With all the talk about real food these days, I thought I would offer my version of making the switch. Of course, eating more eggs, raw cheese, grass-fed beef, nitrate-free bacon, and grass-fed butter is easy, right? Well, sure, eating the good stuff isn’t a problem; it’s eating the good stuff all the time and not eating the bad stuff is the more challenging part.

The basic idea

Generally speaking, I conceive of “the switch” as going in 7 steps, like this:

• STEP 1: Read labels and stop eating additives. These are things like MSG, high fructose corn syrup, artificial anything, preservatives, added color, lab-created soy ingredients. Essentially, ingredients that you couldn’t go out and hunt/pick for yourself. These are the things that can damage organs and have been shown to cause all manner of disruptions in proper body metabolism, digestion, and maintenance (see a list here). This means reading labels all the time…seems like a pain in the arse, and it will be, at first. But the more you do it, the more you’ll see just how much crap is in processed food, and you’ll get better at recognizing good food from bad. By reading labels you’ll also be able to find foods that don’t use additives, and you can eat them with confidence. As an example, if you love Oreos, try this. First, read the label. Then see if a store near you carries the brand “Back to Nature” (Publix carries it); pick up a box of their oreo-like cookies and read the label. Then buy ‘em and try ‘em. Delicious! Eliminating additives does not mean eliminating flavor.
• STEP 2: Eat more nutrient-dense foods. This is the easy part (unless you’re a vegetarian, but that’s a whole other ballgame). Eat more grass-fed butter, high-quality eggs, nitrite-free bacon, grass-fed meats, organic & local veggies, raw milk cheeses, raw milk if you can, coconut oil, etc. These are the foods that Weston Price identified in his work as the ones creating vibrant health, and subsequent research has confirmed that they give us the most bang for our nutritional buck (see a full list here).
• STEP 3: Learn to cook. Hopefully, the more good foods you eat and the less additives you eat will make you want to do more of both. This will mean learning to cook—it isn’t that hard, no matter how busy you are!—and learning to plan ahead a bit. But the payoff, in the form of darn good meals, will be worth it. The payoff in improved health is even more worth it! The more you cook, the more it becomes a habit. Stop eating fast food, and start getting into the habit of making your own food to have on the go (once you get used to eating real food, which is so incredibly full of flavor, you won’t want to eat the flat, tasteless garbage that is sold as “fast food”). You won’t even want “snack foods” anymore, or rarely, because once you add good fats into your diet via real food, you won’t want extra food in between your delicious meals!
• STEP 4: Eliminate most sugar. Sugar, even natural sweeteners, can wreck havoc with your blood sugar and the ripple effect in the body is toxic. Especially if you’ve been eating the “standard American diet” for a long time, you’ve been ingesting way too much sugar. It’ll take time to wean yourself off of it, but as you do, you’ll feel so good you won’t find it difficult. Happily, as you eat more good fat, you’ll find that the carbs you take in from natural sources (potatoes, yams, carrots, etc) will be filling enough. Just be sure that when you do eat natural carbs, you eat them with plenty of fat. Whenever you need a sweet fix, try something like a slice of homemade, long-fermented bread slathered in butter and with honey on top. One of my favorite ways to feed the craving!
• STEP 5: Eat seasonally & locally by supporting small farms. This requires getting to know your area and what grows when, meeting farmers and growers, and questioning food stores so that you know exactly where all of your food came from. Your local supermarket probably carries a few local fruits & veggies, but local farmer’s markets are better places to buy from. Support the family directly! Also, when you’re ready to switch to only grass-fed beef, you’ll have to get to know local farms, as that will probably be the only way to find grass-fed meat. Grass-fed isn’t a farming method that is used in mass-produced meat, so forget buying national brands. You might think there isn’t anyone near you offering grass-fed meat, but you’d be surprised. I recently discovered a farm in southern Georgia that delivers all the way down here to west central Florida! I do have closer options, but it’s good to know that there are more people than I’d thought doing it all the right way. Also, by patronizing local farmers and growers, I feel that I can be more assured of a quality product; big national companies can, and do, put out inferior products and/or sicken people with alarming regularity. A small local farm? If they do that just once, they’re out of business. Small operations are much more committed to giving you a quality product, earning your trust, and hopefully earning your repeat business.
• STEP 6: When eating out, learn what’s an acceptable compromise and what isn’t. At some point, you’ll need to (or want to) eat out. If you’re like me, you’ll do the “eating crap just this once won’t matter” routine, eat the crap, feel like crap for days after, and swear not to do it again. After I did that the first three times, I decided to figure out what I should & shouldn’t eat when I eat out, and now I can go out with friends and have a good time without being “that girl” who won’t eat & drinks only water. I’ll post more about this topic in the future, since I think it’s something people struggle with, as I did.
• STEP 7: All real food, all the time. This is the ideal to work toward, and obviously requires a complete commitment to your health and a shift in thinking about food and our relationship to it. It forces us to slow down and plan ahead, two things we’ve been trained out of doing. (Warning: this stage might start to alter your perspective on more than food.)

