As a reminder, I am not a doctor and I am not giving any medical advice. The suggestions below are based off of my own opinions and experiences and are not a substitute for medical advice. If you have concerns or questions, please contact your health provider.

Every year we all make promises to ourselves in the name of New Year’s Resolutions, and I don’t know about you, but more often than not, I fail to follow through. Whether you’re someone who has been on a health journey for a long time, or you’re just beginning, I hope these 8 lifestyle swaps help your family thrive and feel their best in 2025.

Your Family’s Health is Your Responsibility

No matter how you want to look at it, the health and well-being of the family is the parents’ responsibility. Whether you are buying the groceries, making the meals, or both, you are responsible for the food that is placed in front of your family. If you are in the stage of motherhood with little ones running around, then you know they don’t always eat what you put in front of them. But, you can ensure that the foods you offer them are nutrient dense and will help them thrive. If you don’t purchase fake food, then they won’t eat fake food.

Up until recently, I don’t think your average member of the public gave much thought to the food they eat on a daily basis, let alone the food they feed their children. The Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has brought the health of our food to the forefront of a lot of Americans’ minds, like seed oils, tallow, raw milk, etc. Regardless of whether or not there is a top-down order that eliminates seed oils, artificial dyes, glyphosate or any of the other thousands of chemicals in our food, you can take steps to make your family healthy again going into 2025. Feeding your family nutritious food is not the government’s job, it’s yours; and trust me, you don’t want the government in charge of what you feed your family – check out my post The Surprising History of Raw Milk if you want to know why.

Help Your Family Thrive in 2025

1. Swap Your Seed Oils for Real Animal Fats

I think seed oils have received more attention this year than any other year since the mass marketing campaign to bring them into your home in the 1950s. Despite what you were told in the past, these oils are extremely bad for you. If you are going to pick only one item off of this list to follow through on, this should be your number 1. You can even keep the sugar – although I would still say you should at least consider cutting back or switching to real sugar sources – but eliminating seed oils from your diet has so many benefits.

If seed oils are bad for you, why are they in everything? The long and short of it is that seed oils are cheap, and in the 20th century there was a big campaign claiming that saturated fat – the fat primarily found in animals fats – is bad for your health. This was just one of the many lies about your health from the government – remember when above I said you didn’t want the government in control of the food you feed your family? Unfortunately, the damage was done and now seed oils are in virtually everything, despite the fact that they are the exact opposite of “heart healthy” and cause terrible inflammation in your body.

For more information on the seed oils and how they negatively impact your health, check out my post 8 Reasons to Ditch Seed Oils and Heart and Soil’s newest documentary, Fed A Lie.

Just a heads up, when you go to throw out all of the seed oils in your home, be prepared to have a very empty pantry. You will be shocked by the number of products in your home that contain seed oils, including your make-up and other beauty products.

2. Swap Your Pasteurized Milk for Raw Milk

Yes, I am aware that a basic Google search will tell you that raw milk is dangerous to consume. Especially right now, there is a lot of fear mongering once again around the consumption of raw milk (FYI, they do this all of the time and you can click here to find out more).

Raw milk is incredibly beneficial for you, and there are numerous studies indicating that children who consume raw milk are less likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, and allergies, and they are less likely to get sick compared to children who do not consume raw milk.¹

Additionally, raw milk is filled with all 20 standard amino acids, 8 essential amino acids, all 222 vital minerals, and all 18 essential fatty acids. All of which are 100% absorbed by the body. For more interesting facts and benefits of raw milk, check out my post, Raw Milk: 9 Facts You Never Knew.

3. Swap Your Meat

In our house, we predominately eat an animal-based diet, meaning we prioritize meat, raw milk and other dairy products, low-toxic fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats like avocados, olives, and lots of grass-fed butter and tallow. We’ve all felt the effects of inflation since the pandemic, and one of the main sources of grief has been the grocery store; the price of groceries has skyrocketed in the last four years. But, if your budget can allow it, I highly encourage you to swap your conventional feed lot beef for beef that is grass-fed and grass-finished, or even better: regeneratively-raised beef. Meat raised as God intended has higher levels of omega-3s, vitamins A, B, and E, and overall will be better for you and your family. For more information on the benefits of regeneratively-raised meat, click here.

One of my favorite brands that you can have shipped right to your door is Force of Nature Meats. All of their products come from regeneratively-raised animals that are raised in ways that are actually better than your typical grass-fed or organic practices. Click here for $15 off your first order.

