The Ingredients

Life is a mixture of actions, activities, emotions, weather, etc. These are just some of the ingredients that make up the recipe of life. When we were told we had 12 months at best to spend with our 11-year-old daughter we were desperate to cook up a cure and stir up the greatest memories of all time. There were many things we did to clear the way for the LIFE, such as quitting our jobs, taking vacations, scouring the internet for clinical trials and living CLEAN. Living clean means different things to different people, but the actions we took led to great outcomes and a new way of life for us, so I want to share our journey to what CLEAN LIVING means to us.

There is a lot of research out there that shows that sugar and brain tumors are linked. The research says that cancer feeds on sugar, now please understand I am not a dietitian nor a doctor of any kind, but I wanted to do everything I could to save my daughter. After many hours of research, we decided to go the route of the Ketogenic diet, so we emptied our kitchen of foods with sugar, basically, anything processed was gone. I will note that according to this website there are at least 61 different names for sugar listed on food labels. These include common names, such as sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, as well as barley malt, dextrose, maltose and rice syrup, among others. With an empty pantry and refrigerator, we headed to the grocery store.

Step one to empty the kitchen was the easy part, but the grocery store was a different story. There is little to nothing in the middle of the grocery store you can buy to be successful on the Ketogenic diet. The produce, dairy, and meat departments are the only sections of the store that you will visit on a regular basis. There is nothing in a box and very little in a can that will belong in your pantry unless you grow and can it yourself. I don’t say this to scare you, in fact, I want to ensure you that it can be done with a little help. Ava liked it, she called it her “Cave Man Diet – if you can’t pick it or kill it then you don’t eat it”. Sure we missed the old stuff at first, but I worked hard to find alternatives. After a while, our tastes changed and the old favorites were distant memories.

We dumped the contents of our kitchen on 7/25/16 and are still going strong. Ava did great for 14 months and she had an amazing vitamin panel into her final weeks of life, even after all the chemo. I would like to share with you the things I have learned along this journey, such as our ranch dressing, mayo, laundry detergent, gardening, and so much more through this blog. It hasn’t been easy. there have been some fails, but with failure there is growth. I hope to help others looking to clear out the crud and feel better and maybe save some money too.

Failures are a part of life. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn you will never change.” -Unknown