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Inspiration and Information
Real Food
by Tammie Ortlieb
Michael Pollan, in his book In Defense of Food , suggests that we
should "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He goes on to define
food as that which your great-grandmother would recognize as such. I
find it interesting that the word food would need any qualification.
Personally when I present myself with dinner options I ask "Could I
plant this, pick this, or find it in nature?" Marketing to post-war
generation housewives focused on quick, convenient, new and scientific
sounding dressed up dinners. Women wanted to be relieved of duties and
saved by technology. Flip back a few decades, though, to Pollan's
great-grandmother's time and we're looking at people who grew their
dinner in backyard gardens. They kept fruit trees and cooked from
scratch. Not much came from a box. Even less was ordered from a
drive-through window. These people traded surplus vegetables with
neighbors and made pies and breads for newcomers. I'll share mine; you
share yours; we will all have plenty.
Plenty, in fact, is the title of one of my favorite books on the
subject of eating real food close to home. Authored by Alisa Smith and
J.B. Mackinnon, the book describes the couple's year long adventure in
foraging, gardening, and purchasing their meals from area farmers.
They pick dandelion greens, cook up edible flowers, hunt for
mushrooms, and dig up forgotten potatoes. They commit to supporting
area growers within one hundred miles of their Canadian home. The
authors were struck by the fact that most food on our plates has
traveled somewhere between 1500 and 2500 miles before we take fork and
knife to it. With the growing interest in Community Supported
Agriculture (check out www.localharvest.org for a farm near you) and
farmers markets, eating close to home is easier now than ever.
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Eating local foods and consuming produce in season will also help to
ensure that we are chowing down on real food. Single serve. 100
Calorie Pack. Microwavable. These are all terms that have come to
represent food-like items we are using to nourish our bodies. The best
single serve snack I know is picked from trees and needs no marketing
at all—the banana. Sometimes I find that it takes longer to prepare a
boxed microwavable pasta meal than to cook some rotini according to
directions and throw in some of my husband's homemade marinara that
I've taken from the freezer and thawed. An overlooked down side to
processed foods is that if we're eating too many nutrient deficient
boxed meals, we aren't eating the foods that are actually good for us
like fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans. And we're
getting far too many of those nasty additives and preservatives which
can contribute to or aggravate allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity in
children. While real food can present allergy issues too—foods like
eggs, milk, wheat, soy and peanuts—typically those are easily
controlled by elimination diets whereas the same ingredients are more
difficult to eliminate among packaged goods.
Consider, too, the environmental factor. Real food packaging is
biodegradable. It has required no sort of artificial manufacturing or
fancy marketing expense. There is no need to worry whether it is a
number one or number two plastic, or to consider the environmental
implications of the recycling process. Just throw the peels in the
compost and wait. No transportation costs. No electric bills related
to the running of machinery. No bright orange plastic curbside
recycling bins. No water usage. Best of all, this natural packaging
requires very little effort on your part and doesn't clutter the trash
bin. And while conscientious shoppers choose groceries packaged in
recyclable materials, still much of the packaging cannot be recycled.
Purchasing real food represents the ultimate in the reduce part of
reduce, reuse, recycle.
So, with a less is more approach to the food we put on our plates we
can improve our health and care for the environment at the same time.
Local organic foods have traveled less and contain more nutrients than
food that has been shipped across the country. This real food has real
ingredients that we can pronounce. It has grown on neighboring soil
and will enrich the earth and air where we live. Alisa Smith and J.B.
Mackinnon of Plenty suggest that eating locally grown foods will bring
us back in touch with our neighbors, our communities, and the seasons.
It will also reconnect us to our families. Slowing down, cooking from
scratch, and eating from our own kitchen tables will enrich the lives
of those we share our homes with. We have made the choice in the past
as a society to cut meal preparation time and expense by focusing on
cheap, convenient, easy to obtain foods. But at what expense to our
bodies and the earth that supports us do these foods come? In the same
manner, we can make the decision now as a society to eat seasonal
foods grown close to home, respecting the environment and supporting
the lives of those around us.
Examples of real food:
- oatmeal with cinnamon, crushed walnuts, sliced banana
- homemade granola (recipe to follow)
- fruit smoothies (recipe to follow)
- Big Breakfast Salad (recipe to follow)
- simple cucumber salad (halve lengthwise and thinly slice
some cucumbers, add a few chopped tomatoes, marinate in a little white
balsamic vinegar)
- apple wedges with peanut butter
- Potato Leek Soup (from The Accidental Vegan)
- naked burritos (recipe to follow)
- sauteed veggies with homemade marinara
- cut veggies dipped in White Bean Hummus with Fresh Thyme &
Basil (from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan)
- Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux (from Vegan Soul Kitchen)
- baked potato topped with steamed broccoli, garlic, and olive oil
Books with great real food recipes:
Everyday Granola
This should be a staple in every pantry.
- 3 cups oats
- 1/3 cup coconut
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans
- 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/3 cup chopped almonds
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- dried raisins and cranberries to your liking
Stir together oats, coconut, nuts, and cinnamon in large bowl. Mix in
combined oil, syrup, and vanilla. Microwave about six minutes. Stir
occasionally. Add dried fruit. Microwave 1-2 minutes. Press into
storage container. Cool.
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
There are so many variations on smoothies. Feel free to experiment and
get creative.
- 1 banana
- 3-4 whole strawberries
- 1/2 cup raw almonds
- ice, handful
Combine all and blend until smoothie-fied.
Tammie's Favorite Big Breakfast Salad
Load all of these in this order on a plate in the quantities you prefer.
- shredded romaine
- baby spinach, bunched and cut in shreds
- red cabbage, sliced in thin shreds
- broccoli, no stems, broken into small pieces
- red onion, halved and thinly sliced
- cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut in thin slices
- cherry tomatoes, halved
- dried cranberries, small handful
- sunflower seeds, 2 tablespoons
- your favorite Italian dressing (or simply a little olive oil and
white balsamic vinegar)
Naked Burritos
Pile any of this on a plate according to personal preferences.
-
brown rice, cooked according to directions
-
dried black beans, soaked and cooked
-
fresh corn, cooked and cut from the cob
-
homemade salsa (Preferably made straight from the garden! Try the
Salsa recipe in The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook by Aurelie Pare)
Tammie Ortlieb is a freelance writer and adjunct instructor with a Master's Degree in Developmental Psychology. She resides in southwest Michigan with her omnivorous husband, four veg kids, and small menagerie of pets. Tammie writes for various vegetarian sources, mostly on being okay with your vegetarian self. She's a book nerd, a research nerd, a health nerd, and a huge glass of soymilk half full kind of creature. Visit her blog at www.middle-agedveganchick.blogspot.com.
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