I recently read the book

Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow

and I was completely blown away by it.

It had some beautiful messages and passages and I wrote down my favorite ones to share with you all!

Life’s deepest experience is the joy that fills our hearts when we love and give to others.

In the end, what will matter is how much we loved-

Families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place.

What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

This is still the real work at hand: for each one of us to meet the bad in the world with the good in our own hearts.

If we do not suffer a loss all the way to the end, it will wait for us.

It won’t just dissipate and disappear. Rather, it will fester, and we will experience its sorrow later, in stranger forms.

This is my path and the particular difficulties given to me are my teachers.

If we are not willing to confront the truth about ourselves that a loss unearths, we squander a rare and precious opportunity for transformation.

Our grief, while deeply felt, runs the risk of becoming a sentimental escape from the most meaningful part of the journey.

You can find this book an Amazon HERE and the author’s website can be found HERE.

**The Best Yes**

I recently read this book and it completely changed my life.

There was so much great advice from Lysa. I have commonly felt rushed in my life and pulled in too many directions. This book talked about how there is many things we can commit to, but that we need to figure out what is the BEST YES to give our time and energy to.

“We must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please. “

A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul.

I blindly live at the mercy of the requests of others that come my way each day. Every assignment feels like my assignment.

You need me?  You got me.

Because I’m too scared or too cowardly or too busy or too something to just be honest and say, “I can’t this time”.

We must not confuse the command to love with the desire to please.

In God’s plan, you’ve got a part to play.

If you know it and believe it, you’ll live it.

You’ll live your life making decisions with the Best Yes as your best filter.

You’ll be a grand display of God’s Word lived out.

Your undistracted love will make your faith ring true.

Your wisdom will help you make decisions that will still be good tomorrow.

And you’ll be alive and present for all of it.

When all of life feels like an urgent rush from one demand to another, we become forgetful.

We forget simple things like where we put our car keys or that one crucial ingredient for dinner when we run into the grocery store. But even more disturbing, we forget God. We say with our mouths that we are trusting and relying on God, but are we really?

A quick check to see if this is true is our ability to notice what God wants us to notice and our willingness to participate when God invites us to participate.

Other people’s requests dictate the decisions we make. We become slaves to other’s demands when we let our time become dictated by requests. We will live reactive lives instead of proactive. And reactive lives get very exhausting, very quickly. We get requests. We fill up our schedules all the way to the limit. We leave very little white space. We live lives that exhaust us.

A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul. An underwhelmed soul is one who knows there is more God made her to do. She longs to do that thing she wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about.

The decisions we make dictate the schedules we keep.

The schedules we keep determine the lives we live.

The lives we live determine how we spend our souls.

So, this isn’t just about finding time.

This is about honoring God with the time we have.

Never is a woman so fulfilled as when she chooses to underwhelm her schedule so she can let God overwhelm her soul.

Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It’s there. We can learn right here, right now, in the midst of all that’s daily how to become wise.

I’ve learned the best “no” answers are graciously honest. A simple no I will sometimes use is, “While my heart wants to say yes, the reality of my time makes this a no.”  Because I am someone who carries a great desire to make others happy, my heart is usually always jumping up and down demanding, “Say yes! Say yes!” But my brain has learned it must boss my heart around a bit once it checks my schedule, considers my capacity, and understands what is and is not my responsibility.

The difficult moment of saying no is worth it if it helps you avoid being resentful later.

Saying yes all the time won’t make me Wonder Woman. It will make me a worn-out woman.

We dread saying yes but feel powerless to say no. Why?  Because of the elephant called people pleasing?

We are afraid of people not liking us. Not admiring us. Not being pleased with us. So we spend the best of who we are doing a million things we know we aren’t supposed to be doing.

It is impossible to please everyone. And wearing yourself out trying will often make you the unhappiest person in the room.

We fear disappointing people.

When you have a pattern of saying yes when you know you should say no, it’s time to reevaluate some things.

