Saturday, February 13, 2010

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

my take on food inc...

have you seen it yet? it's an amazing documentary about commercial food production and i really think everyone should watch it, if nothing else but to be more informed! after watching it and talking about it we've decided that we still like some things and won't be giving them up. diet coke and peanut m&ms, for example, will probably be my personal recipe for prozac as long as i live, josh won't be passing on the cheese-its and mountain dew anytime soon either.

i don't think it was coincidence that after having bar food and beer for 5 dinners in a row and josh and i having quite the discussion about tired we've both been over the winter that i saw the producers of food inc on oprah and martha. on oprah they talked about how there are nations that eat a diet far higher in fat that we do but without the highly processed foods and they have much lower instances of diabetes and heart disease. they also have lower instances of cancer which i realize is not necessarially caused by food but that's another blog for another day. that same show they interviewed alicia silverstone about her new book 'the kind diet' that's all about making the best possible choice no matter the circumstances in an effort to be kinder to your bodies and the planet. taking both ideas into account here's the plan for the bennetts:

1.) seriously reduce the amount of highy processed food made of things that we can't pronounce easily or that have unnatural properties, ie: any food that won't rot or foods that have been 'fortified' by injecting them with something or adding extra things in just to make it 'healthy' (eggs don't need to be high in iron!)

2.) eat more locally grown produce, meat and eggs and the best quality we can easily afford (i still refuse to pay $20 for a chicken just because it's organic, or $5.00 for a dozen eggs just because they're at the farmer's market but i can afford to replace ground beef with ground buffalo every few meals and eat more veggies)

3.) eat as much 'junk' food as i feel like cooking. ie: homemade french fries, onion rings and nachos are a bit of a pain to make every night but if it's really worth taking the time then why not?

sounds pretty simple right? well, that's the plan and we're going to work at it. i refuse to believe that getting back to basics doesn't just mean spending more time with the family and less time and money going out!

for our first homemade, better choices dinner, i made spaghetti with buffalo meat (yet another blog entry for later), and baked garlic bread i found at martin's in the natural/organic section of the freezer. pretty easy, i just read the labels and found things that looked good that didn't cost a fortune and had an ingredient list i could recognize. here's a pic that doesn't show nearly how good it tastes but it did taste way better than the usual quick stuff and it hasn't upset my stomach or josh's yet so that's a good sign :)