Shrimp Fest & Raw Food

We went to visit our friends Andre and Stephanie in Amelia Island this past weekend. We went to Shrimp Fest on saturday. MMMmmmm ... shrimp! It's always great to hang out with some good friends. Andre and Brett and I have been friends for a long time. Actually Andre and I were friends before either of us knew Brett. The three of us are all fraternity brothers from college. Bunch of dorky engineers ... ha ha. Actually, we were the cool people ... or so we tell ourselves. And his wife Stephanie is a hoot. We have a lot in common and always have a good time. She's been doing the raw food diet which is something i've been interested in and have been trying to incorporate myself. We talked a lot about it and I read a bunch of stuff in a book she has called "The Raw Food Detox Diet". It even had a section on raw food detoxing while pregnant and nursing ... which is why I haven't gone all out with the detox yet. So yesterday the boys and I went and loaded up on produce from the produce stand here in town and I spent about three hours in the kitchen last night making some yummy raw food. I made salsa, guacamole, no-bean hummus and some really yummy sweet corn salad ... all made from raw foods. My goal is to eventually get to an 80% raw diet. Since i'm nursing i'm going to gradually work my way to that goal. That way the detox will happen slowly and Brody won't be slammed with toxins. I probably ate around 80% raw yesterday just because I was trying out so much new stuff. I'll have to eat more cooked foods today to balance things out. I want to start with about 50% raw for the first couple of weeks. I'm rearranging the kitchen counters today to make room for our juicer to sit out permanently. That way I can make fresh veggie juice each morning. Brett and I used to do that a lot when we lived in Texas. The life changes we have been through over the past few years have done a number on our diet. I never used to eat junk food or comfort foods or convenience foods. I never used to eat meat either. I truly feel that if I can cut out all the processed foods and refined sugars and give my body more live foods that I will have the energy I need to get motivated to exercise more regularly and to keep up with the kids. We eat so much junk in this country and so many people don't even realize how bad it is. Just look at the childhood obesity problem ... it's terrible. And cancer? And how many other things that we can link to our diet. Our body was meant to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Not packaged, processed, preserved, canned or even frozen.