Step back and think about what’s really going on. You said no because saying yes would invite crazy into your life. And you’ve been telling yourself over and over, NO MORE CRAZY. If they push back when you say no, that’s disrespectful on their part. And if you play along, it’s dysfunctional on your part.

You won’t ever be able to keep up with unrealistic. Unrealistic demands lead to undercurrents of failure. So don’t allow the unrealistic demands of others to march freely into your life.

Those who constantly try to impress others will quickly depress themselves. That’s not love.

We must not confuse the disease to please with the command to love.

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose love, their hearts are fully committed to him.

The sooner we can make peace with the facts we can’t please everyone and some people won’t be pleased no matter what, the sooner we can be freed from that elephant sitting on our air hose. We’ll have the oxygen and the energy to simply and generously love. After all, love, real love, is a very Best Yes.

Saying no isn’t an unnecessary rejection. It’s actually a necessary protection of our Best Yes answers.

Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less.

Together is a really good word. Together is what we need when we hit tough patches in life. Making decisions when life is making you cry shouldn’t be done alone.

Friend, you are strong. You are persevering, tough, able to bend without breaking, willing to be humbled to the point of humiliation, not blinded, a hunter for wisdom, a praying-through-it woman, a courageous gal, one who wants to learn the deep dependence of following hard after God himself. From that cracked-open-heart place, a God-breathed strength will rise. Rise. Rise. And help you spit in Satan’s face as you declare, “You picked the wrong woman to mess with this time!”

I am SO excited about this book,

The Food Babe Way

by Vani Hari

I am part of her Food Babe Army and I was able to get the chance to read her book before it was published and available for purchase.

I am so happy to share the incredible wealth of knowledge I learned from this book with you.

I  find it so astounding that her mother and father named her Vani, a name that she hated as a child, but in  Indian, it means

“voice”-

how prophetic, because she’s definitely developed one.

“Once or twice in a generation a brave scientist or an ordinary citizen stands up to the status quo and tells the truth about what most of us would rather ignore.

 In the guise of fun, colorful, hypertasty, easy-to-eat, convenient foods is creating suffering and sickness around the globe.

Food is not just energy.

Food is information.

It contains instructions that communicate messages to your genes, hormones, immune system, gut flora- in fact, to every system of your body.”

There are so many issues that Vani tackles in this book.

From restaurants like Chick-fil-A,

Chipotle,

Subway,

to corporations like Kraft....

she uses her voice to make these companies be held accountable for the

dangerous ingredients they are using in their foods.

Here are my favorite parts of the book that I wanted to share with you and hope that you too will join the Food Babe and begin making better choices!

At the time of our meeting, more than thirty Kraft macaroni and cheese products laced with artificial dyes were being sold in America.

However, in Europe, Kraft removed the dyes and replaced them with natural ingredients like paprika and beta-carotene.

Scientists have confirmed what was already suspected: that these artificial food dyes, which are made from petroleum, can cause allergic reactions,

may be tainted with carcinogens (substances that cause cancer) and have been linked in at least one study to hyperactivity in children.

Kraft is feeding poison to so many families.

When we pluck food from the supermarket shelves, we trust that manufacturers have our best interests at heart and that the food is all safe to eat.

But we’re being conned.

We’re blighted with increasing rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, neurological problems, and many types of cancer.

It’s easier for doctors to continue treating symptoms instead of causes and for drug companies to develop new,

moneymaking drugs that it is to change the nation’s food supply.

Severe allergies, asthma, stomach issues, and skin problems. My parents took us in and out of doctor’s offices looking for a cure or treatment. We were both on several prescription medications as a result, taking a course of antibiotics and steroids almost every year. I had bad eczema as a child.

I learned how to detoxify my very poisoned body, and when I did, all my health problems started to vanish.

My resolution to break free from my chemical relationship with food.

The Food Babe Army, because they care not only about what they eat and what their families eat, but also about what everyone eats- and they fight for a healthier food supply.

