I have read through chapter five of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver et al. It is an exceptionally enjoyable look at food life. I will save the review for later when I’ve finished the book. But for now this new book, along with the new year and all things being new etc. has sparked a renewed interest in my food selections in general.

As I mentioned before we are making changes to our eating habits around here. My husband has been experiencing the health benefits of a vegan diet this month and I have mostly been eating (lacto/ovo) vegetarian cuisine. We had our own reasons for making this dietary choice when we began, but having observed so many positive changes to our health during this time we are considering making this a long term relationship with whole foods.

Now let me say that we are not new to this concept. I was mostly vegetarian for the first decade of my life. I then had approximately another decade eating omnivorously before dabbling in vegetarianism for a while, until once again revisiting the land of steak and potatoes where I have (mostly) remained for the past twenty years or so. Almost ten years ago I started researching natural remedies for Asthma and allergies and made the switch to organic whole foods. We experienced immediate improvements and positive results eating mostly fruits and veg plus organic/naturally raised lean meats.

As with many relationships the romance eventually started to wane and we slowly began allowing packaged/processed foods back into the cupboard one favorite snack at a time. Until recently when we realized we were consuming entirely too many convenience foods and decided to return to our first love- whole foods. And so here we are today. The fast is over (see this post for more about that) but the quest for real, living, fresh, whole, healthy meals has just begun… again.

For many years, we purchased fresh organic produce from a local CSA (Community Shared Agriculture). We loved it.  The kids liked the weekly trip out to the farm to pick up our share and the wonderful connection to our food and the people who grow it was an amazing experience.  I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about trying a CSA.  Unfortunately when we moved a few years ago we had to find other alternatives. The only problem being that the alternative we settled for was Costco.  Not exactly local by any means (it’s not even located in our city) although there were a few organic items; including six packs of socks and sets of sheets. Not the best in a tossed salad however. I miss meals prepared from fresh vegetables picked that same morning.  This spring I hope to once again join a CSA or at least make it to the local farmer’s market for the majority of our groceries.

Let’s intentionally shop local (and organic) whenever we can, and eat more whole foods!

 

© Una-Melina  2013.