Archive for the ‘Eating Whole Foods Info’ Category
My Homage to Butter
March 4th, 2009 | 
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Butter, oh butter, let me count the ways…Over the last year, I’ve come to have a love affair with butter. While its got a reputation for being an artery-clogging, cellulite-creating, saturated fat-hoarding devil food, butter is actually one of the best healthy fats you can eat. Julia Child, butter’s best known and biggest fan, lived to 91 eating abundant amounts of butter! Me thinks she was onto something. Personally, I think butter has become my favorite fat source, even above olive oil (which has the better reputation).
Feeling skeptical? Read on for more information about the immense benefits of butter.
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Easy Transitioning to Whole Foods
A lot of what I’ve learned about food and health and what I promote on this site is so against the grain of what we normally do and quite a change for many. I completely understand that making any kind of lifestyle change, especially when you’re already busy with your existing lifestyle, can feel impossible. I know that the things I talk about take more time, mental energy, and sometimes money. I have the luxury of time and energy right now (plus I love the topic) so the learning process has been fun for me. But I know many of you do have kids and/or busy lives and are already overwhelmed with your current obligations and can’t imagine taking on one more thing.
Below are some suggestions on how to get going on making healthy changes that have cost very little in time, money, or energy. The biggest suggestion? TAKE IT SLOW!!! You don’t have to do it all at once, nor should you. If you try and do it all at once, you’re more likely to overwhelm yourself and drop it all. So be patient with yourself and know that even one or two small changes here and there matter. The transition may take months or even years but that’s alright. Little things do matter for your health, your family’s health, and the planet.
Healthy Fats and Cholesterol
All in favor of butter as a health food? Aye! This section is all about healthy fats and cholesterol, with a little fat history thrown in there for good measure.
Dairy
I love drinking milk. I could easily drink a gallon a week by myself. For as long as I can remember, I grew up drinking skim milk. In the not too distant past when I was still drinking skim milk, I tried 1% milk on my cereal and found it gross – too thick and mucousy. When I started learning more about why skim/low fat milk isn’t good for us, I gasped at the idea of drinking whole milk. Just the thought of it made me gag! However, I became a convert with no problem at all and I now drink whole milk (usually raw) regularly and abundantly.
Here’s why skim and low fat isn’t good. This is an excerpt that sums it up, from Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food”:
“Very often food science’s efforts to make traditional foods more nutritious make them much more complicated, but not necessarily any better for you. 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…Also, removing the fat makes it that much harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that are one of the reasons you drink milk in the first place”.
Yet again, we have food scientists trying to make food healthier by changing what naturally exists and, in the process, they muck it all up.
Natural Sweeteners
Natural sweeteners are a healthier alternative to refined sugar and I wanted to devote a post on the different types I use. When I say natural sweeteners, I’m referring to things like honey, maple syrup, and more exotic and unknown substances like stevia and rapadura. What’s the deal and why are they better than, say, sugar or Splenda? Well, natural sweeteners are sugars that are unprocessed and unrefined. They have retained a lot of the vitamins and minerals they’re created with, which means your body will process them much easier. They should still be used in moderation – too much of a good sweetener can make Johnny a chunky monkey (stevia excluded). For some recipes, only refined sugars will do, especially when it comes to certain baked goods that require refined sugars for texture and subtle flavor. But it’s good practice to get to know your natural sweeteners and become familiar what they bring to the table.
Buying & Eating Beef
I recently made a pretty big personal commitment to only buy meat from pastured, grass-fed animals. This is a big commitment because grass-fed beef, for example, can be considerably more expensive than grain-fed feedlot beef (although I argue below that it’s cheaper than you think). So the commitment not only requires the time it takes me to seek out grass-fed beef, but it’s a financial commitment too.
I made this decision for a number of reasons, which I’ll try and explain adequately below (in abbreviated summary). There are a number of books that better and more thoroughly explain why pastured animal consumption is best (if you choose to eat meat, that is). These are the two that really swayed me into it: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Real Food by Nina Planck. I highly recommend both.
Eating Organic
Here’s some info on eating organic foods. I eat mostly organic, but I also understand that “organic” is not the be-all-end-all of health food. It’s more expensive, sometimes tough to find, and “organic” these days certainly does not always mean “healthy”. It’s sometimes tough to understand what organic is even really all about. So I thought I would share some of the info that steered me in the direction of organic foods. I did read some books on the topic in my own quest for understanding and I can say that I came out of my research feeling a good deal of passion about eating organic, sustainable, and/or local foods.
