The Real Food Experience ~Identify Processed Food and Limit Ingredients – Juggling Real Food and Real Life

Welcome back for another week of The Real Food Experience 2014.  I hope you are having as much fun as I am.  We’ve accomplished a lot in just a short time.  We’ve learned how to include more fruit and vegetables in our meals; included whole grains in our diet and tried some new whole grains; we learned how to avoid artificial colors; we changed from processed white sugar to natural sweeteners; and we put a focus on drinking real beverages like milk with a strong emphasis on water.

This week we are going to dig a little deeper into really identifying how much processed food we eat.  I know when I started my real food journey with my family, I started switching out foods that I considered less than healthy with foods I thought were more healthy.  Makes sense, right?  Where I soon found myself was in the middle of a lot of confusion.  I was reading labels and found all sorts of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and a whole host of ingredients that I could not pronounce.  I am fairly certain that all of these ingredients were not in most of the foods that my grandmothers cooked with.

I get it……..food needs to be pretty, full of flavor, affordable, have the ability to travel across the country, and sit on the shelf till it is sold.  That is all well and good for food companies, but what I want the most for my family is good nutrition that will fill them with energy, help them to fight off disease, and keep their bellies feeling satisfied.  I am not convinced that all of those chemicals will do that for my family, so I’ve decided to cut them out of our diet.

This week we are going to really dig into reading those labels.  Take a look at how many ingredients are on the label.  Don’t take anything for granted.

The Weekly Goal:  Only Eat Foods That Have 5 Ingredients or Less.


I already know what you are thinking…………Why 5 ingredients?  Quite simply, we’ve got to pick a number.  Are there times where we eat foods with 6 ingredients.  Sure.  The goal here is to really reduce the processed food we are eating.  When I say 5 ingredients and you are looking at a recipe with 26 ingredients, that is not what I’m talking about.  What I’m talking about is your box of crackers and breakfast cereal.  Your ingredients to make a recipe should not have more than 5 ingredients.  And let me give you a hint………….whole food ingredients are so much easier to figure out than anything that comes in a box, can, or bottle.

 

OK……let’s get to this.  I can’t wait to hear your stories about how you do with this all week. What do you think will be the toughest about this weekly goal?  What will be the easiest?  Do you read labels on a regular basis?  What have you found on a food label that has surprised you?

Can’t get enough Juggling Real Food and Real Life? Make sure you subscribe to our email list so you don’t miss a post. You will also want to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Just look for the buttons at the top to follow us on your favorite social media. We also have a Real Food Experience Facebook group. If you would like to join us, leave me your Facebook email address (the one you sign on with) in the comments below or email me at jugglingrealfoodandreallife@gmail.com.