Food is Not Just Food

Sunflower in our garden

 I remember when Organic foods came out and people would tell me, "Oh, the milk tastes so much better!" We did a taste test on a girl once who was a professed Organic milk drinker. She couldn't tell the difference between our regular milk and some organic milk we picked up. At the time I thoguht that if they tasted the same then obviously "organic" people just wanted a new health fad. However, my health and well-being has always been an important issue for me. I'm not perfect at taking care of myself, but I do try. Yet my struggles continue since I'm still overweight and don't feel as good as I used to when I ate healthier, exercised, and got sleep. I am tired of being tired (isn't that coincidental? Being tired of being tired? hahaha) and lacking energy, especially during the school year when my health habits plummet. This ended up in a goal to eat healthier, exercise more, and try to get enough sleep all summer so I'd be pumped up for school.

Homegrown Tomatoes and Green Beans

This has led to a summer full of learning about our food. Have you ever really looked at a food label and checked out ALL of the ingredients? Don't argue they're too small to read! That's why mom needs reading glasses to go shopping. I already knew how to check for calories, fiber, fat grams, and serving sizes. What I didn't realize is that there are a lot of unpronounceable ingredients in my food. I used to assume they were the "scientific name" of regular foods. Like sodium sorbate is some crazy rendition of baking powder (which it's not). After watching a TV show about eating natural foods I was convinced that I needed to try to include this in my diet. Mom ended up watching a different show that said the same thing after I told her about it and she decided the same thing. Using some of their guidelines have really helped simplify how to pick foods I should eat.

Rules of the Game:
1. Eat REAL food.
2. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
3. Avoid foods with ingredients a 3rd grader cannot pronounce (or you, for that matter).
4. Only eat foods that will rot. (This means no more Twinkies!)
5. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself. (How often will you make the effort to cook doughnuts, french fries, or cake when you have to do it by scratch?)

Basically cooking from scratch is a really important factor. The more foods you make yourself, the less you have to worry about what preservatives are in it because there won't be any, and you'll know everything in it! That's another reason to grow a garden, no pesticides or anything to contaminate the benefits of the veggies and fruits. By taking more time shopping at places that offer more natural or organic foods, I've found there are a lot of foods that are natural without having to put big organic labels on the front. (Take the sour cream by Daisy in the picture above. Totally natural.) I've also discovered that with a little thinking I can still come up with easy to make lunches, breakfasts, and even dinners for packing to school. (Can you say leftovers? lol.)

Tomatoes in the garden

 On the television show I saw, people reported feeling healthier in general after eating this way. For the past 100 years society has been getting fatter on this "diet food" kick. Our great grandparents were all skinner than us eating the real thing! So obviously our changes in the food processing department have not all been good, some have, but not all. The show Mom watched talked to a girl who went to their doctor because no matter what she did she couldn't lose any weight. He put her on a no preservative or additive diet. She was still a little pudgy but she claimed she felt so much healthier and had a lot more energy and had less digestive problems. If you think about it, with the meat you buy they are giving animals hormones in order to rapidly increase their growth to maximize production of meat (and many of these animals are not living in friendly cages on farms). So why don't we think these hormones in our food won't affect us?

Green Pepper in the garden

Don't worry about me jumping off the deep end of some crazy Organic/Vegan/Animal rights type of diet, but I do want to try and make wiser choices about what I decide to eat. Like supporting local farmers at the Farmer's Market (the downtown market is so freaking awesome!) But honestly, cage free eggs just make me happy when I think of Chickens running around a fields or staying in a chicken coop instead of being shut up in cages with no room to expand their wings.

Tiny strawberries growing in a pot by our front door

 Like the guy on TV said, we all have 3 a votes a day that help impact the kinds of foods that stores and farmers will provide for us. If we make at least 1 or maybe 2 good choices a day, then that will lead to a larger supply of better foods being available (and it will lead to an improvement in your general health). It's all about Supply and Demand, my friends.