I Swear To Not Become Crunchy Hippy Granola

I am slowly feeling the change...physically, intellectually and emotionally.

We've been watching a lot of Food Inc type movies on Netflix and some of them are good (like Food Inc) and some are just TOO preachy (like Food Matters). I am embracing this change in our lives...but I am trying to stay away from being too hippy tree-huggery because that isn't me and I shouldn't be forced to be so by those sharing their information with the world.

For example, in Food Matters there were two parts I very much disagreed with (to an extent): 1. People need to fix their priorities. Instead of paying for things like rent and a car, they need to buy better food, and 2. Raw food is the only way to go. The guys brother lost (I can't remember - something like 150) lbs in 8 months. Some days he lost 13 lbs.

Ok...so...yes - I think people do need to change their priorities...but rent and a car (minus if you really don't need one, which most households need one) are not logical ways of expressing the need to purchase better food.

As for the raw diet...I'm not opposed to a natural cleanse in the short term (7-14 days) but as a lifestyle, I disagree with only eating raw. I understand that many nutrients in food break down when cooked, but I feel you are missing access to some nutrients that would be harder to come by raw. The guy in the film did talk about some vegetables that you could get higher levels of certain nutrients than meat, dairy, etc., but some of the things I've never heard of and I don't even know where I would find them. Also - 13 lbs in a day...it may be build up in your system, but I don't understand how a loss that big in one day could be good for you.

Anyway, Wednesday we took our cousin Courtney to the GBC Food Co-Op and she was pretty excited about it!! So if we are able to start going pretty regularly, she has agreed to tag along (especially if she gets some honey out of it, I think).

I made my first raised bed yesterday. The downside...I think most of my transplants aren't going to make it...so I'll just have to start from seed again. Exercise of the day...leveling the area and lifting +/- 100 lb bags of soil around.

We went on our weekly grocery store run...a couple of meals this week had to get pushed into next week (don't you hate when you forget to defrost your dinner!!) and as we have visitors for part of the weekend...our grocery bill was $109 and some change + $17 for some things I had to pick up earlier in the week...so $126. Mostly all vegis and fruits...some chicken and ground beef. We have more chicken than we can use in the next week though so that will lessen the next bill.

Had the best Honey Mustard Chicken last night...I'll put up a recipe soon for it.

Other than that, we're just trying to take the effort to make sure we don't slack off with this as we are starting to get regularly busy at work. We have a couple of meals out scheduled for the weekend since we have company...so one of us will let you know how we fared with going out to eat (different than the regular cheat meal).

Have a great weekend all!!

Food Inc.

Hello all,

Since Candace is the consummate blogger in regards to our quest eating better I feel like I should pitch in as well. So today I am going to talk about a movie that I feel everyone should watch and discuss with their loved ones.

How many of our followers have seen Food Inc.? And for those who haven't seen it, why haven't you seen it? I have been hearing for years how our farming practices and food quality have been heading downhill for years now but I guess I couldn't or didn't want to believe how BAD things have gotten, even in my life span.

There are so many differences, most of them I would consider bad that it boggles the mind on how modern America is still alive, not healthy since most of us aren't. The first thing that comes to mind is the differences between the price of meat that is grown organic or from the supermarket. How much do you pay when you by Chicken? The last time we got chicken it was $1.99 a lb and it is normally $2.99 lb. We were able to get $20.00 of chicken that will last us a while. 2 days later we went to the Great Basin Community Food Co-Op and saw organic chicken that was $7.99 a lb. Why is there such a huge difference in price? The chicken that routinely sells for $1.99 a lb. is raised in crowded pens were there are thousands of birds getting fed corn to make them fat and profitable. They grow from a chick to harvest size in 49 days when a normal chicken takes around 120 days to get to that size. The cheap (no pun intended) bird is pumped up with antibiotics since they are covered with feces all day. Many of the birds have severe health problems due to fact that they grow so quickly that the body is unable to keep up with the rapid growth. Oh yeah, the farmers are forever in debt to the sellers of the chickens so they are essentially like slaves. I won't go into details on how they are processed to go to market, watch the movie.

The $7.99 a lb. chicken is fed grain and grass seeds, they are allowed to be outside they grow in a appropriate amount of time. When it is time to process them, they are processed in a way that might seem unsanitary (at least in the example in the movie) but the amount of feces in the meat is on around 200 FCS (Fecal Colony Standard I believe.) This admittedly sounds pretty disgusting until you compare it with the $1.99 a lb chicken at 2200 FCS.

