Getting My Fruits and Veggies!

I am so excited I ate a salad grown from my own garden. It has been fun growing a garden this year, but it has amazed me how little produce I get after so much time. (of course my garden is very small) The cucumbers and peppers are extra sweet, the tomato's are delicious, and the squash has been great. I just wish I had a bunch more.

This summer has also been hard in some ways because I had to go on the Candida diet since I was suffering from yeast overgrowth and so was Princess. This meant no fruit, sugar, yeast breads, white flour, etc.. It has been hard mostly because I LOVE fruit. I love to make smoothies, and eat lots and lots of it, but I hated seeing my baby suffer so with yeast diaper rash and thrush. So, for the last 6 weeks I have been very very good about following the diet, even though peaches, and apricots, and cherries have been in season and for sale on every corner I have stayed on course.(I did have cooked apples in my cake for my birthday last week, but I used whole wheat flour and apple juice concentrate as sweetener-I felt that I deserved a special treat). Well, Today I went to Life Clinic and we were tested and happily we are both finally candida free! Now I can start to slowly introduce fruit and whole grain breads back into my diet. I am going to be really careful about making sure I have equal protein to carbohydrates since my system seems to be very sensitive to candida. )

During this time of no fruit I was even more glad that I could take my Juice Plus everyday and could get my variety of both fruits and vegetables without the sugar. What a blessing! Everyone needs to check out my new Juice Plus website. It has a brand new video on it that is so well made and really explains the importance of a variety of fruits and vegetables everyday.

I am also excited to announce that Juice Plus has also expanded their Children's Health Study. Now any adult that is signed up as a preferred customer and taking Juice Plus ($43 per month) can enroll a child ages 4-18 as well as college students 19-26 to receive free juice plus for up to 3 years. They have also added the Juice Plus Gummies to the Children's Health Study for children under 13. (These are soooo yummy- and kids are getting the important nutrients of uncommonly eaten veggies like kale, beets, and parsley without any arguments!) It is so great that for less than $3 per day a family of 4 can get 17 different fruits, vegetables, and grains into their bodies and protect themselves from oxidative stress and DNA damage.

It's hard to believe I have now been taking Juice Plus for 10 years and been a Sales Coordinator for NSA (the company that makes Juice Plus) for almost three. It has really blessed by life. Especially since it makes it possible for me to stay home with Princess and Starboy. I also love educating people about health and nutrition. Which since this blog is called nutrition momma, I am hoping to dedicate more time too now that Starboy is back in school. If anyone has any questions I can answer or research feel free to ask.

Gardening

Well, I decided to try and plant a vegetable garden in the front yard. I have no idea if it will grow, but I worked really hard on it this week. My sister R. came over and helped me make the soil all loose and added good compost etc.. so it would hold water better. My biggest worry is that it won't get enough sun.

I have planted cucumbers, tomatoes, green, yellow and red peppers, strawberries, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, squash, a pumpkin, dill and marigolds-to repel pests- We will see how well it grows. My mother always had flowers in this bed, which seemed to do well, but I decided that if I was going to tend the garden, I better be able to eat what grows from it.