Whether you
have just a small freezer attached to your refrigerator or you have a deep
freeze, this is the week to toss anything that contains man-made, processed,
artificial, colored, enriched, hydrogenated or chemically processed
ingredients. I hope you have now memorized the list of foods/ingredients to avoid, and are reading the ingredient lists. So much of the food available in the
standard grocery store contains HFCS (or some form of white
sugar) and cheap hydrogenated fats and cheap salt.
It is NOT
possible to eat a diet of man-made, man-processed foods and maintain your
health or the health of your children. Is it worth poor quality of life
to eat these foods? Obviously not all pain and suffering with chronic
diseases is due to diet, but most is in the United States
So are you
ready to tackle the last area of food in your home, the freezer? Again
keep two things in mind.
1.
Toss anything that contains foods/ingredients to be avoided if you want to be eating 100%God-made foods. One addictive food found in many people's freezers
is ice cream. Look at the ingredients of yours. Is it loaded
with sugar (or worse HFCS) and artificial ingredients? We make our own
ice cream because it is extremely difficult to find honey or maple syrup
sweetened ice creams. Occasionally I buy Coconut Bliss as a special ice
cream treat. We also freeze leftover fruit smoothies in popsicle molds. Try to think
about eating in season. Summer, when it is hot out, is the time to enjoy
frozen treats. Try not to eat them in the cold winter
months.
2. Toss
anything that is unidentifiable or heavily freezer damaged. How long
you can keep something depends upon how it was packaged and how good your
freezer is. Something that is freezer damaged will start to look
like a piece of dehydrated food with lots of frost on it. Typically you
can keep things in the freezer for 6 months to a year or so.
You need to make space for excellent quality
foods. It is important to have some extra space so that when things
are in season, such as organic strawberries, you can buy extra and freeze some. Or when you find 100% grass fed beef
or organic free-range chickens on sale you can buy extra and freeze some.
Freezers are
one exception for plastic storage. I NEVER store anything hot in plastic, so if I am freezing homemade broth or some leftovers,
I first put them in a glass container and cool them in the refrigerator.
I then transfer them to a plastic container to put in the freezer. I
freeze lots of produce and put that in Ziploc bags. I do not repackage
meats purchased from the store, but freeze them as bought. Unfortunately,
it is very difficult to freeze foods in glass but I don't think it is that
critical since chemical reactions at the colder temperatures with plastics
is minimal or nonexistent.
Advanced
Challenge for those who only have God-made foods in their freezer:
This
challenge is for me this week! Go through your freezer and find things
that are getting old and plan a meal that will use it. Sometimes I find
GREAT things like a bag of peaches from my trees last
summer. Freezers are very hard to keep organized. Some tricks
to use include:
1. Date everything that you can before placing it in the
freezer
2. If it is not obvious also write what it is on the label (this
is especially important to do for things like shredded cooked chicken)
3. Keep like items together and place the new ones in the back or in
the bottom.
I am going
to work on clearing out one of my two deep freezers this week so I
can then defrost it. I have been freezing a lot of fruit and just
placing it on the top. Once defrosted, I
will reorganize my freezers putting like items together. Spend
the time doing these challenges (cleaning out your pantry, refrigerator, and
freezer) - you will be blessed.
"Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways
and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them
work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter."
Proverbs 6: 6 - 8
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