More and more you are starting to see people who are preferring organics over conventional foods. But why the shift? Is this a movement for healthier foods or just another wall street concocted fad to loosen the purse strings of Americans? If health was a major concern of the average American, then how can we continue to smoke, drink excessively and buy tons of candy? Doesn't that just fly into the face of the whole healthy eating movement?
I think the answer is a little more involved than just looking at stats and headlines. If you pay attention to the news you would think organics were the main staple at grocery stores. While the selections have increased, they are not a large portion of any average grocery store. I think the main driving force behind all of this is the push to get rid of GMO's, or genetically modified organisms. People don't want frankenfoods. They want real food, food they can identify and not an ingredient list that looks like a chemist term paper from college.
I have moved my eating habits to closer align with what I deem as a healthy, organic food. I consider whole, natural foods that have not been genetically modified or polluted with chemicals as organic. No, this does not include the cinnamon graham crackers that have a laundry list of "organic" ingredients in it. That is slightly healthier processed food. Any processed food is not going to be healthy. the more processed it becomes, the less healthy it becomes. We should be striving to return our kitchens to what they were pre WWII when almost everything was made from scratch, and with real, whole ingredients. Now that's not to say some things can't be used, like ground spices, etc. but that by making them from scratch we have fewer ingredients to consume.
Let's look at macaroni and cheese. This is arguably one of the most popular foods to hit the grocery store shelf. I don't know a single person who does not like mac & cheese. But look at the ingredient list on any box, organic or not and you'll see a list of chemicals that would make a high school science teacher envious. This is not mac & cheese. This is pasta with chemicals. Mac & cheese should be made from whole grain pasta and organic cheese made from raw, grass fed dairy. This is what your ancestors ate. The sad part is it takes just as much time to make the processed, powdered form as it does the real thing! There is absolutely no time savings. But we have been fed a line (no pun intended) that we don't have time to make real meals We need these quick, convenience foods. It's all a gimmick to sell you mass production food.
When I started changing how my family ate, I started looking up recipes for foods we normally ate. I never realized that making Alfredo sauce from scratch was a simple, 3 ingredient process that was just as fast to make as it was to warm the stuff that came in a jar! In the same amount of time it took to cook my pasta, I could make Alfredo sauce! And guess what? It tasted way better than the jar stuff! Now my family won't eat any Alfredo sauce unless I made it. Little by little I was winning my family over to this new way of eating. Food tasted better and they felt better.
So how do I know I am doing better eating this way? Well for starters, everyone in my house has been slowly losing weight just by changing our diet. We still have our moments and weaknesses, namely ice-cream. But where I can see the biggest difference is when I eat something that would have been a normal food just a couple years ago. Recently I was out running around and was in a hurry. I decided to hit Burger King and get a bacon cheeseburger. I got the meal but had unsweetened tea. For the following 3 hours I felt like crap, and for the last hour I felt sick. My stomach hurt and I felt like I needed to throw up. I have learned my lesson! Once you kick fast food, you don't want to go back. It will make you sick!
If you doubt what I say, take the whole food challenge. Eat whole foods for one week. Then go eat some fast food and see what happens. The food is bland, except for the ones with slathered on sauces and insanely salty. Your body will tell you fairly quickly that it did not appreciate the assault from this disgusting food you fed it. As you move more and more over to whole foods your tastes will change. Food will taste better and your body will start to crave fresh fruits and vegetables. You will notice you sleep better, have more energy and your health will improve. I went from borderline high blood pressure to blood pressure of a teenager in 2 months!
Try whole foods. You body will thank you, and you will thank me!
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