Coconut Oil and Other Healthy Choices

• Organic Butter - I buy my butter from an Amish farm. It is wonderful! It is amazing to me the difference between this butter and something you buy from Walmart. The other day, I had a stick of Walmart butter (not even sure where this came from) and some Amish butter. I needed to melt both in the microwave for a recipe I was making. After 30 seconds, the Amish butter was completely melted and the Walmart butter had not even begun to melt. This just proves to me how much "junk" is in Walmart butter. Since I use a lot of butter (I'm no Paula Dean though), this is one "habit" that I have implemented for our family.
• Venison and other hormone free meats - I am very thankful that my husband is a hunter. Well... I have joined the bandwagon and now hunt myself as well :) His love of hunting provides us with fresh venison every fall and it gives us a great way to avoid hormone infused meats. When I purchase chicken, I am sure to get cage free and hormone free chicken. This is just one more step to a healthy lifestyle.
• Coconut Oil - This is a super oil! It is great for cooking, contributes to weight loss, is great for hair treatments (I use it every night before I shampoo my hair), is healthy for the heart, can be used as a lotion, helps your digestive tract, and can even cure lice!! If you want to learn more about this amazing oil... click here.
• Cage Free Eggs - I have seen videos of "egg factories," and it truly is repulsive. The hens are kept in tiny cages and are fed hormones to produce larger and more eggs. This is not me being a human rights activist by any means (I already mentioned that I am a hunter), but logically, it just does not seem smart to eat something that has been produced in this way. Because of this, I purchase my cage free eggs from a local Amish store. Where I currently live, the prices are relatively the same.
• Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen - I try to limit the intake of pesticides as well. Now I understand that some vegetables are really expensive organically grown. So... as I mentioned before, moderation is key. If you click on the link above, PBS will give you a list of "clean" and "unclean" vegetables.

These things I have listed above are the few steps I have taken to help keep my family healthier. If I am able to change these few things in our lifestyle, we are helping our bodies  combat the barrage of pesticides, hormones, and chemical that we are already consuming in every day life.