What is Real Food?

There is so much talk about what real food is. I wanted to give an overview of some real food basics. Each topic can be an entire blog post in itself but some general descriptions are a great start. In my home, real food is food that is in its natural state and that has not been processed, altered in an artificial way, or packaged.

Vegetables are an example of real food. They are "nature's candy"! They are full of vitamins and antioxidants that help heal the body and keep it healthy. Vegetables can be fermented, juiced, and preserved to meet every need and last all-year-round. Organic vegetables are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Organic farmers know how to properly rotate crops for pest control and maximum soil replenishment. The result is vegetables that are higher in vitamins and that are more nutritious than conventional vegetables. This is the same with fruit and how it is grown.

photo courtesy of humble seed

Some will stop there and say vegetables are the only true real food. I believe that there is more to it than that. Raw, organic milk from grass-fed cows or goats is an amazing enzyme and probiotic-rich food that nourishes and helps restore the body. All traditional people groups ate off the land and drank milk from their animals. It was how they survived and thrived. Pasteurized, homogenized milk is not really milk anymore without the enzymes and probiotics that are damaged or killed during processing and should not be consumed. Many people with "milk allergies" are not actually allergic to the milk. They are instead allergic to the denatured pasteurized milk. When the enzymes are destroyed it makes it very difficult to digest. 

photo courtesy of care2.com

Many environmentalists argue that the consumption of meat is a main contributor to climate change. In reality, while factory farming does increase green-house gas emissions, small family farms raising grass-fed, organic animals for meat do not. The difference between a factory farm and an organic family farm is night and day. Conventional farmers feed their animals grain (which is genetically modified) and keep them confined in large numbers together. They are often ill and require large amounts of antibiotics to keep them "healthy" and their milk and meat "safer" for consumption. In order to ensure maximum production, they are given hormones to make them grow faster and larger. Organic farmers provide large, open, areas for their animals to enjoy eating lush grass and breathe fresh air. They were not meant to eat grain so they do not. Grass-fed meat is higher in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.

photo courtesy of your family cow

Next time, we will talk about butter, eggs, lard and a few other real foods that are shunned in modern society but were valued and even considered sacred in traditional cultures.

 Stay tuned!

Love,

Sarah - The Real Food Organic Outlaw Mama