Simply Mother

I keep going back and forth–between reading this very persuasive book about why it’s healthiest to eat a plant-based diet, and how some of my most favorite ingredients (butter, cream, meat, sugar, chocolate chips) are horrible, terrible, very! very! BAD for you . . .

And browsing through Pioneer Woman Cooks, salivating while planning the upcoming week’s menu, which is quickly filling up with buttery, meaty GOODNESS.

Prior to reading this book, I thought we were doing pretty well. I’ve had this idea of “healthy” and have mostly managed to live up to it. Here’s where we are:

• Mostly whole grains. We eat lots of home made whole wheat bread. I always use brown rice, always whole grain pasta, mostly-always whole wheat flour (Except for chocolate chip cookies, et. al. I figure if I’m going for a treat, there’s no sense trying to pretend it’s good for me)
• Loads of fresh fruit and veggies. We go through a giant carton of organic baby spinach and another giant carton of organic spring mix every week, plus many, many apples, carrots, zuchinni, and other assorted fresh produce.
• Wholesome breakfasts–we’ve even recently completely given up cold cereal and instead have whole-wheat pancakes with real maple syrup, oatmeal, or healthy muffins, and usually green smoothies.
• Home-cooked dinners, usually taking at least an hour to prepare, since I try to avoid as many prepacked and frozen convenience foods as I can.
• Butter
• Meat only 2-3 times a week. (If only because I’m lazy about cooking some days.)
• No soda (or pop, you funny Utahn’s.) (Or Cokes you indiscriminate Texans.) (Like how I assume my word is the correct one?) No caffeine or alcohol, obviously. No fast foods, unless we’re traveling. Candy, not usually, except, um, right now, when people are handing it to my children left and right; it is practically falling from the sky.
• Limited milk and cheese. I’ve felt for a long time that these aren’t really good for you like they want us to believe, and I think they fill you up without giving much nutrition, so we’ve always limited this to about a cup a day or so. Maybe a bit with pancakes, or if we’re having a treat like cookies, of course you need a nice dipping glass of milk, but normally, if you’re thirsty, have some water.
• Nuts and seeds as we can afford them. Beans as I can remember to use them. Because I know those are all healthier protein sources than meat.

(The butter is not really a part of what I thought of as healthy. I just . . . like it.)

Now though, I’m learning all about how humans are really designed to eat plants–that we do better, live longer, sustain less diseases and illnesses, and achieve “maximum vitality” on a mostly plant-based diet. Nothing about how animals are just as good as people and shouldn’t be eaten–I believe animals are for the use of man*–this is all about what is actually good to put in the human body. And how anything that’s not really made for our body is just an extra burden on it.

I won’t try to explain the whole theory here–I’m not even through the book myself, and I’m sure this book is far from the Be All End All of this kind of diet. But it suggests that even some of the things I’ve been so proud of myself for doing–spending a long time making “healthy” cooked dinners for my family, even baking bread–are actually not so great. According to this theory, pretty much all foods, once they are cooked, lose most of their goodness and potentially create a lot of badness! (Like carcinogens and such.)

I kinda want to close the book and never look back. Especially after drooling around Pioneer Woman’s recipe site for a little while.

But another part of me is intrigued by the promises of the whole foods/raw food people like Green Smoothie Girl, who my mom actually knows, like, in real life and stuff, so I know she’s not just some random internet crack-job.

I’m just not sure if I can give up my cream and meat and fat and BUTTER! and cooking altogether.

But then this author would just say it’s because I’m addicted, because all that kind of food is addicting and it’s all a big conspiracy to get us to spend and spend and spend and get fatter and fatter and more diseased than ever, and you know? It kind of doesn’t sound so crazy, if you look around.

I just thought I was doing pretty darn good** keeping my family healthy and avoiding the pitfalls of prepackaged, ultra-processed convenience foods and refined white flour. And we are pretty healthy, really. I don’t even know what would be my motivation for such a drastic change?

It’s been hard enough giving up my nightly [dozen] chocolate chip cookies.

–

*Though I do think we need to be good, caring stewards and I am willing to pay more for animal products that are obtained ethically. I’d much prefer to eat a deer, that has lived a happy, frolicking life in the mountains, than a cow that–well, I don’t even like to think about what happens to the cows that are bred for the slaughterhouse–not to mention all the hormones and subsequent antibiotics and . . . yeah, better stop there.

**You have no idea how hard it was for me to type “good” there instead of the grammatically correct “well” but, Pretty darn well?

Filed in: health | October 30, 2009