*Harvesting basil from the greenhouse to make a big batch of pesto.*

How it starts

People often times become more naturally minded by accident. Sometimes a major health crisis forces us to look at our lifestyle. Other times we hear a disturbing fact on social media or the news that peeks our curiosity. There can be simple events that shape our future for example, when we go to the grocery store and find that they’ve stopped carrying our favorite brand of deodorant! This causes us to take a pause and perhaps ask a friend what they are using, or look up other brands that we might want to use. We often find interesting facts along the way. There could be a major life change like having a baby that makes us take a long hard look at how we are living and the products we are choosing. Lastly we may find ourselves restricted financially and want to make a change to help out the old pocket book. This is how my own naturally minded journey began.

My journey in a nutshell

After going to the doctor many times because of on going health problems like asthma, I found that their solutions were not actually solutions…. in fact they were making things worse. Their medicines were giving me new problems and not fixing the ones I already had. As a problem solver by nature this just wasn’t okay with me. I started looking into ways to heal myself and learned that food was actually a major contributor to life, health and disease. Go figure. My diet at the time was much like any standard American diet. Cheap, quick and easy… boxed foods, very few fruits and veggies and substantial portions… and to go along with it I definitely didn’t have an active lifestyle like I did in my childhood days. I started to look into “healthy diets” and found that pretty much everyone had a different opinion. I chose the book Makers Diet, by Jordan Ruban. This book totally changed my perspective on food and health.

This led me to growing my first garden as an adult. Gardening led me to the library (eh hem… we didn’t have much access to internet in those days) where I consumed every book on gardening I could… this naturally led to more curiosity about plants. Especially because I was being gifted plants that I knew nothing about. I learned many of these were herbs. And eventually this led me to get my certification in herbalism. During this time I conceived my first baby. I was trilled and wanted to do everything I could to raise a strong and healthy child.

Basically getting my herbalist degree was like opening pandoras box. I had no idea what I was about to discover. I took Dr. Christopher’s School of Natural Healing Courses. These classes taught me so much about nutrition, how the body works and how the systems in America really are failing to heal us. The in-depth courses taught me to really hone in my love for plants and how to utilize them to heal my own family. Years later I departed from some of these teachings as life brought me new experiences and I saw the power of real raw milk heal my second son’s stomach issues. I searched the Internet for months and months until I came across a book called Nourishing Traditions, By Sally Fallon. This book was all I needed to realized I was already doing what I needed to. I started calling our diet the homestead diet. This was a wonderful blend of the knowledge I’d gained while taking the herbal courses as well as my own life experiences. I’ve been living it ever since.

*Healing* *foot soak* *for my tired feet. I love this at the end of a hard work day.*

Have I peeked your interest in becoming more naturally minded? Would you like to live a more vibrant life, save some money and take your health into your own hands? Great! Here are 5 steps you can take to become more naturally minded starting today!

Step 1 Get Started

Here is your disturbing fact of the day (you’re welcome): We all know grocery stores have been raising their prices more and more. Remember when that bag of frito lays was $2.89? My last price check was over SEVEN DOLLARS!!!! I can’t even believe it…. and you guessed it. I didn’t buy. A few basic food items most of us buy on our weekly trips to the store: Bread: Price in 2019 $1.27; Price now $2.03

Milk: Price in 2019 $3.04; Price now: $4.02

Eggs: Price in 2019: $1.20; Price now: $3.00

Ground beef per lb: Price in 2019: $3.90/lb; Price now: $5.57/lb

This is crazy!! These are just the average for America… many places could be even higher. And let’s not even talked about farm raised organic foods.

So let’s take one of the items on this list - milk. Milk is consumed in many ways and in most house holds… probably poured over your daily bowl of cereal (we will talk about cereal in another blog… I better not even get close to that soap box hahaha) Let’s get you thinking more naturally minded with milk.

Remember those books we used read where you could choose what happens next? Let’s play that game with milk. We will pretend we are buying milk from the store in one scenario and milk from a farm in the other.

So it’s Monday morning, your kids are off to school and you take advantage of the kid free time by going grocery shopping. You pick up your usual items including 1 gallon of milk. You decide to pick up an extra gallon of milk because your kid is having a friend over for the weekend and you know they will be eating lots of cereal with MILK. You head home and put the groceries a way. Later that week you find out your friends kiddo has caught a cold and won’t be coming this weekend after all. Now you are stuck with that extra gallon of milk. That’s okay you think to yourself. You will just use it next week. Monday comes again and you skip your milk purchase of the week knowing you have that extra gallon to use up.

Wednesday you decide to treat your kids to an extra special breakfast before school, pancakes with peanut butter and syrup and of course MILK to drink. You open the gallon you bought last week and instantly a terrible smell fills the air. SPOILED MILK… it makes your stomach turn… and the kids yell ewe!!!! What’s that smell?!!! YUCK! Great, you think. You dump the whole gallon down the drain, crumple the plastic container it came in and throw it away. What else are you going to do with it? What a waste.