This prices difference is the same across the board for all the meats (yes including farm raised fish as well). This is due solely to introduction of corn as feed. Corn is subsidized by the US Government which keeps the prices way way down. This allows animals that fed this way to be sold much cheaper, but at what cost? Ever notice the amount of contaminated food stories you see on the news. For all of us over the age of 30, look back and see how often that happened when we were really young. Now compare the frequency of the outbreaks. E. Coli is now no longer just a problem with meat, it is entering the vegetable as well. In the movie, one of the interviewees states that if cattle are fed grass for just 5 days, the amount of E. Coli reduces by 80% percent. Corn and the products that produced from Corn (which are incredibly numerous) is causing serious health problems for every creature that comes into it. I am not saying that Corn on the cob is a problem or Fresh Popped Popcorn is horrible. I am simply saying that corn produced into sugar then poured into our foods or fed to food supply is just wrong! Some 30% of our farm land is dedicated to corn production, land that could be used to grow grass or other crops is being wasted on the very product that is making our nation obese.

Last figure, in 1980 the average waist size for the average man was a 32. In 2010 the average waist size is 40. What is appears to be the culprit in the 25% increase in waist size in 30 years? About 1981 High Fructose Corn Syrup was introduced as a low cost alternative to sugar. I know there are other factors as well, but it rather interesting.

I find it strange that throughout the human race's history us humans have always struggled to get enough food. Starvation and disease were our constant foe claiming untold lives. Now we are eating our selves to any early grave and the years we are alive we aren't as healthy as we should be.

My post is going to end on kind of a downer this time, I promise my next post will be more uplifting. I promise to offer some solutions that we have tried and have researched. It is easy to complain about a problem. It is harder but far more productive to come up with some possible solutions instead.

Until next time...

4 Weeks In!!

Last night marked 4 weeks since we decided that we didn't want to change the way we ate and lived (again, and hopefully for the last time).  In these last 4 weeks, we've struggled a lot but have also have had many successes as well.

For example, we had a bit of a cheat night for dinner on Friday (pizza) and I think we've decided that our cheats have to be further apart.  We had decided that before, but always Friday comes around and we get tempted into something else.  This last Friday, though, we were so overly full and bloated with sodium that we decided that, at the very least, when it cheats, pizza is not an option anymore and that we have to do better with not cheating (even if it is once a week for only one meal - we need to try to extended it to once every two weeks for only one meal).  Of course, that may or may not happen this week as we do have visitors for the weekend...but we'll try.

In the past 4 weeks, I am down 17 lbs (12 from my official weigh in 5 weeks ago for our competition - but I put on 5 in the week between) and Kurt is down we think 15 lbs (because he didn't weigh himself when we started - but 11 from the official weigh in 5 weeks ago).

We're starting to have more energy (he gets it a bit more than I do), clothes are starting to loosen up a bit (some that I had that were feeling a little tight fit well now) and we aren't so tired after a long day of work as much as we were before.  Plus being on our feet for a long day is getting easier.

So SUCCESS!!

Cravings are slowly going away...and randomly one comes up and you think...REALLY, that's what I want.  And we've been trying hard to quell those cravings with other things.  We made some blackberry sorbet a couple days ago, and the tartness is kind of a nice change from the sweetness (I think I need to look at something that is a little less seedier though).

Yesterday we stopped by the Great Basin Community Food Co-Op which reminded me a lot of being in Santa Cruz again.  Some things were pretty pricy - raw unpasteurized almonds for $12.99/lb but other things weren't as bad - 32oz of local raw honey for $10 and some change.  We picked up some honey mustard salad dressing (which does have some cane sugar in it - but I tried to make a honey mustard vinaigrette and it was awful and I need a salad dressing).

My favorite thing that I TOTALLY want to go back for when I'm ready...refrigerated ladybugs!!  They were so cute - and depending if I actually get the garden in shape this year (because my seedlings desperately need to be transplanted), I might have to get some.

Last thing before I go (since I have to get ready for work) - our budget.  We went grocery shopping last Thursday, and we though there was no way we were going to get out of there under our budget because we bought a ton more meat than usual for this week (ground beef, pork chops and chicken breasts - more chicken than we needed but we figured we could use it the next week) and it still came out to about $142.  We were stunned.  Of course now that we went to the Food Co-Op and seeing the prices of meat there I'm starting to really thing about the meat we've been buying at the grocery store...but more on that later.

Ok...I lied...two things

1. Celery has become to salty to us...especially after reading how much sodium is in celery...we can taste it now!!  Suggestions for other vegi snacks to take out with us (to go with our carrots)

2. Dry-Rub Burgers...mmmm...check it out