I only found out about it around October 25, but I gamely signed on anyway. (Latecomers could pledge to give up processed food for a month following whatever date in October they started.)
I was curious: I wanted to think about what processed foods I have in my diet. Eating Rules defines unprocessed foods thus:
Unprocessed food is any food that could be made by a person with reasonable skill in a home kitchen with readily available, whole-food ingredients.Anything else, therefore, is processed. Jam? We make our own. Ketchup? Well, no, but I could. There are jars of store-bought hot sauce and salad dressing in the fridge, but I also make my own.
I was feeling pretty smug about my own diet because I actually do eat mostly unprocessed food. If I'm not cooking myself, I'm eating in a restaurant where vegetarian food is prepared on site.
But almost immediately after signing on to the project, I failed. I realized it was almost time to fetch The Offspring from school, and I hadn't eaten lunch, so I grabbed a handful of cheese slices and some corn cakes and scarfed them down on the way out the door.
Yep, vegan cheese slices. With ingredients like potassium phosphate, adipic acid, and carrageenan. And 290 mg of sodium per slice, so if I eat four or five slices as part of my lunch that's, well, a whole lotta salt.
I checked the fridge. The vegan "buttery spread" probably ought to go, and I'm going to think harder about some of the condiments taking up space in the doors. And though the cheese is a huge convenience, I'm going to cut back.
So the project had its utility: It got me thinking. And today, I opened up two pumpkins, roasted the seeds, cooked the flesh, and baked a pie. And there's plenty of pumpkin left over for another couple of pies.
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My husband sent me this lovely link today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101012/bs_yblog_upshot/mcdonalds-happy-meal-resists-decomposition-for-six-months
ReplyDeleteAnother reason to eat real food.
Having too many rules about food, especially if they change over time, when growing up makes you end up with some kind of eating disorder and food issues.
ReplyDeleteThere were all kinds of crazy food rules when I was growing up, and it was always a moving target. Some examples:
Fasting when sick
Eating only raw food
Eating only cooked food
Salad has to be processed in a blender before being eaten (about the most efficient way of making something delicious taste really bad)
Potato skins may not be eaten
potato skins must be eaten
All protein must come from nuts
Nuts should be avoided
Coffee is poison
Coffee is good for you and delicious
are you starting to get the idea? What might not seem like a big deal to you might be affecting you kid in ways he doesn't understand and won't begin to really process until he's grown up and living on his own.