We are sisters who started this journey toward living a healthier and greener lifestyle because of our mother. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when she was in her early 30s and spent the rest of her life fighting this horrible and debilitating disease.

Growing up, it was very painful to watch someone we loved so much struggle so hard to complete daily activities that healthy people simply took for granted. Over the years, she went from one specialist to another searching for answers to help her cope with the disease that was ravaging her body and destroying her quality of life. After many years of fighting this battle, her health began to decline very rapidly. Out of desperation and an extreme disappointment with modern medicine, we began to look at unconventional avenues to help with these health issues and to try and find answers to our own growing health concerns.

The first time we took our mother to a Naturopath (an alternative healthcare provider), he began to speak to us about detoxing our bodies, the chemicals we had in our household, the quality (or lack thereof) of our drinking water, the need to take dietary supplements — and on and on he went! He may as well have been speaking a foreign language. In fact, he was! He was speaking a language we had never heard before: The building-blocks to living a healthier and greener life. We were completely overwhelmed and felt like we were doing everything wrong. We would need to be millionaires to do everything getting healthy required and yet, at the same time, we felt a sense of hope and excitement that perhaps we had found the answers we were searching for. We had a strong desire to help our mother and to keep ourselves healthy. She was the catalyst that started us on this journey; thus began our plunge into the vast world of greener and healthier living.

In our search for answers, we discovered something amazing! Our grandparents (and their parents and grandparents before them) already knew how to live “green”. Of course, they did not call it “green living”; they simply called it “living”. They lived the way their parents taught them; planting gardens and eating fresh vegetables, fertilizing with ashes from the fireplace (to replenish the nutrients in the soil), canning produce so they had healthy food all winter long, drying clothes outside on the line and making their household cleaners. Remember, at that time, the term “store-bought” simply did not exist. If you wanted food, you had to grow or raise it yourself. They must have been doing something right because our grandmother lived to be 100 years old! Our parents did some of the things their parents taught them (like cultivating their own vegetable garden) but somehow, we did not get that fountain of knowledge.

By the time we were living on our own, we did not take the time to plant gardens or do the other things our grandparents did. We became accustomed to store-bought everything! We used cleaners full of unhealthy chemicals, our cupboards were full of boxed meals and preservative-laden foods and our freezers were full of items containing a long list of ingredients we could not pronounce! We used margarine and vegetable oil and ate WAY too much sugar. We never gave a second thought to the long-term consequences of these actions to our health or to the environment. It was all about convenience and making our lives easier. Yet, we could not understand why we were beginning to see our own health decline.

We started experiencing health issues at a younger age than our mother; things like Thyroid disease, yeast issues, seasonal and skin allergies, digestive problems — and the list goes on and on. We were too young to be unhealthy and we needed to change — and we needed to change fast!

When we started this journey, we were overwhelmed by how far we needed to go and struggled to know where to start. We had difficulty finding good resources and accurate information and spent countless hours researching and testing products and ideas. As we look back on our journey, we are amazed at how far we have come and in awe of what we have learned thus far. Our grandparents would be proud!

Our desire in starting this blog is to create a resource where others can learn about the many different aspects of living a greener and healthier lifestyle. By sharing our knowledge and experience, we hope to make your journey a little easier. We have not yet arrived or reached the top yet (we are not even close) but we continue to learn more and more each day. We have a long way to go and look forward to continuing to grow and learn with you.

Come join us on our journey to living a greener and healthier lifestyle!

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