Real Food

I think we all will acknowledge that largely, "You are what you eat". But what is right to eat? Low carbs, no carbs, high carbs, high protein, high fat, no saturated fats, lots of saturated fats, vegetarian, vegan, omnivore, organic, conventional, local... the list is endless. Author and journalist Michael Pollan calls this the Omnivore's Dilemna. I highly recommend his book by the same name. He's an excellent writer, an adventurous journalist, and seems to encounter some very colorful characters. In this book, he traces our food chain from beginning to end - or several possible food chains to choose from, I should say. All in all, it's a fascinating book - even my husband Joe who is not nearly so big on books or health as I am thinks so. Oh, and it's a NY Times Bestseller.

It would be so easy (and fun) to do a whole blog on just food, but I'm really not interested in that. I think most consumers now are aware of the benefit of buying organic vs conventional. For one simple reason, lets just look at corn grown in Iowa which is sprayed with a ton of different chemicals. They run off into the local rivers resulting in a season in Des Moines when no one is supposed to give the water to their children lest it seriously harm them. Then the water hits the Mississippi River and eventually runs into the Gulf of Mexico where all that chemical run-off from far away Iowa cornfields results in a 4,000 square mile area of water in which *NOTHING* but algae will grow. (and that 4k miles is conservative. I think Pollan may have said it was 7k miles!) That's not even to mention the added health benefit of organic in terms of vitamin/mineral content or health for the air we breathe.

So for starters, non-toxic eating is Organic Eating.

Next, to eat non-toxic involves eating things the way that God made them. This sounds easier than it is. Eating beef that is fed corn mixed with 50 lb bags of antibiotics and tons of cow fat is not eating things the way God made them. (And is, unfortunately, the diet of conventional beef, even the "natural" stuff). God made cows to eat grass, and those that do have a completely different kind of meat.

Another example is dairy products. God didn't make milk and milk products to be heated to extremely high temperatures. He made them raw. Pasturization kills the beneficial enzymes in them that help in digestion and also kills vitamins and minerals in them. Adding nutrients back in is not natural either because they are synthetic, chemical forms of the vitamins.

Now for most, the thought of unpasturized milk is downright scary. But fresh milk on cows fed grass is not harmful if milked cleanly. Problems arose in the early 1900's necessitating pasturization because the cows were being milked in industrial style feedlots where they were up to their hocks in manure and eating a non-grass diet.

Statistically, according to one article I have read, there is a higher percentage of people who get food poisoning off of pasturized milk than off of raw. Raw milk contains healthy bacteria to kill harmful bacteria. It doesn't go bad like store bought milk, simply sours and can still be used in baking. Pasturized milk can begin to grow bad bacteria right away and no longer contains helpful bacteria to combat it. However, due to the high good bacteria/enzyme content one should start drinking raw milk slowly.

I am finding the research and writings of the Weston A Price foundation very interesting. Price was a dentist back in the 1930's who spent over a decade traveling the world to see how native, indiginous, "primitive" peoples ate and to see if they suffered from the same dental problems people in the US were beginning to suffer from.

This is a foreign concept to us, but for centuries, until recent times, one's teeth were a sign of their overall health. The teeth of slaves, potential wives and even horses were checked because people knew they were a sign of overall health. Crowding and rotting were a sign that the individual person or animal was not getting the proper nutrients and was not very healthy. I think all we remember from that era now is the phrase "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".

Price found that all over the world, "primitive" peoples valued the same things - mostly saturated fats and animal protein along with fermented foods and smaller amounts of seasonal fruits and vegetables. People eating these diets had almost no disease and dental decay or crowding. However, those in the same family who had spent even a few years eating the civilized diet of white flour and sugar and other popular 1930's foods (which were unargueably much healthier than today) had begun to be diseased and to have dental problems.

Heart disease at the beginning of the 1900's was almost non-existent - and people then ate tons of saturated fats. The rise of vegetable oils, highly refined, followed the rise of heart disease. We all know now how harmful margarine is. (Not to say that is the only factor in heart disease, but a lot of well done research is showing it is not linked to saturated fat and cholesterol.)

I find it fascinating that people for all of history have lived healthily and without disease on the foods that our nation is saying are harmful - namely red meat, saturated fat, raw dairy and eggs. The difference is that those foods in America are no longer anything like what they used to be. Chickens living 12 to less than 2 square feet are not laying the same kind of eggs as chickens outside scratching in the grass for insects and bits of greens. The eggs don't even look the same let alone taste the same.

For more information on this kind of eating see the book The Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin (yes, based on the Bible) or the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon or check out the Weston A Price foundation website.