The foods you eat – or don't eat?

Some things I’m particular about are real whole grain breads/cereals (either says 100% whole wheat, or whole wheat/whole grain as first ingredient and at least 2g. fiber per serving, pref. 3+). Would like to grind own wheat, but not there yet!  Also, hormone-free dairy and meats.  100% grass-fed meat from a local farmer.  Chicken without antibiotics, pref. from a local farmer.  Cage-free eggs.  Organic produce as much as possible, and locally as much as possible (CSA’s are great sources).  If not org. produce, I will buy non-organic if it’s not on the common lists of ones to avoid (will buy bananas, watermelon, mangos and other non-organic when I need to, I don’t buy strawberries, grapes, apples, etc. unless organic).  We drink water from a reverse osmosis system…gets everything out, including flouride.  Stevia is a great natural sweetener…but I’m still trying to develop my taste for it:)

This is for the whole family.  That said, it’s often one against three here, so I do compromise:)  If we eat out, I don’t sweat it.  I try to make our homemade snacks with wheat flour, but they hate wheat pizza crusts so I do white…still healthier than Papa John’s:)  HTH some….Gina

We started changing our foods 4-5 years ago. It was baby steps at first. Our first big change was going from white bread to wheat, then from wheat w/ HFCS to wheat w/o HFCS, then to Ezekiel Bread, now to me grinding my own wheat, soaking it, and baking it myself. That process alone has taken 4 years!

Non-negotiables:

• I will not buy food with nitrates/nitrites, artificial colors or flavors, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, or MSG.
• Produce purchased is 95% organic. The only fruit I will buy non-organic are bananas. The only vegetable I buy non-organic is asparagus, and that’s only because we love it so much and organic asparagus can be close to $8/lb where I live!
• Refined sugar is out. I only use unbleached, organic sugar for one thing: kombucha. And only because the sugar is completely used up during the fermenting process. We use whole sweeteners like sucanet, coconut sugar, raw honey, and pure maple syrup. Stevia is also found in abundance in our home, but for sweetening things like lemonade or tea.
• We buy our eggs from a local farmer. Grass-fed, hormone-free beef also comes from a local rancher.
• Raw milk is a must. If I am ever unable to procure raw milk, we will just do without. I won’t even buy organic milk because I know it is an empty food.
• The only foods I buy in a can are tomato products, like crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste. 

Things I’m Learning:

• How to cook traditionally from Nourishing Traditions.
• Yogurt-making from raw milk.
• Learning to enjoy lacto-fermented veggies.

The whole family eats this way. The kids don’t particularly care for the lacto-fermented stuff yet, but we’re making progress. Before we jumped on the Traditional Cooking Bandwagon, my husband prayed and fasted about it for a week. We knew that was going to be one of our biggest changes, and we couldn’t do it lightly. It’s so much fun though. At this moment, I have yogurt culturing, milk clabbering, and two quarts of homemade ginger ale fermenting on my kitchen counter. In my fridge, I have some fermented bean paste (basically just bean dip and very yummy!), liquid whey, lacto-fermented salsa, and raw cream cheese. Before I go to bed tonight, I will soak oatmeal in purified water and whey for breakfast in the morning.

My pantry has changed too. Now, instead of boxes of breakfast cereal, flavored instant oatmeal, Kraft mac-n-cheese, and Hamburger Helper, I have glass canisters of wheat berries, sorghum, and whole corn.

As we have changed our eating, we have filled our kids in on the “why’s”. They understand that HFCS, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, and refined sugars are bad for them. They have experienced fatigue and sickness from eating bad foods after being in this lifestyle for a while. We don’t miss the junk either. Every once in a while, I’ll get a craving for some Oreos or a fun-size bag of peanut M&Ms. For those occasions, I keep what I want in the house. We do allow treats every once in a while, but I try very hard to make treats that are tasty and healthy. We still eat cookies, quickbreads, muffins, and stuff like that, but when made by me, I don’t worry about anyone eating them. I know exactly what goes into them, and that they’re full of good, nutritious things, not junk.

What kinds of changes are you considering for your family, Tristan?

Blessings,

Lindsey

Wow!  I am so amazed and impressed by some of the lifestyle choices and commitments described here. No wonder I like you guys so much!  I wish you were my neighbors!

Well, in the first place, I have been hearing a lot about that Food to Fork movie – I saw that it was on Netflix so I guess I will have to watch it, although I am under the impression that it is an anti-meat movie, and that made me not-so-enthusiastic, because as a homesteader, I know the role of animals on a farm and therefore in my family’s diet.  I have seen and loved Food Inc, and I loved Barbara Kingsolver’s book about eating locally for a year, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.”

OK so I am not nearly so hard core as the ladies above in regards to our diet.  I do live on a small farm and I operate a seasonal CSA.  We have a big garden, chickens, pigs, sometimes rabbits, etc.  We eat all that stuff, they are not pets.  

The funny thing is, as a result of growing so much of our own perishables, most of what I buy is processed foods and grains, like flour and rice.  I don’t need to buy much of anything else.  I buy peanut butter and cheese and ketchup and cereal and stuff like that.  My cart does not look very good if you ran into me at the store LOL.  I do buy 100% ww bread, but I buy some white pasta and tortillas. Since we raise and butcher our own, we buy very little meat, usually only beef and we get that at a local store with a butcher or from a local grass fed rancher.  I almost never buy chicken – maybe once a year, or less. We also eat very seasonally – not just what food is ripe, but also in terms of the kind of food we prepare.  I don’t bake in the summer, for instance, so we might buy more baked goods in the summer.

