Thoughts on my eating philosophy?
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Nakeshia88 wrote: »My new philosophy for food is that if you can't grow it, catch it, kill it or make it yourself then don't eat it. For example: I can grow fruits/vegetables/legumes/grains and nuts so these are OK; I can fish and shoot so meat is OK; and I can/could easily learn to do things like grow/grind my own flour, salt and coffee, I can brew beer, make bread and pasta so these are OK - however, I couldn't make something like Coca Cola or anything containing artificial ingredients/additives so I won't eat these things.
So lately when I'm picking up food that's in a tin, bag or box I'll read the ingredients and ask myself, could I grow or kill these ingredients, process and mix them together myself to make this? If so, then I'll buy it, if not, back it goes! What do you think of this philosophy?
I say go for it. What you put in your body is no concern of mine, tbh. I see no health concerns and as long as you are eating a balanced diet you aren't doing any harm. You may find that you really enjoy it and I applaud you for that. You may find it hard to get around some preservatives though. Good luck!0 -
Read Blithedale Farm. ;-) It's never as ideal as it seems it should be.
I used to have fantasies about eating based only on what I could grow, etc. too--the health benefit in reality is that everything is so much less convenient if you have to make it yourself, although I do tend to like many things better when I do that (not yogurt or cheese, though). My problem is that I tend to get obsessive so for me it would always be about what I could actually hunt/grow, etc. where I live--extreme locavore stuff--and that would snap me back to reality as I'd realize what the climate means for much of the year and I'd be all happy about modern times again.
None of this means I don't think about health and nutrition, but that focusing on my personal canning skills really doesn't add much to the consideration of whether something will be healthy if added to my diet or not.0 -
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I applaud this approach. Its a great way to get healthy. I feel SO much better getting artificial stuff out of my diet. Those icky chemical foods really wreck havoc on your system. I feel our population in generally misinformed that moderation is key concerning whatever they want to eat. I wish people would stop moderating first and just try eating healthy as a first step. x0
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I think its great.
Over the past few years I have seen MFP slowly trend from accepting others food choices to becoming more militant about 'macros and calorie counts at the expense of everything else'. In my humble opinion it has gone too far that way.
I am a flexible dieter, and keeping my macros in check is my main focus, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to eat more natural foods and less processed stuff. Instead of applying your own experience and biases, just applaud people for wanting to improve their eating habits. Again, there are very few restrictions mentioned in the OP's post, it is all sensible and not very restrictive at all!
If she cant make it work and needs a more flexible eating plan, then let her come back and ask for that advice when its needed.
I think the only push back I ever see is when someone insists that any way is the ONLY way to do something right.
Because honestly, the only way to do this right is to create an energy deficit. The specifics of doing that are personal preference.
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HauteLlama wrote: »I applaud this approach. Its a great way to get healthy. I feel SO much better getting artificial stuff out of my diet. Those icky chemical foods really wreck havoc on your system. I feel our population in generally misinformed that moderation is key concerning whatever they want to eat. I wish people would stop moderating first and just try eating healthy as a first step. x
When you have been stuck in your eating habits for years and years it is not just as easy as going cold turkey and giving up everything straight away to be this shining beacon of health and nutritional righteousness. If you managed it then awesome! But, to disagree with you, people are not 'misinformed' about moderation at all, nope, and it is a very useful tool in getting people on the right track to improving their health and fitness. In fact, if anything I get more annoyed with those people who preach that eating a packet of crisps once a week some sort of nutritional sin!0 -
Do they now? How so?HauteLlama wrote: »I applaud this approach. Its a great way to get healthy. I feel SO much better getting artificial stuff out of my diet. Those icky chemical foods really wreck havoc on your system. I feel our population in generally misinformed that moderation is key concerning whatever they want to eat. I wish people would stop moderating first and just try eating healthy as a first step. x
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fearlessleader104 wrote: »My eating philosophy is if another human being ate it before and did not die within 5 minutes, I'll eat it.
Now this is a good philosophy.0 -
You could make every one of those things you claim you cannot. I might take some further education, but it is possible.0
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Nakeshia88 wrote: »My new philosophy for food is that if you can't grow it, catch it, kill it or make it yourself then don't eat it. For example: I can grow fruits/vegetables/legumes/grains and nuts so these are OK; I can fish and shoot so meat is OK; and I can/could easily learn to do things like grow/grind my own flour, salt and coffee, I can brew beer, make bread and pasta so these are OK - however, I couldn't make something like Coca Cola or anything containing artificial ingredients/additives so I won't eat these things.
So lately when I'm picking up food that's in a tin, bag or box I'll read the ingredients and ask myself, could I grow or kill these ingredients, process and mix them together myself to make this? If so, then I'll buy it, if not, back it goes! What do you think of this philosophy?
must be cold up there on you're pedestal0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Read Blithedale Farm.
Or Blithedale Romance, actually. Oh, well.0 -
HauteLlama wrote: »I wish people would stop moderating first and just try eating healthy as a first step. x
I wish people wouldn't make untrue assumptions, here that "moderating" means that people don't care about or don't eat healthy and that making distinctions between "artificial" and not = eating healthy.
Like I have pointed out before, if I were to take "eating naturally" seriously, I couldn't eat salmon or ocean fish. I couldn't eat tomatoes right now or olives or any number of other things that would not be in season or simply can't grow where I live. Why would this be better for my health?0 -
Nakeshia88 wrote: »lemonsnowdrop wrote: »I think it's terrible. There's nothing wrong with foods you didn't make yourself, so why not eat them? Life is too short to constantly deprive myself of things I enjoy.