• Do you have extra pounds to lose that you can’t get rid of, no matter what diet you follow?
• Do you struggle with figuring out what to buy and eat?
• Do you find yourself able to focus during the day?
• Do you eat too much processed foods and not enough real food?
• Do you want a clear, brighter, and more vibrant complexion?

Is is Chick-fil-a or Chemical-fil-a?

At Chick-fil-a there are nearly 100 ingredients in the most popular famous sandwich. From antibiotics, to MSG, to artificial food dyes, to GMO’s, and TBHQ. That stands for tertiary butylhydroquinone- an ingredient that is listed twice in Chick-fil-a sandwiches, once for the chicken and once for the bun.  It’s created from butane (a very toxic gas) and can only be used at a rate of 0.02 percent of the total oil in a product. Eating only 1 gram of this toxic preservative has been shown to cause all sorts of issues, from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children to asthma, allergies, dermatitis, and dizziness. It can even cause stomach cancer in lab animals.

Recently I received a letter from Chick-fil-a executives saying that they have:

• removed yellow #5 and reduced sodium in their chicken soup.
• Removed high-fructose corn syrup and artificial colors from several sauces and dressings.
• Test peanut oil without TBHQ.
• Create and test “cleaner” additive-free white buns- without the chemical azodicarbonamide in them. It is a yoga mat toxin. Commercial bakers love it because it helps keep bread nice and spongy- just like it keeps your yoga mat cushiony.

Genetic modification occurs when genes, viruses, or bacteria from one organism are artificially injected into a fruit or vegetable in a process that occurs in a laboratory and not in nature. The result is a GMO, or a genetically modified organism. Genetic modification is done to make a fruit or vegetable more hardy or impervious to the applications of specific pesticides. These pesticides are linked to myriad diseases.

Kraft macaroni and cheese, of course, is laced with all sorts of petroleum-based dyes that at least one study has linked to hyperactivity in children.

They removed them from their UK product,

why not in the US?

In October 2013, they announced that they would eliminate artificial dyes from three macaroni and cheese products.

The company now uses spices such as paprika to color the product marketed to children with cartoon characters and all of their deluxe varieties.

I also targeted  Subway to ask them to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread (the yoga mat chemical).

Subway was serving Americans this ingredient, but not citizens of Europe, Asia, and Australia.

On February 6, 2014, Subway announced that they would remove azodicarbonamide from their bread!

The FDA isn’t looking after you.

They’re looking after food companies.

Make no doubt about it, the food industry is in bed with the FDA.

The less a food has been processed, the more it benefits your health.

Read labels- not so much the calories or carbs in a product, but the list of ingredients.

Eat organic, real food; it’s the best way to protect yourself.

Remember that there are more than 10,000 ingredients added to our food, thousands of which are untested.

You don’t have to know them all.

But there are 15 ingredients you need to recognize.

The Sickening 15

They’re probably in every snack, meal, or beverage you had today.

1. Growth Hormones in meat:

When you eat conventional meat, you’re probably eating hormones, antibiotics, steroids, and chemicals.

The US is one of the only industrialized countries that still allows their animals to be injected with growth hormone.

2. Antibiotics:

They are routinely given to livestock to make them fat. Antibiotics in food are hard to escape. Unless a package is labeled accordingly, you can pretty much guarantee that antibiotics have been used to produce meat and dairy products such as cheese, milk, sour cream, and ice cream. ALWAYS buy antibiotic free meat and dairy. Meat that is certified organic is also antibiotic free.

AND STOP USING that alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

The product is killing off all the good bacteria you need to stay healthy. Also, consider taking a probiotic supplement to help fill your gut with good bacteria.

 3. Pesticides:

Pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides are sprayed on fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds- virtually everything grown in nature- and they’re among the most toxic substances on earth, doing untold damage to our bodies.

Apples are the most heavily sprayed fruit. Studies have also linked pesticides to cancer.

