WEEK 5

Welcome to Week 5!

Last weeks challenge was to try 2 new foods and visit your local bakery, butcher and seafood markets.  I hope the experience turned out to be as beneficial for you as it has for us.  We found out our local baker, Boule Bakery, is as old schooled as they come.  Shawn, the owner is there on premises everyday.  Their bread takes days to rise, not hours.  He uses no bromated flours, or GMO products.  It was wonderful to meet him and we will continue to be a customer of his as long as he is in business.

Our butcher gets his meat from a local rancher.  The ranch is not ‘certified’ organic, however he practices all the same methods of raising and feeding his animals.  We discussed what it takes for a farm to reach USDA certification and the years involved.  Most farmers cannot afford the costs and time involved to receive certification, but still practice the same standards.  That’s good enough for me.  I know my meat is not coming from 9000 miles away.  It is born and raised here locally in Michigan. I will take a visit to meet the rancher in the Spring.

Want to Learn More?

Check out the USDA’s Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Series.  It’s a pretty good read.

In the meantime, it’s on to Week 5 !!

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This weeks challenge is to:

• Begin replacing your non-fat and low-fat products with their full fat versions.

• Begin replacing your white all purpose flours with whole wheat and a higher quality, such as Red Mill

Why do we choose full fat?

Since our family has begun Unprocessing, I have spent countless hours researching products and their effects.  And one of the things I learned along the way was when our country started becoming weight conscious, the food manufacturers responded with what they thought would save the day… low fat and non fat versions of the foods we love.

In response to consumers, you started seeing store shelves lining with a low fat and even NON fat version for every cookie, ice cream, cracker, dairy, yogurt and snack food product on the market.  It’s almost impossible for me to find full yogurt, even today.  I know it’s out there, but some weeks are hit or miss because the demand for the lower fat versions still outweighs the full fat version.

Here’s the problem:

1.  Once the fat is removed from a product structurally it isn’t the same anymore.  The food companies have to come up with something for the texture, as well as the taste.  Fats are lipids, which taste good and slide down your throat in a delicious way.  This fat is replaced with high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners and whole host of unrecognizable words.

Does anyone remember the TCBY phase?  The Countries Best Yogurt.  They were popping up EVERYWHERE on the East Coast.  We would go there for lunch.  And that’s ALL we would eat….an enormous sized frozen yogurt.  It had toppings of course, but the yogurt was FAT FREE so we could pile on the toppings.  We would discuss how many calories we were “saving” at lunch.  Oh MY …. what the hell were we thinking????

I grabbed this from TCBY’s own website.  Please check it out for yourself!   I think you too will be shocked to find out what ingredients make up your favorite yogurt.

These are the ingredients from their butter pecan flavor which they BOAST is not only FAT FREE but SUGAR FREE as well.

Ingredients: Skim Milk, Maltodextrin, Polydextrose, Non Fat Dry Milk, Contains 2% or Less of: Erythritol, Maltitol Syrup, Emulsifier and Stabilizer (Propylene Glycol Monoesters, Mono & Diglycerides, Guar Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Carrageenan), Natural & Artificial Butter-Pecan Flavor (Propylene Glycol, Water, Alcohol, Caramel Color), Condensed Skim Milk, Calcium Carbonate, Caramel Color, Whey Protein Concentrate, Disodium Phosphate, Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium, Vitamins A & D. Milk cultured with the following live active cultures: B. lactis, L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. lactis, L. casei, S. thermophilus, L. rhamnosus. Contains: Milk

 HOLY CHEMICAL EXPLOSION!!!

What is all that?  THAT is better than full fat?

2.  Another problem with low fat and non fat is since your body is getting all those artificial chemicals, it’s playing tricks on your brain resulting in reaching for another cookie, and another.  They are non fat after all right?  The truth is we eat twice as much of the non fat and low fat foods than their counterparts.  Our body recognizes the fats found in the real full fat versions, we eat less and it satiates us longer.

Just to show you how much misinformation is out there, take a look at this article written by the Cancer Foundation PROMOTING low fat foods,  Cancer.org – Low Fat Foods.            

They say, “Watching the amount of fat you eat is important: Diets high in fat tend to be high in calories and can lead to weight gain. It’s also important to keep in mind that just because something is low in fat doesn’t mean it’s low in calories.” 

So in other words, putting on a few extra pounds is worse than all the garbage that’s artificially pumped into these products and put into our bodies on a daily basis????    Artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, guar gum, xantham gum, sorbitol, aspartame, dextrose, carageenan.  Those are all chemicals found in these products that line store shelves! 

A person whose diet primarily consists of calories stemming from non fat and low fat foods may lose a few pounds in the short term, but the long term health consequences are much more serious.  Stick with foods you can pronounce and foods your body recognizes.

FLOUR

As far as flour goes, I did a whole separate blog on that, which you can get caught up on here.

But let me just say this.  This has been (and continues to be) our biggest challenge.  I don’t think we will ever completely eliminate white flour.  I’m just being honest here.  I can’t go preaching one thing and doing another.  There are times (and recipes) that white flour is the best choice.  We have, however, cut back drastically on our white flour use and I do mix whole wheat with white for most recipes.  But things like making a roux for a soup, white just works better than whole wheat in my opinion.

I do have several containers now with a variety of flours which is a big change from a year ago where it was only white.   So this may take some time, especially with your kids.  I don’t advise (from past experience) switching all over to whole wheat unless you (and your family) are already using whole wheat flours.  Gradual was the key for us and we are still working on it!