Definitely Defined

I guess I should probably take a moment and define what I mean by “Whole Food” so we’re all on the same page here.

When I think of “Whole Food” I think of food that grew out of the ground that is as free of chemicals and additives as possible. And by chemicals and additives, I mean all the hidden crap that isn’t even mentioned in the labels like pesticides, genetic modifications and growth hormones – because I believe that those things are truly killing us (slowly and very painfully I might add!). In my definition of Whole Foods I include meat that came from animals that were fed foods they were meant to eat – grass fed cows, grain fed chickens, and fish that swam in an ocean etc. - and not pumped full of hormones that decreased their rate of maturity by 50%. In that vein, I am also trying very hard to only eat eggs that came from grain fed, non-hormone induced, free range chickens. I have to do some more research on this in Bermuda, because I thought I was already buying these kinds of eggs, but was told that may not be the case (i.e. the labeling may be misleading) so I have to find out if this is the case.

I have extra challenges that I am working with, the biggest being the availability of products on a small island. While I was home in Canada, I scoured a few places for stuff I could test out, and was pretty successful in finding things (PUCKER UP 100% Cranberry Juice!). And I’ll be incorporating some extra things into my adventure that are especially necessary for me – like abandoning all the caffeine in my life (I love you coffee & chocolate! Why are you so hard on the digestive system?) – zero tolerance on alcohol (ask me how hard that was during the holidays!!!!) – and I am proud to say that I gave up smoking 12 days ago and haven’t looked back since (it’s a whole other ball-game when you HAVE TO do something, even though I was already planning on quitting).

Wikipedia defines Whole Foods as follows:

Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients, such as sugar, salt, or fat.[1] Examples of whole foods include unpolished grains; fruits and vegetables; unprocessed meat, poultry, and fish; and non-homogenized milk.

It also goes on to explain that the term Whole Food is often confused with organic food, but the two are not the same. I would like to try to take my definition a little bit further and incorporate as much organic food as possible in the hopes of eliminating as many chemicals and crap as possible from my diet. The most important and most challenging part of this game is eliminating all the processed foods I can out of my diet. As a single gal with a full time job, I don’t exactly have all the time in the world to cook stuff from scratch. I also LOVE eating out, and food gets wasted when cooking entire meals for just myself because it’ll go bad or I get tired of it (although I love taking a Sunday and cooking all kinds of stuff and freezing it in portions for lunch!). Hence the whole ‘eat more Asian’ idea. I’ve been bringing my lunch to work every day for weeks and weeks, and it’s usually rice, with a bit of protein (chicken up until I saw Food Inc!) and vegetables. Sometimes some soup and more fruit than you can shake a stick at! And that keeps me going!

In addition to the above, you may see me write about some other changes I am doing to move towards more of a “Whole Life” in an effort to remove a lot of toxins from my life. While I was home, I bought some natural toiletries such as toothpaste, deodorant, and soap (olive oil!) So you can be sure there may be some raves or rants about those products to come…I’m wearing the deodorant today, and so far so good!

And I’ve been considering greener products for cleaning etc.

If anyone has any suggestions or anything, plop in a comment! I am hoping that this blog will be more of an exchange of ideas and information than just me chronicling my adventures…