In last week’s Food Fact Friday, we went over how to make your plate with ease, yet still cover all your nutrient needs. This week I want to discuss the quality of your food choices.
I know that in this day and age, quick and easy food has become the norm. Gone are the days of the woman of the house being in the kitchen, cooking and feeding her family for each meal…most likely from food the family had grown on their own land or traded their neighbor for.
This shift away from cooking the food we grow as not only effected our society in social and economic ways, it has also changed it in nutritional ways. The food those families from days gone by were growing and/or trading for was more nutrient-dense than most of today’s food. They were also eating local before eating local was a thing!!
The soil in those days was not stripped of nutrients from over planting and pesticides. The animals were not crammed into a feed lot. Nor were these animals stuck indoors all day with no excess to sunlight, being force-fed an unnatural diet. Umm, that doesn’t sound very pleasant and dare I say it….I do dare!!! It sound a lot like what kids experience at school or adults experience at a job. If we don’t like it, why would an animal like?!?!
Anyway, before I go too far down that rabbit hole, let’s get back to food quality!!
Choosing the best quality food for you plate can be just a simple as making your plate.
Focus on local, organic, properly grown produce and properly raised animal proteins.
Look for the following:
- Grass-fed beef, lamb, or bison
- wild game meat
- Pasture-raised pork and poultry
- Eggs from pastured chickens
- Wild-caught seafood
- Raw dairy
- Produce grown without chemical pesticides, such as organic
- Organic, raw nuts and seeds
- Organic, cold-pressed olive oil, nut oils, and seed oils that are packaged in dark-colored glass bottles
- lard and tallow from properly raised animals
While today not all of us are lucky enough to have adequate land to grow all of our food, we can rely on our neighbors, aka local farmers to provide us with quality foods. There are more and more farmer’s markets taking root across the country!! While they are not always open year-round, you can most certainly find them from spring to fall. And many offer winter markets. With a few questions to the farmer, you can learn their growing practices. Most farmers will gladly share this information with you because they are just as passionate about growing healthy food as I am about teaching how that food can improve your health!
I realize that some of these items are not always easy to or may be out of budget. Buying locally at the farmer’s market will keep your food budget down and like I mentioned earlier, the food will be more nutrient-dense. And most importantly, it will taste better since it gets to ripen in the garden longer!
Organic produce in the grocery store will be more expensive. The Environmental Working Group provides a list of the most and least pesticide containing produce. You can find it here. Keep these list handy while shopping so you know which foods to buy organic and which you can buy as conventionally grown. This too will help keep cost down.
You will also want to avoid processed foods as much as possible. Many of these foods are stripped of nutrients because of the high heat and processing. This leaves you with a food that then must hove vitamins and minerals added back to it. Why strip away what Mother Natural added to food and replace it with a man-made substance? That doesn’t make much sense to me.
In addition to the lack of vitamins and minerals, the enzymes that are found in fresh food will be lost. The enzymes are important because they are the catalyst for many bodily processes.
Processed food is dead food. Consuming dead food will not nourish your body. It will speed up the aging process, burden the body and well, leave you dead sooner. Who wants that?
In future Food Fact Friday posts, I will explain in detail what each of the high-quality food listed above provide to your body. As well as expand the list.
Please leave any question or comments below. Have a great Friday!
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