Is it possible to apply ethics to the realm of food? Does that thought seem strange to you? I mean, it's just food, right? Tastes good and keeps us alive and makes us fat.
For quite a while now I have been growing in my knowledge of food ethics. I don't know if this has a singular definition, but I'll explain what this means to me: Real food, real close.
There is a new "diet" called the "real food" diet. Seems strange, doesn't it? I mean, most people aren't munching on their kid's Playskool plastic muffins...but most people might as well be.
How often do you read the ingredients on your food? Well, I do, often. I can't help it. And I try not to buy many foods that contain ingredients I don't recognize or can't pronounce.
But we're so spoiled! And this makes a diet, or eating habits/choices such as the "real food diet" difficult. It's hard to return to baking your own bread, mixing up your own oatmeal, searching out local folks with chickens, and canning/freezing produce, among a long list of other things. It means less microwave, more stove-top. It means 30 minutes to an hour for a meal, not 5 - 10 minutes. It's hard!
But I desire to do it. It's not entirely about health, even though there are real great health benefits to such natural eating. Primarily, it's about ethics. It resonates in my spirit as the "right way."
I'm not saying this in a judgmental way. It's a personal conviction, something that resonates in my spirit. Maybe it's because I love food, I love cooking, I love the art of it all. I reject all imitations of real, pure, beautiful ingredients.
And I love my daughter. And I want her to grow up knowing that God gave us the earth, and he gave us wonderful, nutritious, delicious food that grows up from the ground underneath the warm sun. It's a beautiful thing.
Marmallow fluff, however.....where's the beauty?
ha.
So, I'm embarking on a journey of slowly making changes toward this lifestyle.
I've been baking bread, but not as often as I could, and one day I'd like to grind the wheat and all that jazz. I am learning the art of a southern biscuit. I've stopped buying produce from other countries, and hopefully soon I'll transition to mostly local. I'm making most of Anna-Joy's baby food.
Now as for making my own yogurt/butter/chicken stock.....
Good grief! That intimidates me. But I'm taking it one step, one heart-beat at a time.
This blog ... wow. This girl is rockin' it.
Love,
Nicola Mahshie
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why you gotta hate on marshmallow fluff? jk.
ReplyDeletethis kind of eating is totally ideal. way to go. you've inspired me.
I've been doing the same thing in my own way. I've been reading Michael Pollan's books about the food industry vs organic farming, have had my eyes opened so to speak as to what is in the grocery store and where it all came from.
ReplyDeleteWe recently watched Food Inc, I recommend it highly.
Changes we are making to our lives:
We are planning this spring to purchase a produce share and a poultry share at a CSA run by a friend.
I've been gradually switching over to organic foods wherever possible.
We belong to a local food coop and order monthly many products that are either natural or organic. We are gradually trying to order more and more from the coop and less and less from the grocery store.
I still will be planting a little garden in our little backyard for specialty things like cucumbers for pickles and roma tomatoes, maybe more winter squash.
We eat big bowls of oatmeal every morning with raisins or cranberries, it's great.
Eliminating fast food from our lives, no more of that. Home food is so much better.
Yay, Nicole, keep it up, home grown and home made is so much better. It's good to know what you are eating. We should not eat anything that our great grandmothers would not recognize as a food, don'tcha think?