Since we’re working all day, I don’t have time to plan meals last-minute. I used to get home and look in refrigerator, then try to figure out what to make for dinner. Switching to real food meant some forethought, like figuring out on the weekends what we were going to eat during the week. I started making a list on Sunday base on what we have or bought for that whole week that fits our basic food rules which are, for starters:
- If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, much less define them, don’t buy it, like acesulfame potassium
- If the ingredients aren’t in our kitchen, don’t buy it, like Blue #1.
- Avoid bleached, white flour and white sugar
Also pay attention to origin, and if it had to take a plane or a ship to get here, try not to buy it. If it had to take a cargo truck or a train, reconsider. I’m not setting it as a rule because I know we’re still going to get bananas, for one thing.
Eating real is not a diet, it’s not a fad, it may be a trend, but hopefully it will return us to our ancestors’ way of eating prior to industrialized food. If our ancestors didn’t eat it, then we shouldn’t either, especially if they wouldn’t even have recognized it as food, like fruit roll-ups – with sodium citrate, acetylated monoglycerides, dextrose, blue 1, red 40, and yellows 5 and 6.
Many years ago, Tony listened to Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma audiobook and recommended it. I got a copy from the library (and realized a few years later that I hadn’t returned it). You’ll see it referenced throughout this website along with other interesting Pollan books and documentaries. If you don’t want to read a book, just start reading labels. Compare these two peanut butter labels and notice twice the salt, added sugar, and other unnecessary preservatives in many leading peanut butters. One literally says, “Made from peanuts and sugar.”