So that’s it in a nutshell. I’ll write next about a more detailed switch plan, but for now I hear some bacon & eggs calling my name.

I have a little worry and cynicism I want to get off of my chest. I beg your pardon if this isn’t your cup o’ tea.

Despite being a real food & small farmer champion, I’m not political otherwise, and I rarely read or watch the news. I’m an admitted cynic who prefers to mind my own matters, reading and watching things that uplift me and give me hope for the future. The news never did that; in fact, when I used to read/watch the news it was one reason my daily mood was so…sour, let us say (there are other words for it, but I won’t write them). Why? Because the “news” is nothing more than a daily scare tactic designed to make us feel frightened, disempowered, and ready to accept whatever is offered by the powers that be. I don’t need to know about who was murdered today, I don’t need to hear about why kids “need” statins (!), and I don’t want to know about politics. Especially not politics! Doesn’t matter who’s in power. Politics is a vile, mud-slinging wrestling pit made to capture the attention of the masses while the real power—the corporations—does its dirty work behind the scenes.

I did mention I was cynical, right?

I figured out that if I stop watching or reading the news, life was much happier day to day. I look for positive “news” where I can find it, and there is a LOT of it out there. I love to read about people helping people, working with animals, building communities, building gardens, honoring the elderly, and so forth.

Real food is usually just such an empowering topic. The more I learn about it, the more I have realized how much power I have over my own health. I love reading about how others use real food, how they grow it, how they promote it. I love that people are supporting small farmers and coming to understand that real food is what they need, and I love that people are interested in food- and plant-based ways of healing.

Of course, I can’t stay completely away from the less-than-feel-good, political aspects of real food. But I can usually “withstand” them better, probably because I feel empowered with the options I have available. Yet every now and then a political food topic gets under my skin and riles me up, and my cynical sides comes out swinging. I read something today that did it. The post was on the wonderful “The Healthy Home Economist” blog, written by a woman in my neck of the woods. I love Sarah’s blog, and I love what she had to say today about the organic label:

“When my husband and I began eating organic produce and meats back in the early 1990′s, the word “organic” was almost a sacred word in the food industry. … The USDA Organic certification has now become nothing more than yet another way to dupe customers into spending more money for something that has next to no additional value. … in the span of a single year, the USDA increased the number of allowable fillers and additives in USDA Organic foods from 8 to nearly 300!! The push for expansion of fillers and additives in USDA Organic food is coming from none other than Big Food. Big Food companies like Kraft, Cargill, Heinz, Kellogg and others are gobbling up small organic food companies by the dozens while at the same time, diluting the very meaning of the “organic” label itself. … Big Food clearly has its sights on dominating the Organic Food industry and if you want to stay healthy, you need to steer clear of foods that are produced by any of the companies on these charts if at all possible.”