Organic foods haven’t been sprayed or treated with synthetic pesticides, fungicides, or other harmful chemicals.  Remember to wash your produce well!

4. Refined & Enriched Flour:

If you buy bread, check the labeling. Make sure it’s made with sprouted “whole wheat” flour or “whole grain” flour. Either one should be the first ingredient on the list. Also, avoid enriched, bleached, and white wheat flour. Choose whole wheat and whole grain, whole oats, rye, buckwheat, almond, or quinoa flour instead.

A great bread is Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread by Food for Life. It’s made from 6 organic sprouted grains and absolutely no flour!

Other good breads to buy are Manna Organics Bread and Dave’s Killer Bread.

5. Bisphenol (BPA)

Instead of buying tomato products in cans, try buying food in glass jars.

Microwave popcorn bags are lined with perfluorooctanic avid (PFOA). This chemical is the same toxic stuff found in Teflon pots and pans. When heated, it has been linked to infertility, cancer, and other diseases in lab animals. The EPA lists this substance as a  carcinogen.

6. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

It’s found in foods too numerous to count. Examples: bread, sodas, flavored yogurt, crackers, and cookies. The rise in obesity in the last 35 years has paralleled the rising use of HFCS.

HFCS makes you fat largely by impacting two hormones, insulin and leptin. When you ingest HFCS, insulin skyrockets, and insulin  promotes fat storage. Not only does this sweetener make your insulin level surge, it also wreaks havoc on the hormone leptin, the body’s appetite regulator.

HFCS suppresses your response to leptin, and you get so hungry you want to eat everything in sight.

Read food package labels for high-fructose corn syrup.

7. Artificial Sweeteners

If you think drinking diet soda is the way to lose weight, think again. Artificial sweeteners, from aspartame to saccharin and everything in between, are bad news for weight control.

Some of these sweeteners, like aspartame may slow down your metabolism. Second, artificial sweeteners actually train people to crave sweets.

8. Preservatives

Start thinking about the shelves of boxed, canned, jarred, and packaged foods as caskets holding dead food. It’s all embalmed with preservatives that will make you feel dead, too.

Among the worst of these preservatives are nitrates, used in means to prevent bacteria growth and maintain color. Toxic to the brain, nitrates are linked to Alzheimer’s disease and many types of cancer.

Both banned all over the globe, but still allowed in the USA, is BHA and BHT. They are petroleum derivatives used to preserve fats and oils.

Watch out for dimethylpolysiloxane in particular, a type of silicone with antifoaming properties that is used in cosmetics and a variety of other goods like Silly Putty. You’ll find it in Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches, McDonald’s french fries, KFC mashed potatoes and biscuits, Taco Bell cinnamon twists, Five Guys french fries, Domino’s breadsticks, etc.

9. Trans Fats

Trans fat helps processed food stay solid at room temperature and lengthen shelf life.

Trans fats are easy to hunt down. Look for “partially hydrogenated” on the ingredient labels of foods like crackers, cookies, pies, and other bakery items; dough; and snack food.

10. Artificial and Natural Flavors

The natural and artificial flavoring chemicals in our foods are contributing to wanting more and more. The word “natural” on a label is virtually bogus. It doesn’t equate with “good”. Read labels. If they list artificial or natural flavors, put those foods back on the shelf.

11. Food Dyes

Artificial food dyes are created synthetically and/or derived from petroleum. They are linked to hyperactivity in children, asthma, allergies, and skin issues. They are banned in certain countries and require a warning label in Europe. The worst offenders are Yellow #5 or tartrazine and Yellow #6 (E110), both of which may be contaminated with the human carcinogen benzidine. Other harmful dyes are Citrus Red #2 (E121), Red #3 (E127), Red #40 (E129), Blue #1 (E133), and Blue #2.

12. Dough Conditioners

There’s a reason most commercially baked bread keeps so well for so long: DOUGH CONDITIONERS.