I'm not saying I'll only eat foods that I make myself, I'm saying I'll only eat foods I *could* make myself. It would be way too restricting to only eat food that I'd made myself! For example, I'd still buy a pizza because it would only have ingredients that I could grow/kill myself - like flour, salt, milk, vegetables, meat etc, all things I *could* grow, kill or make myself if I needed or wanted to, but thankfully someone else has done all that for me! I wouldn't buy a Coca Cola because I couldn't grow and make my own high fructose corn syrup, caramel colour, phosophoric acid or natural flavours... I don't even know what half those things are!
Anything that is made, you *could* make yourself.
You have drawn a completely useless, arbitrary, and silly line here, right?
You *could* grow an apple. But you don't, right?
You *could* synthesize caramel coloring from its raw chemical ingredients, to - and it's probably easier than caring for an apple orchard, right?
Arbitrary and meaningless.
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I am seeing what you are saying. You would eat only things that are natural, from the earth. That would certainly be healthier. As for me...it would be very hard. I find just keeping up with a calorie counting and choosing healthy food most days, is enough for me. I wish you the best!
I dare you to name something edible that doesn't come "from the earth".
I double-dog dare you.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »HauteLlama wrote: »I wish people would stop moderating first and just try eating healthy as a first step. x
I wish people wouldn't make untrue assumptions, here that "moderating" means that people don't care about or don't eat healthy and that making distinctions between "artificial" and not = eating healthy.
Like I have pointed out before, if I were to take "eating naturally" seriously, I couldn't eat salmon or ocean fish. I couldn't eat tomatoes right now or olives or any number of other things that would not be in season or simply can't grow where I live. Why would this be better for my health?
+1,000,000
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When I have a half marathon come up I pretty much have to eat somewhat, "clean." It makes me sick to eat some processed foods before I run a long distance. If you don't think you will miss those yummy processed foods that you are taking out I say go for it!0
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What?Nakeshia88 wrote: »
Well, you just seem to be all super-hippy militant against artificial stuff, so I figured you mustn't be wearing any artificial things, right?
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Nakeshia88 wrote: »Never mind, I see it's a faulty theory. Think I just contradicted myself as well, once post said I generally eat what I want but listen to my body... then I went and told y'all about the low fodmap diet I've just been put on which is full of restrictions! Should have said I used to eat what I want etc... Think I'm losing my mind!!!
Ha! It may be a faulty theory, but I see nowhere in this conversation where you are trying to get others to prescribe to your way of eating, or where you are saying it's the right way, or even where you are demonizing foods. I just see you are choosing not to ingest certain types of food for personal reasons.
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This is a diet and health site. We don't take kindly to people choosing to eat real foods. We promote enjoying the decadence of processed garbage and anyone that thinks different from us must be orthorexic.
Sometimes it seems that way. I like it when people share their dietary plan such as the OP has here- just saying what works for her. 0 -
They do make edible clothing, but I think it's only undies. My mom bought some for a friend wedding gift.
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TimothyFish wrote: »What about olive oil? Or any kind of oil, for that matter?
Oh, don't get me started on olive oil! Every October we go to an olive picking party at a friend's house. In fact, people from all over the world come for this event, to help chuck the olives from the trees in this massive orchard. We work all day, take breaks for potluck twice a day, and we fill these huge bins with fresh olives, which are then pressed into olive oil. It's a magnificent event!0 -
They do make edible clothing, but I think it's only undies. My mom bought some for a friend wedding gift.
Ha, ha, you're right! I forgot about that.
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I think it's a great philosophy. Good luck!0
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I like Armageddon movies, and the drama of survivalists living on the edge after civilization collapses. I've imagined what it would take to start over again, and it would take a whole lot of hoisting. It would take generations to recover, and would those successive generations preserve the old knowledge? Would they recognize the value? We are dependent on this infrastructure to deliver our almonds, our oranges, electric toothbrushes, everything. Bless our infrastructure.
With these sorts of reflections, once in a while I do a home-grown kick, like home-made sourdough or yogurt. I find I can keep the beneficial bacteria/yeast going through several generations and then inevitably, the community weakens and dies. I must then resort to the store-bought yogurt/yeast to start over again.
Can you imagine if I had to try and replicate this IRL, after a disaster? Within a few years I'd be eating an unvaried diet of coarse unleavened bread and pemmican.
If you want to try and eat a diet of foods you could "do yourself", why not try and follow through and do it yourself, one food product at a time? Grow and grind some flour. Nurture a beehive for the summer. Create a starter mash and leave it out to host wild yeast (hopefully the good kind). Add more of your precious home-made flour and knead the life out of that baby. Rise and bake.
That will be one expensive loaf of bread.
Imagine doing this over again every Sunday; your bread for the week.
Mass food production has given us time; time to read, learn, contribute, walk, raise our children, and obsess about food. It's given us cheap bread and allowed us to feed masses of people. Bless mass food production.0 -
Cheers everyone. As I said it's just a theory and obviously it has its flaws if you follow it with a black and white mindset. However I believe nothing in life is black and white, so I think I'll try to stick with a simpler theory 80-90% of the time - if it can't be grown, caught or killed don't eat it - along with my low fodmap diet, so most of the time there will be no artificial colours, flavours or artificial preservatives, just wholesome, nutritious and simple food (with some chocolate every now and then!). How's that sound?
I don't have the means to grow or kill my own food right now so obviously I'm buying from markets and stores, my produce may have some chemicals sprayed on but that's OK given the circumstances I'm in... I'll still buy bread and rice flour, I'll just try stick to the most organic types that use plenty of while grains... I'm certain I can make 80% of every meal non-artificial and most importantly nutritious :-) I'm never going to push this choice on anyone or even insist it works because I just don't know yet, there may be changes or times it's impossible to follow the theory, but as long as I'm making healthy choices most of the time then I'll see that as success.0
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