Bits and Bites

Fully realizing that not everyone has all this magical time to prepare everything from scratch ALL the time, Prevention Magazine has a little slide show based on what they think are the best packaged foods on the market. They TOTALLY left out Amy’s brand products and Nature’s Path and Eden Organics… BUT, some of their other stuff on there is good.

You may not be able to find all this stuff in Bermuda or Canada, BUT, the little write-ups will point you in the right direction of what to look for in the products that are available in your location. The morale of the story is: Read the labels, but I’d also ask that you consider what the foods have been packaged in (I am on my way to a full fight against BPA and PVC food packaging) and try to think about how stuff is made (i.e. how did they get those frozen veggies to look so clean and pretty – probably with some kind of chemical wash!). Also remember, this article may have been sponsored by the food companies, so it may not be expressly objective, but it still gives you good ideas on what to look for. Shredded Wheat cereal has been mentioned time and again in the materials I am reading as one of the best commercially prepared foods because it only has 1 ingredient.
Click HERE to see the article.

Some of my friends have commented that a whole foods lifestyle is great and all, but they can’t cook, and don’t want to follow recipes all the time. That’s fine – what matters is that you do buy sort of falls into the Whole Foods category. If you like chicken, opt for organic-vegetarian-grain fed free range/cage free no GMO/hormone/antibiotics chicken (locally bought of course!) to start with and go from there. It all starts at home and it all starts out small. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, you don’t have to go whole hog on this right off the bat. You can start by just making a better choice for cereal the next time. You don’t have to go and try all these new weird foods – like quinoa or tofu or anything, whole foods isn’t about that. I try that stuff for variety because when I get bored of food, I will invariably want to eat out, and when I eat out, I invariably make all the wrong choices (ALTHOUGH, I am so very proud of myself that I can no longer stomach eating factory farm meats, so I usually opt for a vegetarian choice or have some locally caught fish.)

I think we, as a society, forgot how to cook. We seriously did. And none of us are to blame, what with all the awesome commercially prepared stuff available out there, why bother? I mean, even *I* don’t cook every day, even though I LOVE cooking! I tend to save up all my cooking for 1day – or I sneak an Olive and Mushroom Pizza in there from Amy’s….or the Ravioli mmmm

Here’s a little slide show on Kitchen Tips – not necessarily to cut down on time, just to make the kitchen a more friendly place again. I think some people got scared of the kitchen after all these expert chefs on food Network started ‘plating’, deglazing, and making frou -frou sauces etc. I think we all forgot the ease and healthfulness of casseroles and stirfrys. And that not all meals have to be either these big elaborate events OR come from a pre-packaged commercially prepared box. Click HERE to see the article

And lastly, the biggest question people have been asking (aside for cost- which isn’t ever a question, it’s more of a statement like: “It’s too expensive for me to switch”) is: “What do you miss the most?” and my answer is truly “nothing much”. Because I seriously don’t miss much of eating non-whole food. If I want junk food, I make it myself (I am considering making myself some onion rings this weekend in fact) – and lord knows I LOVE to bake, sooooo I have been making way more cookies and cake lately (I am so excited that my Pumpkin Spice Cake works equally well with whole wheat flour! And those Almond Butter chocolate cookies are SINFULLY delicious and unfortunately-for-me VERY easy to make!)

There was a website I used to frequent called Top Secret Recipes for these cool recipes for commercially prepared stuff. They posted recipes for stuff like Cadbury Cream Eggs, Big Macs (I haven’t had a big mac in YEARS, and it’s all about the sauce! Oh, and the pickles), and Reece’s Peanut Butter cups (these were just a few of the recipes I used to use back in the day!) I revisited the site (I haven’t been on there in almost a decade – can you believe the internet has been around for over a decade?) and the guy now has books out, and you have to pay for a lot of the recipes etc. BUT – imagine if you could make a Whole Foods Big Mac? How awesome would that be? Some recipes are available for free, some you have to buy one of the books for, but some of the recipes can be purchased individually, which is a great idea if you ask me! (the Big Mac recipe is FREE). He has recipes from very well known national brands…like, I can make myself some Applebee’s Crispy Orange Chicken Bowl (which is the WORST chicken dish on their whole menu – I think it clocks in at 1700 calories, but it is soooooooo good!)

To summarize – no, I don’t miss anything because I have mastered Michael Pollan’s rule to make my own junk food expertly! 