It's a Food Revolution - Part 1

How many of you have made changes to your diet in the past 60 days?  Why?

Have you ever watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution?  Dang, that guy is passionate about helping America change their diet…why do you think he is so passionate? Why do you think he cares more that we do??

Ok, so what steps can be taken that will make the greatest change??? I have 2 suggestions:

1) Cut out all high fructose corn syrup, processed sugars and artificial sweeteners – this is a shock to the system but worth it in the long run! If I need a sweetener I use Stevia.

Check out this link (Thanks Becky for sharing it): http://www.grist.org/food/2011-04-14-how-to-choose-right-sweetener-handy-snarky-flowchart

I get most of my sweetness from fruits now. Oh, we had a wonderful watermelon last night! How many of you are thinking that just doesn’t sound good…you’d rather have chocolate or ice-cream or cookies? Yea, we used to be like that too!  We went for about a month without anything sweet, not even fruit for the 1^st 30 days. Once it was all out of our system fruit started sounding really good! LOL!

2) Grass fed meat raised with no hormones or antibiotics -

I asked my doctor if going organic was worth the money; he recommended I spend the money on organic meat first and if there’s any money left then buy organic veggies.  He said the growth hormones and chemicals stay in the meat.  Ok…well organic meat is expensive but if that’s where I get the greatest bang for my buck I’ll seriously think about it.

I ran across a few articles that described how most of our meat is raised and honestly it’s pretty disgusting! How they load our beef with hormones and toxic feed…if we are what we eat…ick!

Here’s an excerpt from http://www.drheise.com/beef.htm :

“Most commercially raised beef calves start around 80 pounds and gain up to 1,200 pounds in a period of about 14 months. This is not a natural event. This is accomplished by feeding them large quantities of grain (usually corn) and protein supplements, in addition to various drugs and synthetic hormones, as the beef industry puts it, to “promote efficient growth.”

Various combinations of hormones, estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone, and the synthetic hormones, zeranol and trenbolone acetate, may be given to cattle during their growing cycle. Another hormone, melengesterol acetate, may also be added to cattle feed to “improve weight gain and feed efficiency.”

When humans eat this drug and hormone-tainted beef, measurable amounts of hormones are transferred to humans. Some researchers warn that human consumption of estrogen from hormone-drugged beef can result in cancer, premature puberty and falling sperm counts.”

I’d say that’s pretty good motivation!!

So what are you willing to do to make yourself and your family healthier?

I hope I’ve given you some food for thought. I know it’s hard, but I truly believe it’s worth it!

Keep on keeping it real!

BTW, I found some local farmers that are selling grass fed beef with no hormones or antibiotics. We tend to eat more poultry but like beef a few times a week so if anyone here in DFW is interested in going together on a side or quarter of beef let me know.