Processed food is scary

Forgive me, but I watched Food, Inc this weekend and it's got me all up in arms.

First- let me say this: I still cook with processed food. I still feed my family sugar. In fact, several nights a week I find myself bribing my two year old with a dessert to get her to eat her vegetables.

But ya'll, the food industry has some really shady practices. First they make us fat, and then they sell us things that are supposed to make us thin.

This was a really interesting article I read in The Guardian this week - Why our food is making us fat.

Processed food is scary.


I'm terrified that my daughter is going to end up addicted to sugar and another victim of the obesity epidemic.

I'm afraid she'll end up with cancer from some sort of additive the food industry uses to keep costs down.

I worry that she'll get e coli from some tainted greens.

I stay awake at night worrying about the world she is going to inherit, with land ruined by industrial farming, and resources scarce.

Most of all I want to teach her to have a healthy attitude towards food and to live in a sustainable way.

So I am working on cutting processed food out of our diet. They may seem like baby steps but it's been a real eye opener for me to incorporate this into our lifestyle.

1. by drastically reducing the pasta intake and only eating whole grain pasta.

2. by starting to have at least 2 meatless dinners per week. Generally breakfasts in our house are vegetarian and lunch is leftovers from dinner. Great protein alternatives: TVP, Tofu, Beans, Quinoa, Whole Wheat Couscous, Lentils, Greek Yogurt, Cottage Cheese

3. by starting to only buy sustainable meat products- though this is very difficult especially with seafood, I suggest buying into a local meat csa. They are more expensive, but you're paying the real unsubsidized costs.

4. by slowly finding alternatives to sugar. I'm experimenting with stevia, honey, and maple syrup in baked goods. Any processed food that does make it past me (mostly from Trader Joe's) has it's nutritional information scrutinized for added sugar.

5. experimenting with alternative flours. I've been switching out a cup here or a cup there to wheat or rye flour in my breads to see how they react to the changes. So far nothing has been a disaster. A simple french country loaf with a difference of 1 cup of white to wheat was lovely this evening and I plan on trying it again next week with 2 cups switched out. I've been perusing bread recipes to try to find the most common and useful alternative flours before I invest in 5 different kinds. I'm on a tight budget after all.

6. (most) produce that runs the risk of going bad gets frozen for stock. Ends of onions, carrot peels, squeezed lemons, greens I'm not interested in eating, chicken carcasses, the giblets and necks left in the bird- all of this ends up in my freezer. On a lazy day I put it all in a stock pot with a lot of water and some herbs on low and 8 hours later I have a fantastic stock. On a slightly busier day I just toss it in the crockpot and let it go. Sometimes overnight. I freeze it in 2 and 4 cup portions. It lasts indefinitely.

7. by meal planning on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. This varies our diet throughout the week, allows me to save money by using some of the same special ingredients in more than one recipe (fresh herbs, lemons, limes, etc things I don't always have, and tend not to use all of when purchased)

There may be more, but I've run out of steam.

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In other news - I've been cooking a lot lately and have a lot of recipes in draft form. Most just need an additional test and some photos. I think I've convinced The Daddy to be my official photographer. He has a big camera. It looks fancy. I can hardly wait!