4. Swap Your Store Brand Multivitamin for Desiccated Beef Organ Supplements

If you are currently purchasing a multivitamin from your local grocery store or Costco, you may want to consider swapping them out for something more natural like the desiccated organ supplements from Heart and Soil. Most of the supplements that you grab off the shelf at your local store are synthetic, meaning they are made in a lab. Not only are they not coming from natural sources, they often contain vitamins in their least bioavailable forms. What does that mean? It means you are basically wasting money on something that you think is helping you, but it is in fact filtering out of your body without adding any real benefit to your health.¹

You will always be better off with a real food supplement – if any supplements (because real food will always be better). So supplements like desiccated beef organs or cod liver oil will always provide these vitamins and minerals in their most bioavailable forms, meaning your body will actually know what to do with them.

I currently take Heart & Soil’s supplements daily, and I can say without a doubt that these supplements work. My entire family takes them – even my kids – and I know we are all getting vital nutrients that help us to thrive. Up until last year, I took synthetic multivitamins from some of the top companies, and even my prenatal for all three pregnancies was technically synthetic. But then I read about how a lot of supplements on the market do not even use the most bioavailable form of certain nutrients – making them useless at best, and potentially dangerous at worst.

If you are interested in my full review of Heart and Soil’s supplements then check out my post Heart and Soil: An Honest Review. And if you want to go ahead and make this great swap for your health in 2025, click here for 20% off your first order at Heart and Soil.

5. Ditch the Processed Food and Swap it for Real Animal Foods

Get rid of the cereals, the bags of chips (unless they are Masa Chips), and whatever other junk you have filling your pantry. Instead, swap your sweets for raw, unfiltered, glyphosate-free honey and fresh, organic fruits. For the start of the new year, do a pantry clean out! Throw away all of the products in your kitchen that are filled with ingredients you cannot pronounce, seed oils, bioengineered foods, and anything else that isn’t a real food item.

Most importantly though, prioritize real animal based foods like organic pasture-raised eggs that are corn- and soy-free, regeneratively-raised meats, low-PUFA pork and chicken, organic raw cheeses and milk, and delicious fresh fruit. You will not believe how satiating eating real food is, and you will hardly recognize yourself by this time next year, both physically and mentally.

If you are looking for som real food swaps for your pantry, checkout Masa and Vandy Chips, Ice Cream for Bears (found in Sprouts nationwide), Lineage Provisions, Carnivore Snax, and more. Swapping the processed junk in your home with real food items will be a game changer for your health.

6. Shop Local

Especially in this day and age, shopping local will always be better if you can manage it. Our family currently purchases all of our meat and dairy from local farms, and I am in the process of trying to find a good option for locally-sourced produce. Shopping local will not only nourish your family better than most products bought in the store, but it also supports the farmers around you and gives you more control over the food your feed your family.

7. Go Outside Barefoot

If you have read my post, 7 Shocking Truths About Grounding, then you know that I am a big proponent of the benefits grounding and spending time outside barefoot. There are so many incredible benefits of connecting to the earth, something you cannot do if you are constantly wearing plastic- and rubber-soled shoes.

8. Move Daily, See the Sun

This is one that I have become very intentional about in the last few months, especially as it started to cool off here in Texas. Movement is a natural part of my day as a stay-at-home mom, and honestly, there are a lot of days that feel like I never sit down. But I still do my best to fit in resistance training sessions throughout the week and go for walks with my kids daily. On top of walking with them each day, I recently started the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge. The goal of this challenge is pretty straightforward: spend 1,000 hours outside within a period of 365 days. I am not saying you have to join in on this challenge, and while I started off strong, I have definitely fallen behind in the last few weeks. But, my kids and I are spending more time outside on a daily basis than ever before, and that is what matters most.

How Will Your Health Change in 2025?

Whether you implement all of my suggestions above or just a few, I guarantee that you will thank yourself by this time next year. You don’t have to start all of these all at once on January 1st, in fact, I would recommend you start slow. Don’t overwhelm yourself and set yourself up for failure. Rather, take it one step at a time, making a new swap once a month or once a quarter. And, while some of these swaps may require a little extra budgeting, one thing you can do to improve your health without paying a dime, is to get outside, watch the sunrise and the sunset, and soak up that Vitamin D.

Happy New Year!