A Work in Progress

Ever since college (a few years ago) I have had a great interest in nutrition. I grew up thinking that any night my mom actually did more than pick up subway was cooking. The only vegetables we ate were corn (a grain), green beans (a legume) and cucumbers (mostly water), none of which are among the nutrient kings, by any means. And besides cucumbers, we ate everything canned. Except for lettuce, that is. Iceberg, of course. Who knew you could buy greens with the nutrition of kale or even romaine.

Excuse my rant. Anyways... I've been reading everything I can get my hands on since leaving home. I knew there had to be a reason I have struggled with my weight my whole life, I always got sick and I never had any energy. Reading Nourishing Traditions really set me on fire for nutrition and I have been looking for easier recipes, more information and corroborating ideas since then. I have come across two recently and I will review them for you.

Real Food by Nina Planck. When I started this book I skipped from chapter to chapter and even thought I may not read even half of it. The reason being that I thought I had already learned about all of the topics she discussed - real meats, real fats, real milk, real fruits and vegetables, etc. The author grew up on a family owned vegetable farm and when she spread her wings, so to speak, she rebelled against her 'real food' roots. She became a vegan/vegetarian. She found that she was feeling ill, had a huge loss of energy and just didn't like where her body was going. But she wanted to go with the low-fat, no red meat fads. Eventually she came to her senses and came back to real food and along the way was one of the first real starters of the farmer's markets in the U.S. and Britain (at least that is the information she gave me in the book). Her real foods include: Meat & Poultry - pastured, organic. Dairy - Raw, from pastured cows/goats. Fats: Coconut oil, real butter, olive oil. Fruits/Vegetables: Plenty of them, preferably local and organic.

As you can see eventually I did end up reading the whole book. She gave a lot of interesting information that I wasn't aware of and that helped back up my reasons for eating and feeding my family real foods. There are no recipes in this book, but the information is good. I do have to say that she has been brainwashed with evolution propaganda and so has a skewed world view. I got the book from the library, as I am a cheapskate I mean frugal. You should do the same :).

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I am actually still reading this book, but wanted to discuss it before I forget some things. This book is basically what the subtitle of the book says: A Natural History of Four Meals. He goes through, in detail, how we would obtain a meal in four different ways. The information in this book is both disturbing and fascinating. He really details the impact that the cheap commodity of corn has had on our diets. Not to mention the fact that the government is shoving it down our throats. I really enjoyed the fact that he visited Joel Salatin on his farm in Virginia and detailed how Joel and his family farm 'beyond organic.' He, too, has been a victim of the brainwashing of evolution, so look out for that. But if you're interested in our food chain, how it gets from field to table this book is a good read.

I will be writing a series spinning off from these books. Have any of you read these books? If not, what are you reading?

My love story with DH should be a totally separate post someday, but long story short we went from courting (4 months) to engaged pretty quickly. It wasn't until after his proposal and my saying yes that I actually met his parents. We stayed with his mom for a couple of days and one morning I heard her running around the kitchen making us breakfast - very kind of her. She works full time, so it was a thoughtful thing to do to take her weekend morning and prepare us breakfast. I got up and greeted my soon to be DH as we were in separate bedrooms. I got myself ready for the day and then my now MIL called us to the breakfast table.

This being only the 2nd day of actually knowing her I was excited to see what she prepared for breakfast and was determined to be very appreciative, since she was kind enough to do this for us. My sweet fiancee at the time knew my distaste for asparagus, but I didn't think that I would be confronted with the vegetable at that early hour. So we walk into the dining room and sitting on the table is something I believe is called asparagus goldenrod. It was asparagus covered with an eggy cheese sauce over toast. Well my stomach dropped when I saw that, but even though I'd probably rather eat pureed cardboard than asparagus I smiled and was determined to eat it. Then in a split second and to my horror my sweet fiancee declared: "She doesn't like asparagus." Oy. I felt terrible and my MIL who spent an entire morning cooking in the kitchen for her son and soon to be daughter-in-law was completely deflated. I did eat half of the asparagus along with the fruit and sausage served that morning, but asparagus will always make me think of that interesting, slightly uncomfortable morning.