Hi, I'm Abigail...I'll be your waitress this evening

About once a year I start a new blog.  For the past 15 months I have been posting in Moments With Him it served it's purposed and I will probably still continue updating it but for this year I've decided to blog about a favorite topic of mine and that is food.  But not just any food...Real Food.

Most of you probably already know who and what I am but in case you're joining us for the first time, let me introduce myself...

1. I am a single mother of 3
2. I am a vegetarian (don't judge me quite yet, I'll explain later)
3. I attend and serve regularly at my church.   
4. I've struggled with my weight
5. Do to my love affair with food, I'm pretty sure I've cheated on my spouse with a tomato one night at dinner.

Other things you should know about me is that I have a few general rules when it comes to food...

1. I rarely eat at fast food or chain restaurants.  (I'll quantify what fast food is in another post.)
2. I read labels on all packaged foods I purchase.
3. I try to stay away from High Fructose Corn Syrup
4. I try to stay away from highly processed food.  (Again, I'll quantify what that is another post.)
5. As a vegetarian, a "veg", I will occasionally eat fish if it is sustainably harvested but I will eat eggs and cheese.

I know, I know....you're saying that doesn't sound like something that people who live "Real Lives" can do, but believe me you can.  I didn't make all those changes all at once and you don't have to either.  In one of my previous blogs I coined the phrase, "Small steps lead to big victories."  That's what we will talk about in this blog, small steps that can lead to big changes in your life and especially the lives of your children.

Let me just say this...although I will try to convince you that having "Meatless Monday" is a really good idea I promise I won't push to hard for you to go completely veg but I will definitely point out that you can get protein from many other places besides meat.  That's for another time though, but until tomorrow let me leave you with these scary statistics...

1. Heart disease is the #1 killer in the US.  Often the first sign of Coronary Artery Disease is death.
2. Even though Juvenile Diabetes used to be a rarity, now 1 out of 3 kids born after 2000 will contract Diabetes in their lifetime.  In depressed socioeconomic areas that jumps to 1 out of 2.
3. It's estimated that between 16 and 33 percent of our children's generation is obese.
4. The annual cost of obesity is $100 billion. 
5. Heart disease, juvenile diabetes and obesity are almost always preventable.