Do You Really Know What's in Your Food?

We had such fun at last month's Breakfast Bonanza cooking demo. Savoring so many different kinds of authentic, natural breakfast choices.  Any busting lots of myths about what's truly "healthy"!  So I couldn't resist re-publishing a former client's letter to me about a totally different breakfast experiment. A wake-up call. Most of our health journeys begin with one. Many of the people you care about may be in just the right place to hear this one.

   Tracy, you have always advised me that eating on purpose for life is not about deprivation. Instead, it's about making informed choices. Enjoying and savoring real food. And never choosing to feel guilt about those choices. I have slowly, but surely, gotten better and better at doing this. 98% of the food in my house at any one time is authentic, delicious, and what my body needs.  I've learned to read labels.   And I recognize deceptive things like "all-natural ingredients" for what they are - deliberate attempts to conceal things that I wouldn't choose to put in my body. No matter how hard someone tries to mask fake food with clever words, I've gotten pretty savvy. 

  Well, I recently made a choice to indulge, trading my morning workout for a diner breakfast with a friend. You have taught me that indulging every so often is not cheating; it is truly eating on purpose.  Well, with great purpose, my friend and I headed off to a local diner that we used to go to years ago. We ordered what we wanted. And I anxiously awaited my indulgence. I chose French Toast, and my friend ordered Eggs Benedict.   The food arrived shortly.  But unfortunately, so did some powerful realizations about what I was really "indulging in".

  I looked at my plate carefully. First, there was a package of "buttery spread" (that did not need refrigeration). I asked for real butter. But the waitress said, "it's right there" pointing to the partially-hydrogenated, artificially-colored, margarine spread. I know from you that this is the one kind of fat  (transfat) is that is actually proven to clog people's arteries.

Then I looked at the jigger of "pancake syrup" that was really colored, artificially-maple-flavored, high-fructose corn syrup. Instantly I thought lovingly about the bottle of pure Maple Syrup from the Farmer's Market in my pantry at home. And I wondered if there was mercury in this particular batch of HFCS...as it is in many common products. 

 My friend's breakfast was just as fake: pasty Hollandaise Sauce from a powder that was this anemic off-white color with no rich flavor from real egg ingredients. And homefries covered in a grainy, all-purpose seasoning mix (yep, I know - read: MSG and other choice chemicals).

There was no delicious, made-from-REAL-ingredients aroma coming from the food.  Worst of all, the taste was artificial and can best be described as "plasticky".   In a word: fake.   I was amazed at the number of people around us scarfing up this cuisine - seemingly with no idea what it's doing to their bodies. And perhaps no idea that they have another choice.

  So despite my best efforts to indulge in something authentic and delicious on a special occasion, I did not get what I truly wanted: REAL food. Delicious food. A real treat. But I did get some stark lessons:

• Most people eat mindlessly.
• Most people don't know how bad fake food tastes in contrast to the real thing.
• Fake food is the standard of eating. 
• I am (now) so used to eating on purpose (and feeling the benefits) that my taste buds and my body reject the artificial food.

So it seemed like a great time to express my continued appreciation for all that you have taught me. My body feels great. I cannot emphasize enough how the shift to eating on purpose has impacted me. And I look forward to doing so for the rest of my life.   Thankyou.   - TW