Let’s try a more naturally minded scenario.

This time instead of buying a regular gallon of homogenized and pasteurized milk you buy 1 gallon of raw milk from the organic section of your local grocery store. This milk does cost you more, but let’s see what happens.

The kiddo that was supposed to sleep over still gets sick and can’t come. You still wait until Wednesday to make those pancakes…. you open the gallon of milk that came in a nice glass jar. The milk that you bought last week. The cream has risen to the top leaving a visible line on the side of the jar. You scoop out the cream and set it aside. The smell is a bit stronger than usual… hmm you think…. You begin to fill glasses as your kids wait eagerly at the table. As you pour you realize the milk has gone sour. Shoot… you think at first. Then you remember all the uses for soured milk. You put the milk back in the refrigerator. Pour some juice for your kids instead. They go off to school and now is your time to decide what to do with all that milk.

To use up the cream you decide to make simple sour cream. You scoop out some sour cream you had in the refrigerator add in the soured cream you skimmed earlier that day to a jar, shake it up and set it on the counter to culture and thicken over night. Then you decide to make a big batch of biscuits and gravy for dinner. This uses most of the leftover gallon of milk. You feed your family and have some left overs for breakfast the next day as well as a few ziplock backs full of gravy for the freezer. Finally you use the remaining milk to pour into a bucket, add some chicken feed to it and soak it over night. This will feed the chickens tomorrow morning. The glass jar that the milk came in gets washed up and a fresh batch of refrigerator pickles gets started in it. Zero waste. AND you didn’t even have to buy sour cream!! You saved money by soaking your chicken feed and not having to buy a jar for you your pickles.

This is how it all begins. One simple change leads to another and so on a so forth… Let’s not even talk about what getting a few backyard chickens leads to hahaha.

Step 2 Learn a new skill

Raw milk is just one of the many skills you can develop while becoming more naturally minded. If I am learning a new skill I want to learn from the best teachers possible. While there are so many skills you can learn on Youtube it can take forever to wade through all that information to find a good source. I have spent a lot of time doing just that. So let me help you out by telling you my favorite teachers and channels to learn from.

The top of the list is :

The Homesteading Family. Their teaching style is easy to follow along with. Simple and thorough. They have so many Youtube Videos like this one on how Carolyn makes all her dairy products in just 2 HOURS, FREE online classes , like this one on dairy products AND Masterclasses, available. I’ve personally learned so much from them, my homesteading game has definitely improved thanks to their teachings.

The second on my list is a Youtube Channel called Living Traditions Homestead. I preferred their older videos which are more geared to the beginner homesteader. So scroll back a ways and discover their practical videos on nerdy farm math, recipes, canning, growing veggies, raising animals and so much more. Some of their recipes have become stapes in my home, for example their crusty bread which is perfect for dipping in any soup YUM!

Lastly GrownToCook which is a channel on permaculture gardening. I absolutely love this channel for inspiration, quality gardening information, new ideas, and beauty in gardening and food. The plants that are featured on this channel are outside the box and are some of the most productive.

Step 3 Make the switch

Once you have taken a class or watched a video and maybe even practiced once or twice it is time to make the switch from being naturally minded to actually living it. The key to success here is to take it one small step at a time. I mean tiny step. Baby steps, you all know the old adage the turtle wins the race. It’s true.

So whether you do choose to switch to raw milk or maybe you just buy a more natural jar of peanut butter … you know the kind you have to stir… it all starts with one simple change. Don’t just sit on that video you watched.

Let’s say you did decide to switch to raw milk you really can just use it in the same way you already use homogenized pasteurized milk. You don’t have to get fancy with it right away. Just know you have so much room to grow with this one change.

TAKE ACTION!

Make a plan! You can do it!!

Step 4 Make it a habit

Once you take action be sure not to stop. You have to keep the momentum going or else it won’t stick. Choose something that is soooo easy you hardly have to think about it. Once you make this small change into a habit you can make another small change. Before you know it you might just own your own cow…. hahah.

Step 5 Share your experience and convert your friends - The more support the better

Lastly share your experience with your friends. You might just find that they are inspire too. The more people you have in your circle that support your changes the better chance you have of sustaining them. It’s important to keep positivity surrounding you. Even if your friends and family don’t support you at first the evidence in your healthier choices will eventually become obvious and you might find them asking you questions or for advice along the way. If you don’t have support in your own circles reach out to others. There are so many people on this journey to freedom and health that would love to talk just like you.

You may even find them here in this blog community. Feel free to post a comment if you are needed some support on your journey. We are here for you.

Now that you know the 5 steps to becoming more naturally minded what change are you going to implement first? Are you already working on learning skill? What step are you on? I’d love to hear it.

I personally am working on just doing better the things I’ve already learned. Life has a way of sweeping us away sometimes. So I’m taking time to get back to doing the things I love most. Gardening, raising my children, being in nature and bottling it all up for winter use and finding joy in it all.

Learn and Grow,
Esther Munroe

5 Steps To Becoming More Naturally Minded