Real Food--Not Just for Hipsters
by Stacey Gillespie
I wanted to take a few
minutes of time to talk about why my family is on an organic real food
diet. This is an issue that I am
passionate about and if my words can inspire even one person to make one small
change then I will be happy. A few
disclaimers: 1) our switch to real foods did not happen overnight. Making all of these changes in one day or
week would have been far too overwhelming.
However, we switched to organic dairy, produce, and meat in 2010 after I
saw the documentary Food, Inc. so
that part was already an aspect of my family’s diet. 2) I like to think I can
hold my own in the kitchen. It wasn’t
always this way. My husband used to do
all the cooking in our house. Again,
this changed in 2010 when I stepped down from my position at work and cut my
hours to two days per week so that I could stay home most days with our two
kids. Part of the deal was that I would
learn how to cook. Turns out, I’m pretty good at it. So the aspect of “home-cooked” meals wasn’t
too daunting for me. And lastly, 3)
Eating a real food diet isn’t always easy, especially for me. See, I don’t particularly like fruit. Or yogurt.
And I really, really love
soda. So yes, sometimes it does feel
like a sacrifice – I want to eat those Oreos as much as my kids do. Now then, on to WHY we eat an organic real foods diet:
Here are the top reasons why we started eating a (mostly) real
foods diet. I say mostly because, as
with all things, it’s good to break the rules every now and then. Also, there are certain aspects of a strict
real foods diet that we don’t follow on a regular basis (I’ll explain that
later):
·
The
Western diet actually makes us sicker – Journalist Michael Pollan has
written extensively on the food industry and its effect on the health of
Americans. According to his research,
four of the top ten chronic diseases (coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke,
and cancer) “can be traced directly to the industrialization of our food.” The so-called Western diet is usually
defined as one that consists of a lot of processed foods and meat, added sugar
and fat, and a lot of refined grains.
Basically, a diet that isn’t centered on fruits and vegetables and whole
grains.
·
Highly
processed foods are an illusion – Those boxes and bags of convenient food
items always contain added sugars and artificial ingredients and preservatives,
most of which the average person doesn’t use in their home cooking and which
are almost impossible to pronounce. Some
of the worst offenders that I’ve found are carageenan
(a known carcinogen, which is a substance that causes cancer), natural flavors (these things actually
trick our taste buds into thinking that we LIKE the food and that we need to
eat MORE of it. There isn’t anything
natural about “natural flavors” – they are created in labs and are allowed to
contain excitotoxins which can be linked to cell damage and diseases such as
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s), and caramel
coloring (another carcinogen that is actually on California’s list of
carcinogens that require warning labels.
This is not caramel. It is
created by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure which creates
carcinogenic compounds). I was very
surprised just how often I could find these types of ingredients in the foods I
had in my pantry/fridge. Even the organic snack foods have these
artificial ingredients listed (I’m looking at you, cheddar bunnies!)
·
Low-fat
and non-fat dairy products aren’t better for us – I haven’t seen it explained better than this:
“To make dairy products low fat, it’s not enough to remove the
fat. You then have to go to great lengths to preserve the body or creamy
texture by working in all kinds of food additives. In the case of low-fat or
skim milk, that usually means adding powdered milk. But powdered milk contains
oxidized cholesterol, which scientists believe is much worse for your arteries
than ordinary cholesterol, so food makers sometimes compensate by adding
antioxidants, further complicating what had been a simple one-ingredient whole
food. Also, removing the fat makes it that much harder for your body to absorb
the fat-soluble vitamins that are one of the reasons to drink milk in the first
place.” – Michael Pollan
·
Genetically
modified organisms – GMOs are plants or animals created through the gene
splicing techniques of biotechnology.
This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating
genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding. Virtually all commercial GMOs are engineered
to withstand direct application of herbicide and/or to produce an
insecticide. Despite the biotech
industry promises, none of the GMO traits currently on the market offer
increased yield, drought tolerance, enhanced nutrition, or any other consumer
benefit. Most developed nations do not
consider GMOs to be safe. In nearly 50
countries around the world (including Australia, Japan, and all of the
countries in the European Union), there are restrictions or outright bans on the
production and sale of GMOs. A recent French
study concluded that rats that were fed a diet of GMOs over a lifetime
developed tumors and died prematurely due to organ damage. In the United States, the government has
approved GMOs based on studies conducted by the same corporations that created
them and profit from their sale. So
really, the only way to avoid GMOs is to buy organic versions of the most common sources of GMOs. The USDA does prohibit the use of GMOs in
organic products. Almost 80% of processed foods in the U.S. contain
GMOs. The products in which you’ll find
the most GMOs are conventionally grown corn (88% of U.S. crops), canola (90%),
soy (94%), and sugar beets (95%).
·
High
levels of pesticides in conventional farming – The Environmental Working
Group has a list called The Dirty Dozen that tells us which produce contains
the largest amounts of pesticides, based on their own studies. The organic standards regulate how much
pesticide can be used on crops, so purchasing organic produce means we’re
ingesting less pesticides (even after washing, pesticides stay on the skins of
most fruits and vegetables).
·
Buying
out of season, non-local produce means it’s traveling too far and being ripened
in transit – buying in-season produce from local farmers (whether through a
market, co-op, CSA, etc) means we are supporting our local economy and our
fruits and veggies are fresh. Also, USDA
certified organic produce that you’ll find in a supermarket is grossly
overpriced. If you talk to the farmers
at farmers markets and elsewhere, you’ll find that most of them do practice
organic farming, but the cost of actually getting certified by the USDA is
simply beyond their means. So you can
buy locally, get cheaper “organic” produce, and support the small farmer
community. Everybody wins.
