What is Real Food?

What IS real food anyway?!

There's been a LOT in the news recently about eating more “real food” and it occurred to me that many may not really know what that means!

So when a friend asked me to write a blurb for her newsletter about the basics of real food, I thought I’d share what I came up with.

Here are a few suggestions for those who are ready to consider how to nourish themselves and their families with real food:

Start reading ingredient labels on anything you buy at the store and look out especially for seed oils like canola or soybean oil—avoid like the plague! These cause inflammation and many health problems because our bodies were not made for these industrial fats. Instead, look for foods with coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil; even better are animal fats like butter, lard, or beef tallow. Animal fats are very nourishing with their fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K. These help you better absorb the nutrients in everything else you're eating, plus they give you good energy, better mood, they just make you happier! Note that finding foods without those fats is not easy, especially if you're buying processed foods. (Get a free grocery store cheat here sheet to help you with this when you sign up for my newsletter.)

Never buy low-fat dairy, whole milk only! Our kids especially need the healthy fats mentioned above to grow well, sleep well, and learn well. The rest of us need them for energy, sleep, weight control, mood, heart health, digestive health, and more.

Never buy ultra-pasteurized milk–it'll say it on the carton. This milk is so denatured that it doesn't even need to be refrigerated and would not naturally sour even if left out for months.

Shop mainly on the perimeter of your grocery store where whole foods are found: meat, produce, dairy. For example, you want mostly foods without labels: ground beef should be ground beef, an apple should be an apple, etc.

Shorter ingredient lists are always better, so you avoid dangerous chemical additives and preservatives with words that most of us don't even know what they are, and/or nobody can pronounce.

Anything in the middle of the store (mostly processed junk foods) should be a rare treat and organic if possible, to avoid the above-mentioned ingredients. We have so many more options than we used to. For example, you can now find potato chips with only potatoes, avocado oil, and salt. Now, these are not a health food or anything, and yes, they should be a rare treat because there is no nutritional value to them, but at least they don't have the dangerous seed oils and chemical preservatives that most chips do.

Consider checking the ingredients of the foods in your fridge or cabinets and doing a purge!

Start cooking more of your food at home with ingredients you sourced well—see above. 🙂 There are TONS of video recipes online to show you how to make pretty much everything, and it tastes so much better using your own healthy fats, plenty of sea salt, herbs, etc.

Sign up for my newsletter for many free resources to help you further. You’ll learn how to afford real food, how to make time for cooking real food, get a free online Real Food for Rookies class, real food snack ideas, fast food at home ideas, a grocery store cheat sheet, and a lot more.

Email if I can help you with any of this! [email protected].

My book, Real Food for Rookies, has a couple chapters of “top tens” for help with the question: ‘what is real food':

Here's a quick preview…

Top ten junk foods:

1. Soy products (even organic)
2. Low-fat foods
3. Foods with too much sugar
4. Foods with artificial flavors and dyes
5. Food with preservatives and pesticides
6. Genetically modified foods (GMO)
7. Mystery meat (Confinement meat)
8. Foods with MSG
9. High fructose corn syrup
10. Vegetable/seed oils

Top ten real foods:

1. Sourdough bread (no yeast)
2. The least processed and most local food possible
3. Bone broth
4. Fermented foods (sauerkraut, kefir, etc.)
5. Pesticide-free produce (grown in healthy soil)
6. Cod liver oil (not “fish oil”)
7. Coconut oil
8. Fat from pastured/grassfed animals
9. Unpasteurized dairy (raw milk) and eggs
10. Pastured meats/organ meats & wild caught seafood (buy local when possible)

Please share in the comments: what did I miss?

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