To eat or not to eat

That is the question. Well the real question is what to eat and when.

 I have ketchup and mayo, salad dressings, white pasta and dried fruit with added sugar. All still in my house and all on the banned list. The rules seemed fairly simple, and were not that hard to follow. It just involved cooking. But now that we have come to a neutral ending with the challenge, how do we carry forth? Let start at the beginning.

Remember the rules?

No prepackaged goods in any container with more than 5 ingredients. Ok fine... there went mayo and most condiments including salad dressing pasta sauce, ricotta cheese, many juices, most breads... the list goes on.

Now eliminate sugar, in any form except honey and maple syrup (non processed sweeteners) and yes that includes agave nectar and all those gross artificial sweeteners. Well that elimiates the obvious cookies, cakes and such, along with most prepackaged tomato products assuming you had any left that had 5 ingredients or less (think ketchup).

And only whole grains. If you did happen to find any breads, crackers or chips that have 5 ingredients or less, you may only eat the ones with whole grains. Whole wheat pasta? Read the label, not all of them are 100% whole grains.

Add in lots of veggies, preferably local meats and wild caught seafood.

It boils down to Michael Pollan's theory of food: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

I'm not sure I really covered why we decided to do this. The first year the husband and I were in Texas, we were living with his parents. Dont laugh, they had cheap rent and fed us, a lot. They were also visited by the Easter Bunny. As a side note I have no idea what bunnies have to do with Easter or why they deliver eggs...
Anywho... the Easter Bunny brought me a wonderful book called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. Combined with years of living in California, this got some wheels turning.

She writes about a year of life essentially living as a locovore. She and her family, for one year ate only foods they could grow in their own farm, or find very locally from other farmers. Her reasons were more concentrated on the massive oil consumption of our country solely for the purpose of moving food. This is a whole other story though. Consequently I did some research to find farmers markets her in Texas. But that's as far as we got. Move forward two years and here we are.

I was inspired by Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food and motivated by this blog http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

The idea is that the Western Diet is a major part of the increased number of chronic diseases. I have listened to a good portion of In Defense of Food ( I like books on CD, my commute to and from work is long), and read much of the previously mentioned blog, but in no way have conducted or read specific studies that link processed foods with chronic diseases. The author of the food blog posts this 10 reasons to cut processed foods.

While I have not run across this in the food blog, or the book, I have also read articles relating food dye to ADD and diseases in children.

The idea of minimizing our risks for chronic diseases is very motivating. And the author of that blog makes a very good point. Why would you want to eat foods that are designed not to rot. Have you read ingredient lists lately? If you cant pronounce most of the ingredients, or if it takes a long time to read them all... why eat them?

Back to our what to eat and when question:
We like the idea of following real food rules during the week. But I think, due to the various foods in my fridge and pantry that break the "rules" I think we may need an overlap period. Tonight I made meatloaf with lots of veggies, topped with ketchup and mustard sauce. Yes, I used ketchup. See... we still have some and it was easier than opening a whole large can of tomatoes or a large jar of spaghetti sauce.

But where do we draw the line? Last weekend when we went shopping I asked the husband to pick out some of those Odwalla fruit smoothies, mostly because I wanted some of the "superfood". I happen to not mind green veggies in my fruit juice. The husband's first response was "this has more than 5 ingredients" to which I responded "you dont eat enough fruits and veggies." Not that he would go near the "superfood". But more fruit couldnt hurt, I think. I guess I should study those labels.

Sigh, To eat or not to eat...

The Real Food Project

After finishing a small bowl of potato salad and then a small mug of icecream, (local bluebell of course) I cracked open my "Whole Grain Baking" King Arthur Flour book.  Why the well rounded dinner followed by whole grain recipe reading?  Well...

Inspired by the book "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan and the food blog "100 days of real food" the husband and I have decided to take the challenge. Now a 100 day challenge is quite overwhelming if you are following all of the rules.  And there is of course the ten day challenge. But we were thinking along the lines of a 30 day challenge, but with a few modifications.

1. We will eat local meat with in our budget. That may not include any local meat as it tends to be quite expensive.
2. Both a Alamo Drafthouse Indiana Jones Feast (a pre-planned 5 course meal) and several trips to the Texas Renaissance Fair will fall in our designated 30 days. These meals are of course excluded from the rules.

Now I have read all of the posts for the original 100 day challenge and I know that the author would have never considered changing the rules, but we really have to make it work for us. I still think that we will gain many benefits from this experiment.

Since moving to Texas we both get sick a lot, and have many allergies. Maybe this will help. We have been trying to eat healthy-ish in the past 6 months or so. (In fact I've been doing a lot of label reading lately and we try to stock more fresh foods than canned or boxed. I found that since we gave ourselves a weekly budget of $60 we force ourselves to go shopping once a week, really focus on what we buy and try really hard not to let anything go to waste.) I'm not sure that this has done much for our health though, as I think we have both gotten sick. But maybe the stricter rules will be a better defense for the fall season that is usually full of colds and other sicknesses...

And since we are starting on Monday, all of the crap food that was leftover from the BBQ last weekend must be finished. Potato salad and ice cream anyone?