Whole Food Diet

[RobWalker]

Well, just a dabble here from me, but I've recently started buying Whole Food and Organic Food.

To give you a quick breakdown, it's about eating food as it should be - chemical, pesticide, preservative free, and unprocessed too. The idea overall is that we eat quite a lot of **** without even thinking about it. That's stuff like palm and sunflower oil, sugar, salt, E numbers, etc. Every act of processing food will poison it somewhat, whether it's stripping nutrients out that would be so easy to get if they hadn't processed it, adding stuff into your food that you probably wouldn't put in there yourself, or adding chemicals that can be harmful when you eat it on a daily basis. It's about eating like your grandmother would have eaten - simple, wholesome real food.

Now that the Eco Warrior part is over (hahah,) it's really just about eating better. I've been looking on the back of packets of very normal foods all week and it's gradually setting in that it can't be right, everything just seems to be full of *****. as such, I'm gradually converting my kitchen to a mostly whole foods kitchen - fresh and frozen veg and fruit, wholegrain bread pasta polenta brown rice etc, beans and lentils, oats, no sunflower/rapeseed oil, no heavily processed food. Obviously I can probably only do so much and I will still order curry on a friday... :lol: but overall, I think it's a good lifestyle change. There's a lot of more extreme stuff online which does not appeal to me one bit! I am NOT EATING SALADS EVERY LUNCH TIME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!

So do we have any dabblers here? It would be good to get some non-biased info or hear some experiences. :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

Try eating sourdough bread it is better for you than normal bread. You can use the sourdough starter in pasta and cakes, the fermentation helps break down the gluten in the flour making it easier to digest.

Unfortunately I only have time to bake once a week, but that gives me all the bread for the family for the weekend, and some for my sandwiches in the week. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[calumscott]

The trouble with this is the "chemical, pesticide, preservative free" bit. That's quite hard to achieve in this day and age.

That to me is an ideological endpoint. For now, just buying decent fresh ingredients as locally as possible and cutting out as much "ready made" food as possible is where it is for me. So it's the local butcher for meat (he buys from a local farmer which is really great) - not organic, just good, old-fashioned, high welfare standard livestock farming. It's trying to buy what's in season fruit- and veg-wise because that will be picked riper and travel less and thereby just taste better.

When you make it from scratch, you know what's in it.

When you make if from scratch, it tastes better.

When you use your own tomatoes in your sandwiches they taste effing magic! :thumb:

So sign me up for the eating better and I'll think about the eco-warrior later... maybe...

(actually I have a gripe about the organic movement. I've been to too many organic farmshops and retailers who, for some completely screwball reason, decide that it's better to fly organic produce half way round the world rather than buy a non-organic quality local alternative. Ideology over common sense really annoys me...)

 

[RobWalker]

apparently there's a thing with cereal where they play the "contains whole grain" card too, whereas the amount is so small compared to all bran etc that it could be considered sheer ********.

but yeah I agree man, it is tough, but its simple to make changes in the ways you've listed. even stuff like Haslet at the butchers simply doesn't have the chance to be packed full of chemical crap.


grays, I will try sourdough :)

 

[PD]

seems we gone back 60 yrs to what me mam fed us......Oh joy
she baked and cooked all her own foods for a family of 4, there were no ready meals or take a ways, ( apart from chip shop ) fresh veg from the greengrocer meat from the butcher etc etc

I dont care what they say re the health of the nation back then and now...I swear we were better fed nutritionaly then than now, obesity was a rarity ( there was always one in class tho ! )
Then came along Mrs Thatcher who stopped our school milk and orange juice ration, seemed to go downhill from there.

 

[graysalchemy]

Then came along Mrs Thatcher who stopped our school milk and orange juice ration, seemed to go downhill from there.

I think the introduction of corn syrup in the mid seventies had something to do with it, you can't blame the Iron Lady for that :lol:

 

[dennisking]

seems we gone back 60 yrs to what me mam fed us......Oh joy
she baked and cooked all her own foods for a family of 4, there were no ready meals or take a ways, ( apart from chip shop ) fresh veg from the greengrocer meat from the butcher etc etc

I dont care what they say re the health of the nation back then and now...I swear we were better fed nutritionaly then than now, obesity was a rarity ( there was always one in class tho ! )
Then came along Mrs Thatcher who stopped our school milk and orange juice ration, seemed to go downhill from there.

I'm sure meat and veg tasted better from the local butchers and greengrocers of those days compared to Toscos and the like now days.