I agree with her 100%…but this trend worries me. These companies are doing this because enough people had stopped buying their brands and were buying organics…so big food bought up the organic companies so that they get the money. It is part & parcel with the real milk fight, where all sorts of efforts are underway to kill off all raw milk producers and scare off raw milk consumers out of hyped up “food safety” fears. So what will happen if too many people stop buying premade food and cook from scratch with ingredients they get from local CSAs, co-ops, and small farms? It is already difficult for small farmers to exist at all; will they soon be completely squashed? Will we end up with laws that prohibit CSAs & co-ops, out of fear of “safety” as with raw milk prohibitions? And then ultimately, will we have laws that curtail home gardening, because you can’t possibly know how to grow “safe” food yourself?

Sometimes I worry about all of us who publicly champion real food and local farmers. Sometimes I think that we need to go underground, spread the word by talking to people in our communities, and quietly go about our business of rejecting all mass-produced food. I love that Jamie Oliver’s new show “Food Revolution” is a hit, but all I see is the attention put onto real food. I can practically hear the meeting room doors ominously clicking closed in big food boardrooms across the nation as they start taking this real food movement seriously…and discuss what to do about it. Just like “organic” got big enough to be taken seriously, I now fear real food is about to be, too.

Well, nothing I can do except keep on keepin’ on. I’ll keep growing food and buying food from locals and rejecting everything that comes from big companies…and I suppose if one day I’m not allowed to have a garden, well, you know what that means. “If gardens are outlawed…” Anyone game for the Outlaws Garden Club?

(Click the picture to visit the site it came from—and buy an old West shirt, too!)

From The Matrix Reloaded: Morpheus speaking to the people of Zion

[Warning: mini rant!] I’ve been reading a lot lately about “food safety.” About the fight for raw milk, about horrible new drugs used in livestock, about more food contamination, about more meat recalls. It is frustrating, scary, and rage-inducing, because I know the problems are all caused by dirty factory/mass farming practices and driven by greed.

Oh, and fear. Their fear of losing money and our fear of getting sick. Our fear is being stoked by theirs so that people easily agree to new laws that have their food bleached, irridated, and drugged, thus resulting in more money for the big corps. Our fear is their tool that dupes people into thinking that the twisted “modern” methods of food production would be perfectly safe if those bad little independent farmers would stop screwing things up by not bleaching, irridating, or drugging their food. “People are getting sick! Well we need stricter controls (of the little guy)! We need more chemicals blasted onto our food so that we don’t ingest any germs! How dare these little farmers try to poison us! Make them comply with the big, safe food guys!”

Of course, I understand that there is also a lot of ignorance about how food is produced. I am ever grateful for all the work currently underway to change this. But there is also so much ignorance of basic biology and science (shown by how many people buy into the “germs are bad” and “antibiotic” marketing). This goes into the serious, serious problems with the (un)educational system, problems that drove me right out of it. I do see hope in the school garden programs, although my cynical side sees that as too little, too late. Of course, I don’t believe that the powers that be, whoever they actually are (take your pick), want anyone truly educated. We’d not be as easily fooled or led.

Aaaggghhh. It drives me batty! I get so angry every time I read about some new way to “clean” food. How about cleaning up the factory farming operations? How about keeping the animals healthy and happy and in their natural states? There are plenty of non-factory farms currently running that prove quite nicely that it can be done, it does produce better food, and it does have positive ripple effects into the surrounding community.

Oh, wait. Silly me. Such things don’t line the pockets of the big fat cats who control the big factory farming megacorporations. They’ll never allow their profits to go without a fight. So they get their friends in government to keep coming up with new regulations and inspection requirements that cost so much money that small food producers are either put out of business or never get into business in the first place.

And silly me to say, “just let me choose.” I would like to choose better food, so as long as I have that choice, I’ll just go on my merry way. But lately it seems that more of us are choosing differently, and the corps are noticing. They see it as profit going away. So they’re working hard to destroy what little choice is left.

