Why Do I DIY?

Homemade, immunity, gut health, and obstinance.

I think back to childhood, to my young adult years. I try to find when I started wanting to do it myself. DIM. What caused my passion for making it, fixing it, figuring it out myself? My mom would probably tell you I came out that way. One of my first full sentences was “me do, ahh be self” and that was that. If it can be fixed, I want to figure out how to fix it. Making do becomes a challenge I adore rising to. Maybe I get a little make-do mentality from my grandma, too. She was always making do with what she had around when it came to quilting, fixing, getting it done.

Anyhoo, especially in the kitchen, I crave natural, healthful, and homemade. We can call it whatever fits, obstinance or willfulness, wisdom or passion. In general, my family just prefers homemade. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you what I know. Since our initial push to transition away from packaged or ‘fast’ food, the differences in emotional, physical, and mental health have made themselves apparent. We have tried to highlight the benefits of natural and homemade to equip our kids to pinpoint the stark difference in health, both mentally and physically. It isn’t something we force around here, and the kids know that they are free to put into their bodies the food they want. (Except the littlest…she would eat sprinkles for breakfast still, if we let her). What I’m getting at here is that we are trying to teach them boundaries and discretion. Laws of physics. There is a reaction in our bodies for everything that we consume. Whether a positive or negative reaction, that depends on the fuel consumed. We have found that it gives them power to have the choice. It also empowers them to see the difference between these positive and negative reactions their bodies have to a homemade deli sandwich vs a fast-food cheeseburger.

My thoughts:

Homemade vs packaged. If it’s in a package, I feel that most of the time there has to be a way to recreate it and either freeze it, preserve it, or keep it for the week at least. Yes, this is extra. No, I don’t hold this as a hard and fast rule. We have plenty of pantry and freezer items that are store bought. Chicken wings, condiments, tortellini and much more. If I have time to make granola protein bites during the week, my family loves it and prefers it to packaged granola bars. There are many things like granola, yogurt, and bread that we all prefer homemade. Life happens and sometimes it doesn’t all get done. It’s all good. I started out by slowly swapping pantry items out with homemade options to see which we all prefer. It didn’t all happen in one day. If you are working at making these kinds of switches in your household, please remember that it doesn’t need to happen overnight. Start small! Start with one or two things so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Side note: We bought my son the cookbook Knife Drop by Nick Digiovanni. (I added the link, I get no kick back.) I just think it’s a great book. In it are recipes that are well written with great explanations and some great condiment recipes! We have tried the barbecue sauce and the ranch so far. Both are delicious! I can’t seem to find a delicious store bought BBQ sauce that doesn’t have caramel coloring in it. Who in the heck made it a thing to put these colored dyes in all our foods? Sweet Baby Rays, COME ON! I’d rather have BBQ sauce in whatever color it ends up being than caramel colored sauce. And pickles!? Who cares if pickles are green colored? Why add the Yellow 7 to pickles! “exasperated noise” and thus ends my rant.

Gut health. What causes harm and what repairs. Our immune systems start in the gut. From infancy, our intestinal tract is forming t-cells and our gut microbiome begins to prepare for the lifelong battle of keeping us healthy. When I worked as a birth doula, I witnessed hundreds of women begin their sacred journeys into motherhood. We talked often and deeply about this connection that they formed with their babies in the womb. The emotional, spiritual, and physical bond. The beginning of health for their babies started with Mom. Immunities are passed from mother to baby in utero and then through breastmilk after birth. Any amount of breastmilk offers a leg up for an infant’s immune system, to finish forming that microbiome and prepare each little one for a healthy life.

As my own little miracles grow and I learn more about ingredients and their effects on our health, I have seen that the cleaner our diet, the healthier we are. The less discomfort in our guts, the less days of school missed, and the yearly flu season is manageable. It can’t just be a coincidence, right?

It’s not just in the physical diet that I see a difference. I feel like our emotional and mental health benefits, too. Key evidence being Halloween, Christmas cookies with sprinkles, candy, chips, days we splurge on snack at the gas station, frozen dinners… Less sugar, less tears. Less sugar, less mood swings and even acne. Less chips and sugar, better attention span and focus. I could continue but I think I’ve made my point.

Without these sorts of items being part of our everyday intake, the effects they have on my kids becomes crystal clear. Take sprinkles. A simple one that is hard to say no to! My littlest LOVES sprinkles. Not kidding, since she was young they are a thing of vibrant glory in her eyes. Once, she ate a bowl of sprinkles, a literal bowl full of sprinkles. She ate it like cereal and then poured the dregs into her little mouth so as not to miss a crumb of chemically dyed sugar crystal. Now that they are kept as a treat for special occasions, even HER little mind recognizes how difficult it is to control her emotions after downing a cupcake loaded with sprinkles!

In our house, we all benefit from consuming less of the things that don’t benefit our bodies and our minds. More importantly, I witness my kids empowered to see the difference of what they put into their bodies and the impact it has on their health. I love that they are growing more equipped to go out into the world and make decisions for themselves based on knowledge and experience. They have learned decision making capabilities that can hopefully be applied across many aspects of their lives.

So why do I DIY? Or DIM? Or make it myself? Sometimes I think it might very well be that I don’t really like being told what to do. Or because I want to prove a point. I don’t really do anything in a conventional way. God is continually working on my pride and my obstinance as a woman, wife, and mother. These lessons in decision making, health, choices, I feel like they are broad and powerful tools that my kids can take into the world and make a difference with. There’s just so little time! These lessons and this DIY focus are my way of blessing my kids, body and mind. It seems like just a few years that I have with my kids as kids. There’s so much to our jobs as mothers, as parents! We’ve been entrusted with these treasures, with the responsibility of teaching them, raising them up in righteousness to become good and brave humans. I’m crying outright as I write this to you! My heart feels the preciousness of the time I have with them. These are some lessons I want them to know well.

So, I make it at home as often as I can to show them all of the power there is in the food around us. That there’s power in our choices, big and small. There’s power in health. And that it’s possible. Homemade and DIY isn’t for everyone and that’s ok! My time in the kitchen, my research, cooking and baking and concocting… I enjoy it. We all juggle many hats throughout our day, inside the kitchen and out. Somedays we wear multiple hats at once and some days we drop the whole stack right into the mud. We all do it differently. Such is parenting and such is life. In all of it, as always, happy juggling to you. ;) I applaud you as you parent, cook, work, eat and enjoy this adventure called life.

---

My name is Jessica, and writing to you here is a genuine passion of mine. My content is usually what I learn while I live. Some is humorous, some is deep and even borderline philosophical although I try to keep it lighter. All of it is written with a joyful heart.

If you’d like to subscribe, that’s incredible and I am honored! If you’d like to support my writing financially or buy me a coffee, I am honored and blessed! If you are here just to read, I’m honored beyond the moon and so grateful. I’m so glad you are here as we juggle our many hats.

My life journey has been anything but boring. Then again, we all have a story to tell. Through addiction, recovery, successes and not-successes, I have learned we all have one precious life to live. We can all gain insight from each other.

You can also check out my other section Juggling in the Kitchen! I’ve started writing more of my food adventures over there so as to organize. Not everyone wants to hear about Patricia (my sourdough starter) or my herbs and gardens. If you do, then welcome!