I’ve been almost completely off processed foods for a week now. The husband and I started out the week with a commitment to making our own meals from scratch. By mid-week I’d discovered a whole slew of things around my kitchen that were corn, soy and chemicals in disguise. So the commitment, at least for me, altered. Not only am I going to make my own meals, but I am going to make them out of real food… not high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated soy. I’ve had some slips, but for the most part it’s been a successful week.
The hardest part of all this isn’t changing my eating habits; it’s changing them while living with someone who is only half on board. My husband is right there with me wanting to make meals from scratch… it’s the elimination of the ingredients he is used to using that is presenting more of a challenge. He’s fascinated, and he’s supportive… he’s just not ready to go the whole way. At lunch today while I’m eating a veggie sandwich, with hummus, on organic spelt bread with wild rice (which is dense, but awesome tasting bread, with not a trace of anything you wouldn't put in bread you made at home), the husband is settling in with two maple smokies which smell absolutely fantastic. “Is this hard?” he asks. I’ll admit it is a little bit tempting, but I’ve just finished reading a section of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” which talks about what we feed beef cows. My sandwich is definitely looking more appealing. I followed it up with an apple.
As I write he is dangling dark chocolate over my head… taunting me. I’m not making this shit up. I live with my drug dealer… in fairness to him he brought the chocolate over thinking it was something I could eat, the packaging looks quite “wholesome” (oh how willing we are to blindly believe in packaging). I make him read the ingredients, half way through he is laughing at himself. Whether he is ready to come on board or not he is learning. And he is at the very least humouring me. He wanted to make cookies this weekend, to which I jokingly responded that I wouldn’t eat them unless he made them with whole wheat flour and raw sugar… he bought both.
Truth be told, last night I broke down. I found a bag of my favourite snack food,
Today I got back on my wagon. Remember how a few days ago I was joking about making my own mayonnaise? Well we were going through the recipe books at the cabin, and found one for mayonnaise. It didn't look to hard, so this morning we made some. It was great, not quite as thick as what we're used to. I'm not sure if that's owing to all the "extras" Helmans is putting in, or if it just might take some tweeking, but regardless the flavour was good.
We have been talking a while about getting a bread maker. This weekend we decided to try making our own bread all by ourselves... if it proved really cumbersome then we'd look into a bread maker. When we got back to the city we went straight to the grocery store to pick up yeast. It had been the only thing stopping us from trying over the weekend. We got home and I started on it straight away. I decided to start with something simple, plain old whole wheat bread. This is not back breaking work! It's mixing a few dry ingredients with oil, water and milk. The most difficult part is the kneading, which I honestly found totally enjoyable. It's relaxing, even kind of meditative, and even a bit of a work out. As I type my first attempt at bread is rising in a bowl in the kitchen. I've never been so excited to eat bread in my whole life. If this is what it feels like to be connected to your food, I'm in. I can't believe I'm just figuring this out.
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