These chemicals are added to bread dough to strengthen its texture, extend shelf life, and reduce processing time.

One of the ingredients in dough conditioners is the amino acid L-cysteine. It’s made from either human hair or duck feathers.

13. Carrageenan

This additive is an inflammatory agent found in a bunch of products from desserts to toothpaste. Carrageenan is used as a thickener, stabilizer, and/or emulsifier. It has been linked to gastrointestinal problems ranging from irritable bowel syndrome to colon cancer. The organic watchdog group the Cornucopia Institute has called for an outright ban on the use of carrageenan in all food products.

14. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

This “flavor enhancer” is found in fast foods and many processed foods. If you are one of the many people allergic to this, you will get skin rashes, itching, nausea, vomiting, headaches, asthma, heart arrhythmias, depression, and even seizures.

MSG is also linked to obesity. It is listed as monosodium glutamate on labels and is found in restaurant foods, chips, dip, frozen dinners, salad dressings, and soups.

15. Heavy Metals and Neurotoxins

How would you like a nice big helping of aluminum, lead, mercury, or arsenic for dinner. They come through pesticide-sprayed food, farmed fish, and food packaging material.

Everyone knows Americans are fat and getting fatter.

Some startling statistics:

• More than 65% of Americans are overweight, and 33% are obese
• 32% of children are either obese or overweight
• It’s projected that in ten years, 43% of Americans will  be obese
• Obesity is America’s biggest cause of premature death, and is linked to 70% of heart disease and 80% of diabetes cases.
• Psychologists say that it takes twenty-one days to form good habits, and holistic nutritionists say it takes twenty-one days to change the chemistry of the body.
• Say NO to bottled water: Break the habit. Plastic water bottles may contain BPA (bisphenol A) and other obesogens that increase the size of fat cells. These chemicals leach from the bottle into the water. I always carry a stainless steel or glass container of water around with me.

So WHY are FOUNTAIN DRINKS SOOOOOO GOOD?

The fountain drinks have a totally different formula than their bottled or canned counterparts found on store shelves. One of the scary ingredients in fountain drinks is dimethylpolysiloxane. This additive is commonly used in vinegary smelling silicone caulks, adhesives, and aquarium sealants. It is also the major component of Silly Putty.

Drinking Diet Sodas

The artificial sweeteners in diet soda have been proven to stimulate your appetite, increase carbohydrate cravings, and promote fat storage and weight gain. Researchers from the University of Texas at Houston discovered that drinking diet sodas will expand your waist, which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Aspartame is one of the most dangerous substances allowed in our food supply. Since 1980, more than 10,000 complaints have been filed with the FDA.

Another suspect sweetener is erythritol, a sugar alcohol found in Vitamin Water Zero. The body does not easily digest sugar alcohols. As a result, they can cause diarrhea, headache, and other intestinal disorders in some people.

 As for Pasta’s, here are some ideas.

Zucchini Noodles

Spaghetti Squash Noodles (all you have to do is cut it in half and bake for 45 minutes and use a fork to pull out the strands, which resemble noodles.

Bean Pasta’s: Tolerant is a brand that is great and makes lentil based and black bean.

A company named Explore Asian makes the most delicious pasta using 100% mung bean. Eden Foods makes 100% buckwheat noodles, and Ogran offers 90% buckwheat, 10% rice spiral-shaped pasta.

Sprouted Grain Pasta- TruRoots makes delicious pastas. Other ancient grain pastas are VitaSpelt pasta, Jovial Einkorn pasta, quinoa pasta, and Eden Kamut & Quinoa blend.

When we have a love affair with fat, it’s a troubled relationship.

We eat it, then we break up with it.

Is fat good for us or bad for us?

It turns out that it all depends on the type of fat you eat- and the balance of certain fats in your diet.

You can buy The Food Baby Way HERE on Amazon.

I highly, highly recommend it.

There is even MORE amazing things to learn about as Vani dives through our food supply and finds culprits that are harming us everyday.