I am not one for fad diets. Actually, I have never been on a
“diet” per-se. I have always eaten what I thought to be pretty “healthy”. I
always ate my veggies as a kid, and always enjoyed a home-cooked meal
vs. something from a restaurant. But when I mean “healthy”, I mean non-fat
greek yogurt and 100-calorie packs. Looking back it seems so wrong, but in
reality, so many people define those foods as “healthy” because they are
low-calorie, low-fat, and promoted as healthy everywhere!!! It isn’t until I
started to read ingredient labels and learn where my food comes from that
things changed for me.
I don’t remember when {probably through Pinterest} I first discovered
100daysofrealfood.com, but when I did, I was hooked. I read all of Lisa’s posts
in one sitting. Just from reading her blog, my whole view on food changed. Then
I picked up In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and thought, “wow, this seems
like such common sense! Why do we eat
so much processed crap?” {Another Michael Pollan book, Food Rules, remains one
of my favorites, and sits proudly on my coffee table.}
This quote from in Defense of Food really got to me:
“At this
point you’re probably saying to yourself, Hold on just a minute. Are you really saying the whole low-fat deal was
bogus? But my supermarket is still packed with low-fat this and
no-cholesterol-that! My doctor is still on me about my cholesterol and telling
me to switch to low-fat everything. I was
flabbergasted at the news too, because no one in charge—not the government, not
in the public health community—has dared to come out and announce: Um, you
know everything we’ve been telling you for the last thirty years about the
links between dietary fat and heart disease? And fat and cancer? And fat and
fat? Well, this just in: It now appears that none of it was true. We sincerely
regret the error…”
This all happened right before I left home to spend a summer
on Martha’s Vineyard. I decided that moving on my own was the perfect time to
make the switch to “real” food. There, I met one of my closest friends who dealt
with me helped me in my quest for real food. I was also a nanny for a family
that fed their children NOTHING processed. It was amazing. A three-year-old
that willingly ate salad? Incredible. For other families that I nannied for in
the past, food had been such a big bargaining chip {“if you’re good, I’ll give
you a cookie”}, but this family was unlike anything I had ever seen. Here were
five children who never once asked me for a cookie, ate the food that was put
in front of them with no complaints, and were all {relatively, I mean they are
children after all} perfectly behaved. It completely changed how I looked at
food {and I picked up a few parenting tips along the way}.
Fast forward to now. Gone are the days of low-fat,
conventional yogurt, and I have never looked back. Thanks to Food Babe, and a
bunch of other whole-food advocates, I have made the switch to an all-organic
diet and buy the best food I possibly can.
It is definitely not always easy, but I feel like it is so
important to use food as medicine. Your body craves the nutrients that can only
be found in fresh, whole foods, and there really is no substitute. The only
downside is now I scrutinize almost everything I put in my mouth if I don’t
know where it came from. Now, this is not to say I eat perfectly because that
is so far from the truth. Sometimes
you just have to give into your sweet tooth and live a little {like the cheesecake I'm making J for his Birthday tomorrow...}. But now that I
am aware, I feel like I have won half the battle. Here are some of my favorite
reads on the subject:
Michael Pollan {especially his books In Defense of Food, Food Rules, and Cooked}
The 4-hour Chef by Timothy Ferris
Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
Pandora's Lunchbox by Melanie Warner
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
...and some of my favorite documentaries
This is a great way to visualize what exactly real food is:
via {click here to see it bigger}
What do you think? Has anyone else made the switch to real food? Do you have any recommended reading or watching on this topic? I would love to hear!
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