This page is dedicated to getting my household off the industrialized food grid to the extent possible. Exactly how much IS possible in a life filled with four hungry children (budding restaurant critics, all), a husband who loathes whole wheat, and the universally recognized demands of home maintenance and family life and employment? What if the resident cook lacks the hardscrabble work ethic of our pioneer ancestors and is triple-booked most of the time? I want to do the right thing: cook from scratch and use as many local, non-GMO, fair-trade-certified ingredients as possible. There's that p-word again.
We've been down this path before. Earlier attempts to convert the rebellious eaters around my table have ended in late-night junk food runs; annual Lenten reforms have crashed (spiritually and physically) in refined-sugar binges. Once I vowed to bake all the bread we consume--even purchased a 40 kilogram bag of flour, congratulating myself on money saved by volume purchasing--only to resort to emergency loaves of Wonder bread stashed in the freezer. Any idea how long it takes to replace all the commercial baked goods around here with homemade? A long time. An overwhelming number of hours.
But here we are just entering a new year, the perfect moment to draft a self-improvement plan. 2013 still shimmers with potential. Try, try again.
This time, the Unprocessed Project will proceed at a reasonable pace. Every week (or so), I'll swap-out a food or food group and document the trade-offs (time! money!), methods, successes, and inevitable failures. The substitutions will be so gradual that my hardened processed food addicts will not even realize how they've been led, one healthful, delicious, home-cooked morsel at a time, to their ecstatic conversions--although they might hear about it from someone, since this project is happening in public. So, SHHH!
Joking. Part of the reason to take the pledge in public is to keep me honest. I plan to break down a huge and intimidating task into 52 easily accomplished switcheroos. I'm not that organized, domestically speaking. If I can do this, anyone can.
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| The last harvest from our garden, Oct. 2012 |
Love this page, Laura! And love the Unprocessed Project. You are right--baby steps. One food at a time, removed or adjusted. You have an amazing asset to bolster you as you embark: the fruits of your own garden. I look forward to watching the Unprocessed progress proceed!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of an overly processed food that should, by all rights, be unprocessed, I think of oatmeal. Why don't more people make and eat old fashioned oatmeal (which is easy to make and inexpensive to buy)? Just one cup of water, 1/2 cup oatmeal, dash of salt and cook for 5 minutes! That's it. If you want some variety and a sweetner, add cut up apples or frozen berries.
ReplyDeleteI meant sweetener.
ReplyDeleteGood for you Laura! I've been on this jouney for about 5 years. I doesn't end, just learning, adapting and making changes at a pace the family can handle. A couple of tidbits that have worked for me:
ReplyDeleteUse tortilla wraps instead of bread. They are simply smaller in volume than 2 slices of bread for a sandwich
Use Stevia as a sweetener in stead of sugar.
Educate the family in the benefits! Force-feeding mom's kitchen/diet agenda does not work. Teaching the benefits is a slower process but ultimatealy life long changes will be made.
ADD good things instead of always taking "bad" things away. Taking away is more punitive.
80/20 - If we eat "right" 80% of the time, I consider that a full victory!
My revised 2013 goal is to replace homogenized/pasturized dairy with those made from raw milk. I've tried eliminating dairy but that was a failure! Wish me luck.
Thanks! I have stevia, but don't think you can bake with it . . . how do you use it? And can you get raw milk? A lot of places it's not legal, although there are many here trying to access it through individual farms. Good luck!
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