Food Intentions

I'm currently taking a course from Heather Brueggeman on whole foods, and am learning some amazing new techniques to make healthful, vegetarian food for my family. Since humans shouldn't be eating animal products in the volume we do, I've been searching for ways to reduce that volume, although it's not easy since my default is to make a protein, a vegetable side and a starch/whole grain side for meals.

A few of the things I could do to improve my health that I'm not doing right now is to drink more water, eat more seeds and nuts, and exercise. The water and exercise ones are obvious - I drink a lot of water but I'm lactating, so I'm constantly thirsty. Exercise isn't particularly comfortable, for the same reason I'm always thirsty, but walking is something I should be doing more of. The seeds and nuts are a huge part of the new recipes I'm learning, and I am becoming more aware that if you were just a hunter-gatherer, you'd be eating a whole lot more seeds and nuts than I - or my family members - currently do.

Overall, my food philosophy is to try to follow as much as possible what humans developed naturally to eat. To that end, I have no interest in becoming vegetarian, because I don't think it's a choice that matches what the human body needs. But, the corollary is that the meat I eat needs to also be from an animal who ate what they were supposed to be eating - so organic grass-fed cattle, pigs allowed to wallow and root, chickens who could peck for seeds and worms, etc. As far as the plant side of things, I feel like I've been lacking direction and knowledge because of being a plant hater as a child (microwave steamed lima beans will do that to you), but really want to incorporate more whole grains, seeds, and green veggies into my family's diet. I feel like I'm doing relatively well with the root veggies, celeriac and parsnip being two of my new favorites, but I'm hoping that through taking this course, I'll be able to move my family to 80% of our food coming from plant based sources.