my favorite 1% change so far.

Ya'll, I gotta tell you - I've been waiting weeks to post about this 1% change. 
In the midst of Glory-glory-hospital-palooza last week, I was obviously too distracted to think about 1% changes, but now this one fits quite nicely into things we're thinking about over here. Ya'll know I like to keep the food in this house veggie-based, healthy-ish, and delicious, but now that epilepsy is a part of our family in some way, our diet is getting MUCH cleaner. Occasional fried foods have been cut down to almost-never fried foods. The sweet treats that I allowed once in a while are going to be replaced with only-homemade-very-few-refined-sugar sweet treats. We're on a zero tolerance policy with animal protein because we need to keep our diets super clean for our girl. At least until we know epilepsy better & get some more experience under our belt, we're on high alert in the kitchen for anything that could possibly mess with her brain and these are all things that are shown to aggravate seizure-prone people.


So, refined sugars and animal protein are out - grains are in.  
And THUS - our 1% change for the week. 
GET GRAINY. 


Here's my challenge. Go to your nearest Whole Foods, Earthfare, health food store or online healthy goodness supplier and march straight to the bulk bins and grab your sweet self some grains. They're cheap. They're delicious. They'll challenge you in the kitchen. I'm going to tell you about my favorite four and point you in a few directions to get you started. 
You do the rest, sister - you got this. 


A) of all - have I ever told you? This is my favorite part of my whole house. 
I'm not a clean-lines-tidy-space-kitchen-lover. Many moons ago when I did home merchandising with Anthro, nothing made my heart happier than spending hours stacking and sorting over-filled shelves. And now, I have my own over-filled shelves. And right smack in the middle of them.... my grains. 

thanks to my awesome father in law for building our shelves & my husband for allowing my kitchen clutter

I keep my grains in small glass jars & use dry erase markers to change out the "labels". Ta-da! 

1. Amaranth. Read about it here. I use it in place of oatmeal. It's gluten free and full of nutritional goodness. Splash of nut butter & almond milk. You're good to go. 

2. Buckwheat. So far, my favorite use for buckwheat is a breakfast buckwheat bake. I LOVE this recipe from the edible perspective. This is an amazing, filling, gluten-free, dairy-free, added-sugar-free breakfast that tastes like heaven. Highly recommend. 

3. Millet. Many, many uses for millet - but my fave is just like amaranth, instead of oatmeal. Drizzle of honey and a handful of almonds and you're looking at one of the most nutritious breakfasts' known to man. I NEVER exaggerate. 

4. Lastly, you know what's coming. QUINOA. You probably already use it. If you don't - START. My two favorite quinoa uses: in vegan "nachos" and stuffed in some peppers! 

Ok. I'm not giving you a lot to work with, but let's start there. 
Get grainy. What other grains are you using? How are you using them? 
Google some recipes and let's get crazy! I'll leave the link-up up or the whole week so take your time linking your 1% changes. 


I want to hear all about your 1% change, friends!