I was sitting in the office the other day and a colleague of mine, looked at me and said out of nowhere: "Sonja, what are your New Year's resolutions?" First of all - I didn't expect him to show any interest in my life - one of those guys... Secondly - I didn't have any. Or wait, I did - but I make them every 1st of a month, or every Monday, or every evening before going to bed. But - good point - New Year's resolutions add a nice touch to a new start. He told me a few brilliant resolutions. And I decided to think harder about mine.

A friend of mine went to the swimming pool two days ago. He went there at 7 am. I said - "WOW!" He said - "Yup, that is what I will do for myself twice a week this year. Thou, I am hoping the rest of the people will dismiss their New Year's Resolutions. That will make the pool less crowded. "

I restarted my running activities. I started reading books in French again. And I decided to do something for you every month... I will transform some of my 100daysofparis.com posts to desktop calendars! Click on the links under the photos to download the one for January!

I generally believe that our food could have munch better quality only if we would demand that. We are the customers and we CAN demand that. We can ask for meat with less male hormones and fruit with less female hormones and veggies with less pesticides and we can organize protest against all the "E"s in out food, but we simply don't have time for that... It's not that we don't care - we don't have time for that.

And that's sad. Because we are what we eat. And we are not getting any younger. We need to balance our meals. We need to eat healthy things. We need to be more aware what is in our food, what exactly we are consuming.

Green one is the good "cop", red one is the bad "cop". The green one is saying to the red one that they should go and continue informing people about the "good" food and "bad" food by scanning the bar codes.

There is a lovely french application, called Kwalito. You go to the supermarket, and scan the barcode of the chosen product. BAM! - Kwalito informs you what allergens that chosen product has. It also informs you what else is inside - eggs, emulgators, traces of nuts.... It is great for you if you are vegan or vegetarian. It is great for you if you are gluten or lactose intolerant. It is great for you if you care about your health. And also it is free! (in French, but free)

"But stop eating candies - they are full of artificial colors!"

One day, Aleksandra, one of the two master minds behind the whole project, asked me to do a small drawing every week for the Kwalito. She told me the story why they started the whole project and why they designed the whole application. I listened to her and said "YES" straight away. Since May, I am spending my Thursday with two funny, and well informed gentlemen (in the drawings). We call them les Kwalutins. I am drawing their stories and places they visited. Often, very often, they remind me how easy it is to choose healthy food. And often they remind me that I don't do that. Now, we have no excuses - healthy food search (or the search for food that suits you) just got easier... At least in France ;)

Green one: "There's nothing better that the fresh fish" Red one: "You can also find it in the supermarket and cut in the fish fingers"