Welcome to Quintilla's Kitchen blog! My name is Shannon and I started my business based upon Christian beliefs and the simple principle of clean eating. A mentor and friend told me to have a foundation scripture and to always contemplate it when cooking; being careful to always remember that God graced me with this gift and it is He that gets the glory!
My foundation scripture is 2 Kings 4. As the story goes, there is a widow who has a creditor coming to take her sons to work as indentured servants to pay off some debt. The Prophet Elisha asks the widow what she has in her house. Her initial reply was that she had nothing, but then she remembers that she has a small amount of oil (anointing!). The Prophet advises the widow to bring the oil and as many vessels as she can gather. He tells her to pour the oil. The widow begins to pour and she keeps pouring and pouring until there are no more vessels to fill. At the end of her pouring she finds that not only does she have enough oil to sell to pay off her debt, but she now has enough oil to sell to sustain herself and her sons. I believe that God has graced us all with gifts so that we may be debt free and so that we may be sustained.
Today I want to talk about clean eating. I'm going to keep it simple because well . . . simple just makes sense to me. Here are a few ways to ease into eating clean.
Step 1: Know the source of your food. When you know that your food was grown locally; meaning, you can easily go to the place where it came out of the ground, then you're a step closer to clean eating! Knowing the source of your food means that your food hasn't passed through a lot of hands or been shipped all around the world. There's less likelihood that there are undesirable pesticides or other harmful chemicals, and you'll be eating the foods that are in season for your region.
Step 2: Eat foods that you recognize. When I was a little girl my Big Mama would grow lentils, peas, okra, and other veggies in her garden, cook them up and freeze them. During some of the lean times of my childhood I remember Big Mama going into the deep freezer and pulling out those vegetables for us to have a yummy soup. The point is that those veggies although frozen remained in tact. I could still recognize them for what they were when they were cooked and frozen. Today we have so many options in our grocery stores. Corn may start out as corn or a soy bean starts out as a simple bean, but both get transformed into so many other things through processing. That processing often removes vital nutrients and adds unwanted chemicals. If your body can't recognize it then it's probably not good for you.
Step 3: Take baby steps. You don't have to throw away everything in your house and start over. Begin to incorporate fresh foods a little bit at a time. Visit your local farmers market(s). Pick up a fruit or a veggie that you may not normally eat. Google some recipes and have fun with it. Get the whole family involved! Take your fresh foods and make some of the families' favorites like pizza or soup. Your body will thank you!
