Real Food

Real food?  Isn't all food real?

For too long now we have been force fed a poor substitute for the real thing

They, that is the manufacturers, take things out and put things in.  They pulverise it, they hydrogenate it, strip it of fats, add preservatives and sugars.

Sometimes they add extra fat or load it with salt.  They add colours and flavours.

They take out the fibre and bleach it.

They fluff it and puff it.  Glaze it and crisp it.  Shape it and scrape it.  Then they have the audacity to tell us it is healthy.

They take away nature's packaging and wrap it in plastic instead

We need to vote with our feet for real food

Real food is food in the raw, but not necessarily raw food.  It is naked food, but not necessarily bland.

It comes out of the earth, made from sunshine, water and life energy, and then straight to our homes without passing through a conveyor belt process which totally changes its character. 

The production of it should make as little difference to the environment as possible.

It is food as it is supposed to be.  Whole food, as near natural as possible, grown as close to home as possible, grown in as natural a way as is possible.  Food that has gone through as few processes as is possible

It is fruit with its fibre, not just the juice.

It is wheat with its bran and potatoes with their skins.

It is "organically" produced

It might have been nibbled at the corner by a caterpillar.  It is strong and full of goodness because it has had to fight to survive.

This is not an "everything natural is good and everything man made is bad" mantra.  That would just be silly.  After all, cannabis is all natural and so is deadly nightshade.  Eat a few foxglove leaves and you will very likely die.  You can't get less healthy than dead!  Conversely, antibiotics and many other man made drugs can save a life, and obviously living is far healthier than dead.  You're not going to faff about with tea tree oil if you are collapsed with meningitis, or chew on a feverfew plant when toothache has you writhing in agony or when you are in the throws of childbirth.

The fact is, in this day and age, it is impossible to completely revert to how food should be before we started tampering with it.  Fruit has been selectively bred to be bigger, juicier and sweeter - as have most commercially produced fruit vegetables and cereals been cross bred to produce more and bigger crops.  Even in my own lifetime I have watched as grapefruit has become sweeter and sweeter transforming from a fruit that was almost as difficult as a lemon to eat to a delicious tasty fruit that can almost be eaten like an orange.

There's not a lot we can do about this, but we can however, stage by stage, edge our way, in our own personal lives towards eating the stuff our body really needs

As a guide start asking yourself some of the following questions.

"Has this food been tampered with so much it no longer resembles the original?"

"Are there any ingredients in this product that I would never think or dream of adding if I were to make it from scratch myself?"

"If I were to have to make this product by hand with no electrical equipment  myself, would I be able to produce enough to be slathering it all over my meal in the quantities that I do at the moment and as frequently as I do?"

Think of things like vegetable oil, smoothies mayonnaise or cake for this last question.  These things would be so difficult to make without all our modern whizzing zapping mixing and squishing gadgets, that we would naturally eat very little of them.  They would be luxuries, not everyday foods.

I dare you to do a little experiment one day.  Steam or boil a large quantity of vegetables.  If you are omnivorous, add some plain cooked meat.  Eat it without anything added, not even salt.  Then for once in your life, taste the food itself.

You might be pleasantly surprised

This is real food

And if you are struggling to keep to a healthy diet maybe you are stuck in the pleasure trap and need to escape

If you long for real food, have you been to a real food festival?

Online real food in the UK

Start the day with the best breakfast

---

REAL FOOD ON PINTEREST

.

---

Please remember that the author of this website is not a professional.  All statements are opinions and not to be taken as advice.