share recipes and tips each month.

I was inspired a great deal by Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, however, I don’t have a farm or a husband who is able to take a year off to help with kitchen duties.  I’m going to try to do this in the suburbs, with four small children and a busy husband.  So, we will see how easy it is to be simple in the suburbs.