Food Challenge: What Am I Eating?

In summer 2011 while vacationing in NYC I bought a book called Food Matters by Mark Bittman.  Around that time of my life I became curious about food: what it is, where it comes from, how it grows, when it grows, who grows it and why we eat it.  I dabbled around with the book, planted my first garden, but didn't take it much farther.

Once Baby J approached the age to start solid foods (July 2013), the food curiosity came back around.  As I'm sure most first time moms are, I was over bearing, controlling and cautious about everything that went into his mouth.  Something occurred to me one day as I was preparing our oatmeal for breakfast.  After cooking the oatmeal and just before serving, I separated mine from Baby J's so that I could add brown sugar to mine and a fruit puree to his.  You see, I didn't want Baby J to have any sugar so that's why I sweetened his with a homemade fruit puree.  But then I realized how silly it was to be so concerned about his sugar intake and not my own.  If I don't want him to have it, then why should I have it?

About a month ago I stumbled upon a documentary called Ingredients.  The documentary brings to light the local food movement and reveals the crisis our food industry is approaching in America.  Here a few of the points that stuck with me the most (in paraphrase):

• As a country, we've been educated to believe that food is cheap.  As a result, we spend the least of our income on food than any other industrial nation.  We also spend the most on medicine (per capita). 
• 20% of the United State's natural fossil fuel consumption goes towards the packaging, processing and transporting of food.
• Although our population is growing, our farm land is shrinking.  We are losing one million acres of farm land a year.
• 33% of the children born in 2000 will be diagnosed with Type II diabetes.
• There can be beef from 100-1000's of cows in just one, 1 lb roll of ground beef from the grocery store.

Since watching Ingredients, I've been running into several articles, blogs, etc centered around the whole foods movement.  In a nutshell, its the idea of replacing processed foods with real, whole foods.  Here are a few of the blogs: 100 Days of Real Food and For The Love Of (I haven't read this one as much yet but I'm intrigued).

All of these things combined have made me think a lot about what I'm eating and what I'm feeding my family.  I do 98% of the grocery shopping and cooking for our household so I feel a huge responsibility in making sure I buy the right products and cook the healthiest foods for Papa J, Baby J and myself.  I also want to do right by our environment and this beautiful place called Earth that God has given us to live in.  

I am convicted.  I have been blindly eating, not concerning myself with where my food comes from, how animals are raised or butchered or processed, or even how our farmers are treated.  I want to AM GOING to change the way I eat.  I want to AM GOING to change how and where I get my food.  I want to AM GOING to eat more whole foods and less processed foods.  I want to AM GOING to spend more money on good wholesome food, knowing it's better for my family's health and the environment.

I know it's a long road ahead to make these goals a lifestyle but I intend to take it one day at a time.  I also intend to share the journey with you, in case you are also interested in doing the same thing.  I haven't been the best at keeping up with this blog but I think that's due mainly to the fact that I hadn't found my voice or what I wanted to gear the blog around.  I am passionate about this though so I am hoping it will drive me to be a better blogger.  Be patient with me though, I am first a Christian, a wife, a mother, a ... and somewhere down the line, I am a blogger, so it doesn't always get first priority. :)

Here's the tagline to keep you coming back for more...we bought a cow.