Sweet.

Yesterday, I took my car into town for a service at 9.30am. I may have squandered the entire day between then and 3pm loitering in book shops, trying on clothes, wandering aimlessly around town and dragging out a cup of green tea in a cafe for the best part of an hour......usually my mouth is scalded after I drink it in quick gulps, frantic that my children are trashing the joint and annoying everybody.

It was flicking through the paper without interruption that I read an article about how scientists predict that in five years time new born babies in Australia will be tested for a complete range of genetic diseases...which will effectively let parents know what diseases their babies are susceptible to and when they are likely to succumb. For under $1,000 everyone will be able to have these tests. I'm afraid to admit that I may have had a bit of a dwell on all of this. In the past I will admit to having fallen prey to self diagnosis by typing imagined symptoms into Google....and have come up with all manner of sudden onset, certainly fatal diseases....which mercifully haven't eventuated. I just don't know how I'd cope knowing for certain, not only my, but my entire family's eventual predicament years, or even worse, months in advance. I really don't think I'd want to know....would you?

Now before I panic you all into believing that I am what my children would derogatorily term a 'hippy freak' here is a quick look at what I wore today:

I picked the dress up for half price yesterday on my travels and while it may be silk...a natural fibre, the beads are definitely....plastic. In the photo you can't see the leopard print bikini, chosen by one of my boys, that I am wearing underneath.

Here's a close up of my bangle:

Which bears the mantra...."look on the bright side"....cue the whistle.

I think a lot about disease prevention through diet and exercise and am horrified that you really have to be committed to educating yourself about what really is good or bad for you. Surely this information should be honestly and uniformly presented so that everybody knows.....should Milo cereals really have a National Heart Foundation tick of approval emblazoned on the box.

It's no secret that I spend a lot of time in our local health food store...to the extent that I am on first name terms with the staff and they have even offered me their daughter for babysitting duty when I have been stuck at the eleventh hour......as that's where I buy locally grown and milled wholemeal flour/coconut oil/muscovado sugar/herbal toothpaste/cristal stick deodorant/shampoo and conditioner/ soap nuts for laundry and make our own peanut butter.

For the last six weeks my husband and I have been fiddling with acid/alkaline balancing...we even have the litmus paper and chart to prove it. All the usual culprits make the list of what causes your body to be overly acidic...stress, white bread, sugar, alcohol and coffee.....while green leafy vegetables, green drink:

this:

and yoga, laughing and optimism help make you more alkaline....and just in case you were wondering, you want to be alkaline.  I thought we are going OK...even though I may have suggested on the weekend mixing up a cocktail using the above two ingredients.....with vodka.

Then I read Sarah Wilson's book 'I Quit Sugar'. How on earth did I reach the age of 41 without realising how much sugar is in fruit....4.5 teaspoons in one APPLE alone. I have been plying myself and my family with more than two serves of fruit a day thinking I was doing the right thing when in reality I have been feeding them the equivalent amount of sugar found in a Coke and a doughnut....because at the end of the day fructose is fructose whether it's masquerading as a mango or as a Mr Whippy ice-cream.

So, now that the scales have fallen from my eyes and I'm not feeling so virtuous for using muscovado sugar when I should have been substituting powdered stevia, I have been working on trying to change my attitude towards fruit.....seeing that this has been the means by which sugar has been infiltrating our house. I've always used fruit as a lunchbox staple as it comes in it's own packaging and is natural. This week I've cut back and tried some some of Sarah Wilson's handy hints for lunch boxes.....put a scant handful of popping corn into a brown paper bag with a knob of butter or coconut oil, fold over the top and nuke for somewhere between 1 - 2 minutes. Easy.

Yesterday, I made the Avocado and Coconut Popsicles which I dished up for afternoon tea today instead of a fruit plate....two out of the three children actually ingested them. Hurrah...I'll keep working on the other two.

Today, after school we are heading up north to visit my mum in Launceston.....and she will unashamedly feed my children ice cream with sprinkles for breakfast.....if they ask her to. Let's hope they don't!

Rx