 

[falafael]

i have been on whole food for years now:

Whole pizza, whole kebab, whole apple, whole pint of beer.........LOL

We only buy meat from butchers!
:

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

i have been on whole food for years now:

Whole pizza, whole kebab, whole apple, whole pint of beer.........LOL

We only buy meat from butchers!
:

+1 mate :-)

 

[abeyptfc]

i have been on whole food for years now:

Whole pizza, whole kebab, whole apple, whole pint of beer.........LOL

We only buy meat from butchers!
:

haha amen Brother. This Road Dawg is here for a good time not a long time!

 

[oldbloke]

While I agree with much of it, I do think some of the wholefood rhetoric is a bit overstated.
But, when t'missus got a veg plot going after the wilderness of our 1in1 gradient back garden got terraced, my god the carrots took me back to my childhood. The taste of a carrot (and various other veg) grown without crap and cooked within an hour of being taken out of the ground...
My dad ran two allotments and a decent sized veg plot in our garden. We had 2 apple trees at home, more on the allotment, pears, plums, goosegogs.
It was great, but I just don't have the aptitude, no green T'missus does a bit but with a full time job and hefty commute she can't do as much as she'd like.

 

[Hawks]

I'm another one for local, we buy our meat direct from the farm, eggs from our chickens and veg where possible comes from our allotment / garden. Any extra fruit / veg comes from a small local veg shop who sources from local farms where possible - the taste is so much better than the cr*p from Tesco :thumb:

 

[alanywiseman.]

I am all for local seasonal produce but we find it difficult to do. We try and get all our meat from the local butcher which kick the arse out of the supermarket stuff. Veg is a bit harder as the local veg shops to me were extremly over priced and have now closed down plus SWMBO hates pulses :nono: I have made it a personal mission to get her to get on board with them as I think they are great but I think I am lossing that battle

 

[calumscott]

SWMBO hates pulses

Most people do for very good reason. Our parents generation didn't have a clue when it comes to cooking them so we got boiled to death, grey, wrinkly broad beans. We got frozen green beans. We got runner beans that were too old and even though they had been strung, we still bits of the string piercing our gums like someone had cooked them in a pot full of dressmaker's pins...

I LOVE beans and pulses, but ONLY when I cook them myself...

 

[Aleman]

For those that want to get fresh food without the issue of growing it then try Riverford Farms ours gets delivered weekly and is in season. While they do source from farms in Spain and France they never Air Freight.

Vegetable Roulette is a great game to play, and introduces you to just what is in season.

'Converted' a couple of years ago, and not a eco warrior in any way, but am definitely eating better . . . not cutting junk out either though

 

[calumscott]

Vegetable Roulette is a great game to play, and introduces you to just what is in season.

Hear hear!!

Makes you more adventurous and confident in the kitchen too - you start to get smart with adapting recipes to what comes in the box and sometimes you come up with real winners of dinners!

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

Try eating sourdough bread it is better for you than normal bread. You can use the sourdough starter in pasta and cakes, the fermentation helps break down the gluten in the flour making it easier to digest.

Unfortunately I only have time to bake once a week, but that gives me all the bread for the family for the weekend, and some for my sandwiches in the week. :thumb: :thumb:

One post. One single reply.

That's all it took for the conversation to shift *just enough* to yeast and fermentation. :P

 

[Crastney]

we recently started getting an Abel and Cole small fruit and veg box.
we are eating a lot more fruit and veg, obviously, but we're also ending up on Sat/Sunday thinking more about what we're going to eat to use up the most overdate veg in the fridge before another box turns up on Monday morning. There are only so many ways to cook cabbage, corgettes, carrotts, potatoes, etc. and then we're growing our own as well, so we're now starting to get tomatoes coming from our garden, and the veg box, and onions too - of course whatever we're growing, that's in season, will also be in season locally and so be in the veg box. Veg soup is always good though.

 

[graysalchemy]

Try eating sourdough bread it is better for you than normal bread. You can use the sourdough starter in pasta and cakes, the fermentation helps break down the gluten in the flour making it easier to digest.

Unfortunately I only have time to bake once a week, but that gives me all the bread for the family for the weekend, and some for my sandwiches in the week. :thumb: :thumb:

One post. One single reply.

That's all it took for the conversation to shift *just enough* to yeast and fermentation. :P

:lol: :lol:

 

[Jeltz]

We used to d a Riverford order each week but Mrs (a former veggie) dislikes too many veg.

I'm not into the whole organic movement as we walk around in polluted air and drink water with traces of many chemicals, so eating organic seems a bit like turning up at an earthquake with a gold plated dustpan and brush.

I do think we need to cook from scratch much more, both from the point of view of health but also to try and reduce food waste. Besides it tends to taste better.