Skinny Bitch_ Ultimate Everyday Cookbook - Kim Barnouin [9]
Four Ways to Experiment With a Green Diet:
GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR SPICES: Learn how to cook and flavor foods with herbs and spices rather than animal fat. They’re packed with health benefits from the Earth’s soil, free of preservatives and cholesterol, and they can change up the flavor of a meal in a jiffy. (See pages 58-59.)
GROW A MINI GARDEN IN YOUR BACKYARD OR BUY A GARDEN KIT FOR YOUR PATIO: The distance your food is traveling from food to plate is mere footsteps, and you’ll have fresher ingredients, guaranteed.
PENCIL IN MEATLESS MONDAY: If I had it my way, it would be Meatless Monday, Meatless Tuesday, Meatless Wednesday, and so on. But for you non-veggies, mark a set day in the calendar each week when you’ll enjoy a meatless meal regardless of whether you’re flying solo or cooking for four. It will present a new challenge in the kitchen and lower your carbon footprint. Each week, try to step it up and tag on another day. Before you know it, you’ll be celebrating Meatless March!
JOIN A CSA (COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE): Many traditional farmers are getting savvy and packaging boxes of locally grown produce delivered fresh to your door. It’s not traveling far to get to you and you’re not gassing up the Benz to pick it up. Most of these services will allow you to check how many times a week you want a new box, and what types of veggies you and your family want. Life made simple.
HOW PROCESSED IS YOUR FOOD?
By now, we are all very aware that processed foods are bad. As in, no good. As in, out to get us. Yet 90 percent of the average American household grocery budget goes toward filling the pantry with processed foods that are teeming with additives and preservatives, with no traceable nutrients.35
Whether we’re talking about cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or coronary heart disease, the rate of food-related disease has been steadily rising. Each year about 550,000 Americans die of cancer, with one-third of these deaths attributed to poor dietary choices.36 Why? Studies are finding a direct correlation with food processing and our health. In today’s society, our foods are grown with shitloads of pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals to speed up their growth and preserve their shelf life. The FDA actually estimates that, every year, twenty pounds of pesticides are pumped into each American’s food. At least fifty of these pesticides are classified as carcinogenic.37 Just in case you are unfamiliar with the term, let me sound it out for you. Carcinogenic means to cause or tend to cause cancer. In layman’s terms, our over-processed, pesticide-ridden diets are slowly killing us. And all we have to do is eat.
Need some more evidence? In July 2009, researchers at Rhode Island Hospital published a controversial study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease that found a concrete link between death from disease and levels of nitrates, nitrites, and nitrosamines found in processed foods.
According to Suzanne de la Monte, the leader of the Rhode Island Hospital study, we have become a “nitrosamine generation” without even knowing it. “Not only do we consume them in processed foods, but they get into our food supply by leeching from soil and contaminating water supplies used for crop irrigation, food processing, and drinking,” said de la Monte.38
SMART BITCHES READ LABELS
All that really matters to grocery stores and retailers is that the food appears edible. By any means necessary. Too bad that apple had to be picked unripe, transported a great distance, then gassed to ripen it for sale. That’s one way of doing it. The other route is to pump the foods with preservatives and irradiation to keep it stable for transport and sale. What? You’re outraged? Well, luckily, these aren’t your only options. There are two simple things you can do to guard yourself against this fate:
1. Buy Organic
2. Read Your Labels
CHOOSING ORGANIC: THE GLOBAL FRESCA