·
Conventional
beef, poultry, and pork products have become “big business” – the images
shown in Food, Inc are startling and shameful.
The facts are that these factories are pumping out products that don’t
even remotely resemble real meat and they treat the animals in a seriously
inhumane way. It has been scientifically
proven that happy, healthy animals produce better, healthier products. “You are what you eat eats, too.” Did you know that farmers/producers have
started feeding CANDY to their livestock?
CANDY. Check it out: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/22/business/la-fi-cow-candy-20120823. The best way to ensure that we are eating
good meat is to buy grass-fed beef and free range or cage free chicken and
eggs.
·
Homemade and
real foods taste BETTER – If I had known how ridiculously easy it is to
make our own ice cream I would’ve started doing it years ago. I recently checked the list of ingredients on
a carton of low-fat frozen yogurt . . . sure enough there were carageenan and
natural flavors listed. But I can make
my own ice cream using organic ingredients (whole milk, heavy cream, sugar, and
egg yolks , plus a vanilla bean or some chocolate depending on the flavor) and
it blows away anything you’ll find in a carton.
As I said before, those are the top reasons why we chose to
go the organic/real food route. We don’t
avoid all GMO products (it’s nearly impossible to do so). We still consume refined sugars (in moderate
quantities) and we still enjoy the occasional dinner out at a non-real foods
restaurant. We just don’t do it on a
daily basis. I used to let my kids have
the occasional meal at Chick-fil-A, but even that has been stopped. Here’s why (http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/04/25/food-babe-investigates-why-chick-fil-a/). I switched from sugar to honey to sweeten my
coffee. I’ve found that a lot of the
packaged snacks that I used to buy can be made (and taste better) at home. As we ran out of stocked items such as flour,
nuts, and cooking oils I replaced them with whole grain and organic versions. When we do eat out, we try to support
non-chain restaurants that source most of their ingredients from local farms,
bakeries, and fishermen. When I shop, I
still buy mostly organic products unless it’s produce that we can peel. And we’ve started buying our produce from a
local company that sources directly from local farmers who do not use GMO seeds
and who farm using organic practices. I’ve
found that it really isn’t more expensive because since we’ve stopped spending
money on the snack foods, it has balanced out.
We eat applesauce, nuts, popcorn, cheese and whole wheat crackers, homemade
granola, smoothies and lots of other delicious organic foods for snacks. As a result, we actually eat less because
real food is more filling and keeps us full for longer periods of time. We don’t worry about calorie counts or
nutritional content. The whole point of
real food is that if you’re eating a variety of these foods every day you don’t
have to worry about those
things. My husband has lost a bit of
weight and my weight has not changed. My
daughter used to suffer from constipation but now she doesn’t have a problem.
It hasn’t been easy, especially transitioning my kids. My husband was the easiest, because he’ll try
any food once (sometimes twice). But my
kids? Oh boy. I spent the first week afraid I was
torturing, starving, and depriving them.
All I heard at every meal was, “I don’t LIKE that” and “Noooo!” So I adapted.
I tried offering some unconventional “lunches” such as smoothies or
cheese and crackers. I let my daughter
help me make our own homemade Cheez-Its.
Sloooowly, they’ve started to come around. Is it smooth sailing? Not yet.
But my goal is to teach them about the foods we eat. To show them that we can enjoy our food AND
that it can be good for our bodies.
Hopefully this way they will be able to make good choices as they get
older and are on their own at meal times.
I won’t keep them away from non-real foods entirely. I’m sure once they get to school there will
be class parties and holiday events were processed foods are all over the
place. But if they are eating 90% real
food, then I don’t have to stress about the 10% of processed foods they get
elsewhere.
If anything I’ve said has struck your interest, here are
some great resources for finding more information:
The blog www.100daysofrealfood.com
was invaluable for me when I was transitioning.
The founder, Lisa Leake, is instructional and encouraging – never
demanding or judgmental in her tone.
The Food Babe, www.foodbabe.com,
has a more aggressive style, but if you want to see some great in-depth
investigation into the ingredients in some of the more popular restaurants,
then she’s the one to visit.
The Non-GMO Project has all the information you’ll need on
GMOs and how to avoid them. www.nongmoproject.org
If you’re looking for something easy to read with great
guidelines, check out Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
or the more extensive In Defense of Food.
Thanks for your time.
My sister is awesome and I’m so lucky that she was willing to let me
borrow her soapbox for the day.
Mom, Stacey, and Me.
Aunt Stacey and Ethan hanging out in the pool. We did get Ethan a float and he loves relaxing in it. He seriously is one cool dude!
I put Phoebe in Ethan's crib for a photo op. Jared thinks I'm crazy, but aren't they too cute! Ethan just loves his Phoebe-dog. We often find the two of them playing together and Ethan is just laughing his head off.
A photo of Ethan in his little bathtub. He recently graduated to using the big-boy bathtub. Luckily his belly fat covers up any embarrasing moments.
I had finished feeding Ethan and had to tend to the dog quickly. I guess he wasn't done, because when I returned he had grabbed his applesauce jar and was licking the inside clean! (He hurt his nose earlier in the week at his school/daycare and it looks terrible.)
Here are both the "children" standing up in the crib. 
