The (Upcoming) Week of Eating Real Food
January 25, 2013
I recently decided that I would try a week where I eat only real food. I generally try to avoid highly refined foods, but a lot of my breakfast, lunch, and snack foods could be considered sort of borderline. Sure I eat organic cereal made with with whole wheat, but there are a few added chemicals for texture and preservation. Nuts are healthy, but do they really need the honey or maple coating that I am so fond of? And then there is my penchant for low-fat nachos. Guiltless Gourmet chips, Kraft Fat-Free Cheddar, Spicy Pico Guacamole and Salsa? The last two are acceptable, the chips would be okay once a month, but the fake chemical cheese? I am fully aware of how gross that is, and yet I still eat it. And even in the not-highly-refined category, dried fruit is hardly a horrible snack, but it generally has twice the calories per volume of fresh fruit. So I started feeling curious about what it would feel like to only eat real food.
I checked out what rules other people have established for their No Processed or Real Food diets, and here are the rules I decided I would follow:
- No refined grains like white flour or white rice (wheat items need to be WHOLE wheat)
- No refined sweeteners, which include sugar, corn syrup, cane juice, and artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Equal
- Nothing packaged (or bottled or canned) with more than 5 ingredients on the label
- Nothing with a bunch of mysterious chemicals in it (I’ll allow some preservatives I recognize on a case-by-case basis if needed)
- Prohibited items which pertain specifically to my weekly eating habits:
- No nutritional bars, granola bars or cereal bars
- No fat-free cheese
- No tortilla chips
- No soda pop (sparkling water is ok)
- Special allowances:
- Coffee (this I will not give up)
- Stevia (for my coffee)
- Dark chocolate (this is a necessity)
- Salt (no excessive added sodium, ok for cooking)
I’m also not going to consider items such as mustard, vinegar, or other condiments as being disqualified because they’ve been processed – if it only has a few ingredients, and it’s been around for over a century, I’m going to allow it.
Here are the types of things I envision eating during the week:
- Boiled or roasted chicken
- Fish or seafood (wild caught if possible)
- Eggs
- Beans (home-cooked, not canned)
- Yogurt
- Cheese
- Milk
- Nuts (roasted is okay, coated with sugary stuff is not)
- Brown rice
- Quinoa
- 100% whole wheat bread
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh vegetables
- Homemade soup, sauces, salad dressing (from whole ingredients)
- Homemade bread or crackers with whole wheat flour and other whole ingredients
- Homemade granola (we’ll see if I have the energy to make this)
So I start on Monday – I can’t wait to see how it goes!
January 25, 2013 at 8:15 pm
happy week of cleansing :)
January 25, 2013 at 9:20 pm
Thank you!
January 25, 2013 at 11:14 pm
Can’t wait to hear how it goes!