Nutritarian?!!! Wha...?

Well, shoooot, only a few weeks into 2013 and I’m already struggling with one of my resolutions (#1 even!!): No guilt.  I’ve experienced a ginormous shift in my understanding of my resolution #4 (health) which has caused some issues with resolution #1 (no guilt).  I just finished reading the book Disease-Proof Your Child by Dr. Joel Furhman.  It has pretty much just completely verified everything I already knew (a primarily veggie-fruit based diet is based) and has also added a side-serving of guilt regarding all the foods I’ve been feeding my kids (and myself) for years.  Now, we ate fairly well.  Really, we did.  The boys still don’t like soda – thank goodness – we typically only had desserts on the weekend.  They only have juice a few times a week.  We drank fat-free milk.  We usually only ate lean meats and even then it wasn’t every single lunch or dinner…but still.  Basically I was already planning on cutting out all processed foods of which we can’t pronounce all the ingredients…but Dr. Furhman takes it to a whole new level.  You can see his ideal food pyramid here: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx.  On paper it really doesn’t seem THAT different from what we were already attempting to do but putting it into practice is a whole other story.  Obviously this is the ideal and it’s what we’re working towards, but holy dooty, no-to-little cheese is going to be the toughest one especially for the kiddos where adding cheese to a veggie-filled pasta or quinoa or veggie-stuffed whole wheat tortilla was kind of the way to get them to really eat it.  Our kids do well with some veggies – they’re actually awesome with carrots, steamed broccoli, green beans, bell peppers, etc.  Basically the standard vegetables, but getting them (and us) on board with eating basically 75% vegetables (‘the salad as the main dish’) will be an adjustment.  See how even the whole grains are way higher up on the pyramid?!  As carbivores – granted healthy ones, you know whole grains, whole wheat, etc. – this is a change for sure.

Anyway, so, we’re working on eating this way.  I was already working through all of this when my bestie, Rebecca, heard some upsetting news and did some pretty extensive research.  It SHOULD seem off topic to go from discussing food and eating well to aborted fetuses, right?!  Startling segue, yes?  Sadly, no.  Thanks to her research and helpful links on HER blog: http://mammavintage.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-second-modest-proposal.html I’ve recently learned that MANY food companies (including Pepsi, Nabisco, Kraft, Cadbury and Nestle) use aborted fetal cells in their food testing or manufacturing.  Yet another startling and sickening discovery and reason to seriously avoid processed foods that are made out of weird man-made chemicals and things that you can’t pronounce.  The list was provided on www.preventdisease.com.  Kinda freakin’ me out!  My days of daily Diet Pepsi ended on January 1^st and boy, am I ever glad! 

Now, I will continue to work on making my kids the “weird” ones at school who pull out their lunch of tofu, quinoa and steamed veggies! Kale-beet juice anyone?!  But the good news is there ARE ways of making eating this way appetizing to kids, and trust me, I’m trying my best, but honestly, what I learned from Dr. Furhman, is that as long as kids regularly eat garbage (I’m not talking chicken nuggets every day, I’m talking about the way we were eating: whole wheat Ritz crackers, maybe a healthy-seeming granola bar for snack, the occasional Oreo cookie, maybe a frozen cheese pizza for family movie night, etc.) this transition will be WAY harder.  We’re not in any position to just throw out the ‘evil’ foods still lurking in our pantry (and that’d be wasteful anyway), but I am hoping that – without too much guilt and torture – I can transition us all to being “Nutritarians.” (If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend the book that I read or Dr. Furhman’s other book Eat to Live or Super Immunity.  Another great way to access some more info is getting on YouTube and watching his videos there; just search for Dr. Furhman).