healthy food Archives - the whole food diary

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thewholefooddiary

Making sustainable + conscious choices feel doable in real life!
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📍West Sussex 🇬🇧
Kezianeusch@gmail.com

FOUR slow weeks with her away from work and social

FOUR slow weeks with her away from work and social media and the world. 28 days post partum and we’re learning each other. We’ve had some set backs to the Traditional Chinese Medicine inspired 40 days I planned but these have still been my slowest post birth days of the three kids and I’ve massively needed it and I’m so grateful I planned it! My body is healing well but still needs lots of rest.
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Emotionally, 4 weeks on I’m still playing through each Friday hour by hour thinking about what was happening the Friday she was born, it’s not the easiest thing to remember and each time there are tears as the feelings of different parts of the day hit me and I remember, replay and uncover new pieces. Her entrance to the world wasn’t easy or the best day of my life like the other two, but that’s ok, it will get easier, and she’s here. Not everyone gets that. Families we love didn’t get that.
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I can still feel the wirey stitches of my incision and every time my fingers touch them I’m glad they’re still there - I’m not ready for them to dissolve. Physically I don’t know if my body is ready but my heart definitely isn’t ready to not feel them. Not ready to not feel connected to that moment. Not ready to feel a smooth scar in place of a stitched wound. And the same for my bump. My c section bump post birth is different from after my vaginals delivery in shape and feel and I’m not ready for this bump to go. Not just because there’s healthily no rush to jump back to my body pre baby but more because the stitches and scabs and bump all feel like connection to a moment that still feels raw and painful, but also that I know will be beautiful in time. I don’t want to move away from it yet.
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Yet today is Jared’s last day of paternity leave and on Monday life will be one step closer to our new normal as a family of 5. But I’m also staying put here in this slow, introverted and at home routine for a few more weeks as we heal and rest and keep learning this new life, slowly. #islafranciswren

We’re home. ❤️ It’s taken me a while to fe

We’re home. ❤️ It’s taken me a while to feel ready and able to share after a week we’ll be processing for a while, but thank you to everyone who’s checked in and asked if we’re ok. ❤️
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Meet our Isla Francis Wren. ❤️ She arrived late Friday night by emergency C section, 10lb 4oz and we’re all falling in love with this perfect little human we get to welcome into our family.
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I’ll share more and a birth story down the road but for now, we’re resting, healing, and soaking up some slow time together away from the world. ❤️

I can’t not thank our parents and my brother for caring for us and the kids over the last week, my sister for talking me through some of the toughest moments over text and voice memos all the way from New York, and to the medical team at Worthing Hospital who cared for us through circumstances that I know were challenging this week. ❤️ Thank you. ❤️ #islafranciswren#motherdaughter

Two years living here and about to welcome this ba

Two years living here and about to welcome this baby any day (but nothing yet!), it’s the first time I’ve made it to a due date and we’ve had a quiet few days just soaking up being family with my out of office on. #OOO✌️
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I love this week of the year when the weather is watched and suddenly it’s all go to get hay in. All the grass gets cut and everyone is out tossing and baling before any rain. You can hear the whir of farm equipment all day cutting the grass to feed the animals that will get eaten across the country. Or the animals who make the manure that will fertilise the vegetables that feed us, and the ground. It’s a reminder of the beautiful circle of life and the importance of the ground and the people who work it for us. Thank you farmers, growers, producers, harvesters, and everyone involved in feeding us.
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And we’ll keep you posted on baby in time! Till then, family time and very grateful rest. ☀️ #theneuschfam

🍓 Finished up probably my last morning workout

🍓 Finished up probably my last morning workout with this babe in my tummy and enjoying some of the end of season strawberries. 🍓
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They’re very treasured as we don’t eat them when they’re packaged in plastic or not local. Why? Given we have choice over where our food comes from (cos not everyone has a choice of how food gets on their table) and some control over the human and eco impact of our diet, I want to use that choice the best we can! Not to think that every food grown worldwide should be available to us every day. 🍓
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So we have strawberries a few weeks of the year and we savour them. Then blackberries for a few weeks... then we don’t really have berries the rest of the year.
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But I love that. Cos I’ll remember this combo as the breakfast of late pregnancy with this little one, because these berries are a marker of just these weeks of the year only!
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I’ll be signing off instagram for most of the summer, so just a heads up that’s coming! I’m a huge advocate of finding a way to make social media healthy for you rather than getting to immersed and unhealthy and then needing to quit for a while, and then diving in again unhealthily. So that’s what I do most weeks of the year - but in this third and likely last post partum season I’m feeling jealous for the rest, something our society doesn’t celebrate but I’m learning too. Something I’m going to treasure this time around where I’ve raced back before. I‘ll be on and off a few times, we’ll introduce you to baby, we’ll post a pre created collab or two I’m excited to share, but not much more. Online life is my job, a job I ADORE and feel so so thankful for but one I’m happily going to be putting down down for a slow post partum healing season till September ish.
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I’ve created blog posts and emails to go our over the summer for you, and I have people covering my Beautycounter world so you’ll be taken care of!! I’ll have a highlight with OOO links you might need but mostly - hit the link in my bio and make sure you get my emails if you want to get the full heads up and anything you might want or need while I’m off! ❤️

Just a very pregnant girl and her very spicy chana

Just a very pregnant girl and her very spicy chana masala last night (spoiler: didn’t do a thing except make me happy!)🌶 .
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A few days pre due date with Clayton my waters broke getting out of the car to pick up the same Indian takeaway order... so we went for it again tonight. (Actually Jared just lives for Indian food 😉 and will make anything an excuse.)
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If you want a read for the day, my thoughts from my own experience on what we do NOT need to hear when pregnant (or say to other people who are)... are on the blog. 👩‍💻 I shared my own journey through 3 pregnancies and 2 post partum periods and how I’ve completely changed how I speak to myself and other people who are pregnant and why - and why I consciously brush off a lot of what other people say (even when it’s kind) and how that’s helped me.
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Find it at👩‍💻 thewholefooddiary.com/blog or it will hit your inboxes tomorrow if you get my weekly no-scroll-roundups! #neuschbaby3

POST PARTUM MEALS! 🥄 This is 1 of my 2 go to’

POST PARTUM MEALS! 🥄 This is 1 of my 2 go to’s for mums after birth when I get to join in a meal train! 🥄
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Everyone wants something different after giving birth (so just ask if you’re cooking!) but taking hearty meat stews with vegetables, broth and few allergens are my go to if it fits for the person!
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There’s no specific recipe, I use what I have in the house but the general outline I use is:
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1️⃣ Dice a large onion or two smaller ones and sauté with 2-3 cloves garlic in oil.
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2️⃣Add in 3-4 cups veggies. Potatoes, carrots, squash, anything I have! And keep stirring and cooking in oil. .
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3️⃣Add in about 1lb stewing meat (I used @kneppwildrangemeat here) and brown it.
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4️⃣ Add in about 3 cups liquid. I used 2 cups @sumawholefoods chopped 🍅, broth, and added marmite and aminos, ACV for flavour but beer, wine, passata... lots of things work. .
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5️⃣ Sometimes I add in a cup of lentils, barley, or rice. And then an extra 2 cups of liquid to compensate.
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6️⃣Give it all a stir, a season and pop in a low oven (150°C) for 2-3 hours stirring a few times and adding more liquid as needed until everything is soft and the meat is falling apart. Taste and season again!
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🥄: this much makes about 6 full servings. And I dropped it off tonight with some “cookie dough” with great fats @bebambu collagen and oats, for quick treat bites while breastfeeding. 🍪

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