Which just strengthens my desire to produce as much of my own food as possible. But I’ve heard mutterings here and there about ways to prevent home gardens, although I don’t know the specifics. My first reaction is, why the h*ll would anyone do something so asinine? Then I remember. Oh, right. Money. If I’m growing my own food, I’m not buying someone else’s, and this consumption-based economy can’t stand that. So I suppose I would not be surprised if some politico though to make his food corp cronies some extra money by outlawing gardens. But you know what? “If gardens are outlawed, only outlaws will have gardens.”

I can’t help thinking of The Matrix again. In The Matrix, people who refused to “accept the programming” of the machines were allowed to “escape” the matrix and live free. The free people formed their own society and fought to free more people. Neo became their leader, and as their numbers grew, they caused more disruptions in the system. The machines realized they needed to be controlled, so they decided to send in their sentinels (fighting machines) to wipe out the free humans. At this point in factory food production, I feel that more and more people are realizing they have a food choice between natural and factory-farmed and are choosing to be “free” from factory-farmed food. But we are starting to reach critical mass, the point at which our numbers equal too many lost profits for the food corps to ignore us any longer. The sentinels are starting to sniff us out. Regulations are being proposed, “food safety” bills are inching through Congress, and my fear is that our choice could soon end. The machines seem ready to declare war.

But to quote Starbuck from the new Battlestar Galactica and throughly mix my pop culture metaphors, “fight ‘em ’til we can’t.”

Awesome pic of Michael Schmidt & his raw milk! Pic from The National Post.

(This post originally appeared on my other blog, Avidly Dreaming.)

As someone new to the raw milk “scene,” as it were, but not new to other food issues, I wasn’t really that surprised to learn that raw milk is a political hot potato. Of course I wasn’t; everything that is truly good & nourishing for us, that does not have some kind of industrial additive or shortcut included with it, is being attacked overtly and covertly. Advertising, misinformation, and just plain addiction are all working together to make “food” nothing more than a synthetic mishmash that rakes in billions for the few who control it. And when people contract one of the modern diseases, the pharmeceutical industry is ready & waiting to sell its drugs. Big pharm & big ag are bosom buddies, and you go against them at your peril, it seems. But most people don’t; most people don’t give a flying fig what’s in their food as long as it tastes good, is cheap, and they can eat loads & loads of it. We’re a country of addicts.

Big ag works because it’s big business. Big biz only wants to make money, and they are making lots and lots of money. The problem, of course, is that food is not—well, should not be—a typical manufacturing commodity. You wanna cut corners to make tables & chairs? Fine (well, not fine, but that’s an entirely different rant). I’m not eating my table. The table isn’t going into my body to keep me alive. But food is. Food should keep me healthy, not turn me into a future big pharm customer. But food is being produced as if it doesn’t matter what goes into it or how it is made, and people are suffering because of it. Any way big ag can cut costs, use cheaper ingredients, find cheaper labor, all the usual suspects, it does, and the end product is a shelf-stable food product that is almost completely devoid of any bodily value or true nutrition.

Yet there are still small farmers here & there who are going about their business, trying to make a living, and doing it in a healthier way that produces real food. They are finding their efforts made difficult, and in some cases completely blocked, by big ag. It’s ridiculous. A very small percentage of people prefer real food over industrial food-like products, but the way bullying and legislation is going, you’d think that big ag is scared the little guy will put a dent in their business.

Well, maybe they will. Supply and demand, of course. Although I don’t expect a statistically significant number of people to voluntarily give up fake food, and you know what? That’s fine. That’s their choice. If they don’t want to make changes, they don’t have to. But choice is the key word. If I choose to consume real food, I should be able to do so.

That’s what the raw milk issue, and Michael’s case, are about, no matter what the verdict is. Choice. If you don’t think raw milk has benefits, then by all means don’t drink it. If I do think it has benefits, I should be able to drink it. If a government wants to pass laws, then pass laws that require raw milk producers to be subject to stringent regular inspection. Require people to sign something that says they can’t sue the government if they get sick, whatever. But leave me with the choice to eat as I see fit.

UPDATE!! Michael found not guilty of all charges! Woohoo! What a wonderful step in the right direction. The battle’s only just gearing up, I’ll bet (who me, cynical?), but it’s times like these that give me hope.