Category: News

I was made aware of an article on CNN yesterday about a “real food challenge” this past February, declared by traditional food blogger Jennifer McGruther of Nourished Kitchen (as I write this, her site is down, no doubt from all the traffic from CNN!).  The month-long project challenged readers to eat real food for a month.

Part of the process was a pantry purge, which threw some people for a loop.  Out went packaged food (organic or not), refined oils, white flour and sugar, low- and non-fat dairy, and dried pasta (and presumably refined grains in general).  In went whole grains and flours (to be prepared traditionally by soaking), plenty of seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables, pastured meats, lacto-fermented vegetables, and food cooked in traditional fats.

One reader commented, after starting the project , “I thought we ate healthy.”   I can remember feeling similarly when I started eating a more traditional diet.  Wasn’t low-fat the way to go?!?  It’s particularly jarring, yet freeing, to understand that eating traditional fats – including saturated fats like butter and lard – is a good thing.  Not only are these fats extremely tasty (aka NOM-able), add flavor to your food, but your body will be able to better absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K than if you maintain a very low-fat diet.

One part of the article I found a little questionable was the reaction of registered dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner, who is also an American Dietetic Association representative. Her statement, “Processed food is defined as any food that has undergone a change of character. For example, edamame would be unprocessed, and tofu would be processed.” is silly. Technically yes – tofu is processed. But tofu is not considered “processed” in the same way things like Fruit Rollups and TV dinners are: full of refined sugars, mineral-depleted salt, and ingredients that require a solid understanding of phonics to pronounce correctly. Home canned garden tomatoes are also technically “processed” in a water bath, but not “processed” like commercial ketchup.  To confuse the two is short sighted at best, and misleading at worst.

Anyway, it was nice to see traditional food get some (fairly positive) attention from the MSM.  The concept of “slow food” has become more common on the cultural tongue, but “traditional food” is less so, even though I believe they are related concepts. I think the article is a help, and it’s good to have someone speak well on the issue, to give another perspective at to what “healthy” is – we still have a real bias against things like saturated fats in our culture, and  I won’t even start on the debate about raw vs. pasteurized milk (that’s for a later post).

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

An inconvenient challenge: Eat ‘real food’ for a month
By Madison Park, CNN
March 2, 2010 — Updated 1801 GMT (0201 HKT)

(CNN) — The task set by a food blogger seemed deceptively simple: Eat real food for a month.

More than 900 people signed up for the challenge, and some were confident that it would not be difficult to avoid processed foods for 28 days.

But in the age of potato powders, cheese in a squirt can and microwaveable meals, eating only “real food” turned out to be much more difficult.

On Day One of the challenge, blogger Jennifer McGruther gave this instruction: Purge your pantry of processed foods.

Find the rest of the article here.