Living Without Dairy Products: A Healthier Diet

February 24, 2014 by Michele Cherie in Home Management, Cultural Reflections

I've always loved dairy products--I grew up eating cold cereal with cow's milk for breakfast and after-school snack, and if you had asked me in my preteen years to describe my ideal diet, my answer would have included a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese. (I was an American child of the 80s, when processed foods were proliferating). But in my early twenties I started noticing that certain yogurts gave me gas, and after I got food poisoning in Hungary, I started experiencing brief but recurrent stomach pain. It took a miserable (but free) nasogastroscopie in France for me to understand that my stomach was fine, but it could no longer digest the dairy products I was putting into it.

Nonetheless, it wasn't until I read Alisa Marie Fleming's nutritional guide and cookbook, Go Dairy Free, that I realized that replacing dairy products with plant-based foods was probably one of the best nutritional actions I could take--and it was much easier than I had realized.

Living Without Advertising: How to Escape the Messages

February 07, 2014 by Michele Cherie in Home Management, Contentment

"I think maybe the key to eating healthy is not eating any food that has a TV commercial." --Chris Rock (parody Twitter account)

It's hard to imagine modern life without the constant exposure to advertising. How many phone books appear on our doorstep each year? How much of our daily mail consists of catalogs, credit offers, and coupons? We're used to the constant chatter, but it's more than a pesky annoyance. Advertising undermines our joy by suggesting that who we are and what we have is not enough. The more we're exposed to commercials, the more we're left with a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. If we have to be convinced that we need a product, we really don't.

Here are three simple steps to stop the flow of advertising into your home:

Living Without Manufactured Beauty Products & Toiletries: How?

January 24, 2014 by Michele Cherie in Home Management

I am not a professional model nor a hippie, but I manage to go makeup-free and stick to a bare-bones personal care routine without becoming a eyesore. I stopped wearing makeup shortly after my daughter was born--I didn't want her eating my lipstick (as my little sister had), but mostly I wanted her to grow up believing that her natural beauty could shine just as well without makeup. And minus makeup, I soon discovered that I no longer needed facial cleanser or moisturizer. (I do feel that it's a kindness to others to be easy on the eyes, so I still use tinted lip balm and mascara more often than not.)

With that simplified personal care routine, I've had time enough to learn how to make make the few personal care products I still use:

Living Without A Microwave Oven: Why?

January 17, 2014 by Michele Cherie in Home Management

Living in America means that I have a very comfortable life. However, my family and I also live a fairly unconventional life for Americans, considering some of our lifestyle choices. So today I'm launching a series of blog posts highlighting some of the items that we don't own or use, and why we've chosen to live that way.

In 2006, I read a Pew Research study stating that 68% of Americans considered a microwave oven an essential item, compared with just 32% of Americans ten years earlier. Apparently my mindset matched the cultural shift, because at that time I couldn't imagine getting by without a microwave.