I do allow some food coloring – as in, we eat birthday cake, and occaisional candy, etc.  We have got into a Gatorade habit this summer, that we have started to break.  We drink very little soda, only when we are out (the fizzy settles their stomachs in the car). We eat ice cream a lot LOL (Blue Bell:) – just tried their new flavor ‘Tiramisu’ – yummy) and some cookies every now and then if it is not baking season.  There have been a few bags of chips come through our door…

I am happy with where we are right now – I think I treat the grocery store as a tool, not as a trap.  I am aware of many ways to cook and bake, use sweetners, make yogurt and cheese, pickle vegetables, and I can do these things or not as I choose, depending on circumstances.  I am thankful for the freedom to buy readymade and processed food if I need to.  I just keep trying to learn from everytime that I need to, and planning ahead to avoid or mitigate whatever the situation is in the future.

All that said, I do not have any family members with food allergies or issues.  I know how fortunate we are in that regard, and I have learned a lot from reading about the need of others that do have these issues to contend with, so thank you to you all for sharing.

Tristan,

   We are eating a whole lot different than we did 4 yrs ago. We noticed so many different behavioral problems with my son. He was fine in the morning until breakfast. I tried elimanating things but it seemed everything bothered him. It wasn’t until he broke out in Preschool that we had a breakthrough. It was Crystal Lite they put in the snowtable. He was allergic to it. Red Dye 40. This started my research into food. I asked myself … What is Red Dye 40? After looking it up I found out it is Coal Tar. WoW! It is a carcinagenic (causes cancer) Then, He was still having problems. The doctor finally gave him a blood test. He was deathly allergic to Mold. This is in all kinds of foods. I went on another research. Found out Milk, eggs,ect can have mold. The cows eat moldy grain and it passes through into their milk. Chickens pass it to their eggs. Red Dye 40 and other dyes are made with milk. Oil and water don’t mix. We raise our own chickens and it seems to be fine. Milk is out. It also has casinate which coats your intestines like glue. It is hard to get the nutrients you need so we switched to Almond, Soy, and Hemp Milk. I love to make this. We also switched our sweeteners. Most sweeteners have mold. Maple surup, Molassas ect.. So we do Honey sparingly. I also grow Stevia. I make it like a tea and it taste better than the stuff in the store. I also use Agave Nectar. This we have no problem with.  No Yeast, Vinegar, or fermented foods. They contain mold. My son eats spegetti sauce instead of Ketchup. Mostly we noticed that Chicken, Rice, and a veggie is our best type of meals. Pasta’s, and taco’s with MSG free seasonings and as everyone else said try to eat organic as much as possiable, Garden fresh foods and our Deer, pheasant, goose, ducks, chickens we shoot ourselves. It is a learning process. We started small and keep adding to it each time we learn something new. Food Inc. is a good video and I am going to look into some of the ones above. Thanks everyone! Sorry this is so long but I think we all learn from others. HOpe this helps someone. 🙂

I know several ladies have said this, but wanted to give a real life example.  A few years ago we decided to ‘go vegetarian’ for a few months (just to try it).  So I instantly switched to all vegetarian meals, which meant I was trying a new recipe every night.  Well, a whole lot of them were bombs.  Pretty darn gross.  Which was frustrating for me because I’d spent time and money on the ingredients and then had hungry, whiny kids (and sometimes husbands).  It also got really discouraging because everyone was complaining at every meal about how the food was so yucky…every meal…every time…for weeks on end.  We found a few we liked but a whole lot we didn’t.  I learned (after much pain) to go slowly.  Add in a new recipe once or twice a week until you have a repertoire to last a few weeks or a month or so…then make the “big switch”.  It takes time to change your eating AND cooking habits.  It also really helped me to have fast, easy meals in the pantry or freezer that I could throw together quickly if the meal turned out inedible (and some do).  

We’re going through the process again and I just want to jump right in and start with all my new plans, but I know it will be better in the long run to gradually ease into it and find recipes we like slowly.

I have not had time to read all the posts….but we had watch Food, Inc. last year and Forks over Knives on netflix the other night……….great insights from these films.  We have slowly changed the way we eat over the past 2 years and are so glad we have.  I would say we used to eat 80% SAD (standard american diet) foods, and now we eat 20% SAD foods…so that’s a big improvement from a couple who grew up on kool-aid, soda, vienna sausage, and little debbie snack cakes, LOL…….dh isn’t supposed to eat wheat, so he eats a millet/brown rice bread, dc eat Ezekiel or low preservative breads from Trader Joe’s.  I make green smoothies (fruit and greens blended in a blender) almost every day, we started eating salad or spinach leaves every day………last week ds (age 5) asked when we “get to have” quinoa again since I hadn’t fixed it for awhile.  Our kids get offered candy and junk food ALL the time outside the house, as long as their time outside the house is limited we let them have it and then I “shove” health food done their mouths in a positive way when we’re home, LOL.  And I lightly lecture my kids often on why the nutritious food is so good for and why the candy and junk food should be eaten not at all or rarely.  Their brains seem to “get it” and ds age5 brags about the “nutrition food” he eats.