When I was a little girl my grandmother made homemade bread every day. Warm, fresh, good for me bread. And, like any typical little girl of my time, I complained that we weren’t like the other families who ate their bread already sliced and from a plastic bag.
If I only knew that one day I would be desperate to toss out that pre-sliced junk for the real stuff. Like my grandmother used to bake. Read more…
photo credit: sciondriver
Imagine this scenario:
You are at the grocery store picking up something for dinner. Suddenly a store clerk comes along, empties the shelves of their food, and tosses the packages into the trash. Then proceeds to refill the shelves with new boxes and cans. You look over to see a huge garbage can filled with boxes, bags, and wrapped packages of food, food that is now going to rot in a dump somewhere.
What would you do? Read more…
photo credit: lilivanili
I am trying to cut out meat from our diet. Maybe not entirely out, and I’m still not ready to give up milk and cheese, but replacing many of the typical meat dishes with vegetable ones. This is a two-part idea, based on both my desire to stay away from cruelly treated meat animals and to keep the man I love living for a few more years.
So I plan out a vegetarian menu, I buy the food, I cook the meals, we all eat it as a family. Sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes it’s not. But I try to always make it as healthy as possible. So when I found out that there was a parenting poll about feeding kids a vegetarian diet and that most of the people who responded thought it was cruel to do to kids, I got a little peeved. How in the world is making an effort to feed your kids a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables cruel? When did fruits and vegetables and beans and grains become close to child abuse? Read more…
photo credit: VirtualErn
A few years ago there was an episode of Wife Swap that involved a family who ate raw meat. Yes, all of their meat was eaten raw. Uncooked. Straight from the animal.
Go ahead and cringe at that thought for a moment.
Last week I joined in a conversation on Twitter about real food, and in the talks managed to have won a copy of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, a cookbook that I’m really enjoying. Until I got to the chapter on eating raw meat. Apparently it’s not a totally outlandish food fad.
OK, so maybe eating raw meat isn’t really that bizarre. Plenty of people around the world enjoy Steak Tartare and Sushi, both of which involve raw meat. So maybe it’s just my suburban North American worldview that burgers should be grilled and fish should be baked that’s preventing me from what could be an enjoyable meal. Read more…
At 6 1/2 months my baby has taken an interest in food. She leaves forward, swipes at food on the plates, mimics our eating, and stares in deep concentration as we move forks and spoons to our mouths. So we decided to give her a taste and see what she thought.
It was an overwhelming success.
Homemade mashed potatoes are fun to smoosh around with her tongue while smiling. Mashed peas are an interesting taste sensation. But bananas, oh bananas, are the clear winner. As soon as she gets a taste she grabs the spoon from my hand and doesn’t let go until she has licked it clean. A little mashed banana mixed with a bit of water makes her a very happy girl. Read more…
photo credit: Nessa Land
Yesterday I bought a shovel.
There’s something empowering about walking through a huge Lowe’s, carrying a shovel that’s nearly as big as I am. Slung over my shoulder, the shovel started whispering in my ear that I needed power tools and one of the big wheelbarrows outside. Somehow I managed to escape with only the shovel.
In my front yard, next to the porch, there is an old garden plot marked off with bricks. Weeds have taken over, along with some sort of small tree grouping. I spent the afternoon digging out roots and tiny tree stumps, which is not quite as easy as it seems. Those roots can travel down for what feels like miles and are tough as leather. At one point I had to get my garden sheers and try cutting through roots so that I could get the rest of the stump out. Slowly I cleared it, making it ready for my coming vegetable garden. Read more…
photo credit: TheDeliciousLife
Food is one of my main objectives towards living a better life. It’s also one of the scarier things to think about. What are they putting on my food? What did they do to it before It was packaged? What is in the packaging?
I want us to eat as much real food as possible. Real food, not the prepackaged artificially flavored preservative filled junk. Unfortunately my kids have been accustomed to that kind of food, so switching them over has lead to more than a few complaints. OK, a lot of complaints. And not all from the kids. Read more…
Have you ever seen a picture of your blood plasma after you’ve eaten a meal from McDonald’s or Burger King? It’s not a pretty picture. It looks thick and cloudy. Fast foods are loaded with fat and sodium. They use white bread and rolls, which means they’ve used white processed flour, with very few nutrients in them.
And how do you feel after a Big Mac and french fries? You need a nap, don’t you? All that fat will drag you down and make you feel sluggish.
Changing your eating habits is hard, but the health benefits are huge. You eliminate those high fat, processed, high-sodium foods. You eat more raw fruits and vegetables. You drink water. And the results of eating this way are increased energy, less need for sleep. Processed foods, with their high fat content are hard to digest. They take an enormous amount of the body’s energy to consume. When your body’s energy isn’t used up digesting all that fat, it’s available for YOU – for work, play, love, exercise – in other words, for LIFE. Read more…
I love that as I was reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma I managed to find a local farm selling fresh food straight to the buyer. One of those things being raw milk.
On a rainy afternoon we drove up the long drive, past a couple cows happily grazing on grass and wild flowers. At their feet a handful of chickens scratched at the cow patties, pecking out the bugs and helping it break down into fertilizer. The farmer led us out to the cows, giving us a chance to meet the very cow who had made the milk we were about to drink. We got to pet her on the head, scratch at an itch right behind her ear, and be nuzzled on the shoulder when we turned to walk away before she was ready for us to go. Read more…
I’ve started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and if I didn’t already want to cut my meat intake down to zero I certainly would now. Pollan follows the commercially grown corn so common today, from it’s farm beginning to the dinner table. One stop along the way is being dumped by the barrel into the factory farms.
It’s a bit disturbing to read. I’ll admit, I was fooled by all the “corn-fed beef” signs and labels, thinking that meant it was better beef. Turns out “cord fed” actually means sicker cows, sicker people, and better bugs. Bugs that can kill us quicker than before. All because of corn being the staple of their diet. Read more…
