The Real Food Diet or Eating Like I'm Preggers

This morning I was intrigued by The Feminist Breeder's post called Eating Only What Great-Grandma Would Recognize.  She writes that though pregnant women are told repeatedly what they shouldn't eat, they are rarely told what exactly they should be eating. From her post, here are some good rules to follow:

• Packaged foods are not really food.
• If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, then it’s not real food.
• You can’t go wrong with whole foods.
• You can, and SHOULD, eat fat.
• No. More. Dieting.
• Eat every 3 hours, otherwise you’re sending your blood sugar on a roller coaster.
• Vegetables at every meal.
• As long as you make it yourself, it’s bound to be healthier than anything frozen or prepackaged from the store.
• We ALL need to be taking supplements — good supplements — the kind derived from plants, nothing synthetic or filled with dyes.

I can definitely relate to the part where she talks about how going through the grocery store and picking out only the real food is overwhelming.  One of her commenters writes: "I’ve grown up to realize that my parents gave me a rare modern gift: how to cook and eat healthily. I almost don’t know what to do with boxed “foods.”" And I admit that in a way, I am jealous. Yes, jealous that I didn't grow up on a farm growing my own vegetables and making my own bread. Because my eating habits are awful. I eat fruit and veggies and wheat, etc, but I also eat a ton of processed and packaged foods and I always have.

This reminded me a post from a blog long ago on how what you eat while pregnant affects the food preferences of your baby:

Even in the Womb your Babies become Picky Eaters 

“Starting Good Food Habits in Kids from the Womb”

“Ever wonder why some youngsters approach food as an adventure and others insist on mono-meals of mac ‘n’ cheese? Turns out kiddie palates don’t happen by accident. Studies show that children prefer the flavors they experience early on, including while they’re in the womb.”

UGH. This is TERRIBLE news. I applaud those who are totally green/natural/hippie/local/organic/sustainable, etc about their food choices, but that will, unfortunately, never be me. I can only blame my parents, for reasons stated in this article and the Study on pregnant animals it references. And unfortunately I will probably not eat very well while I’m preggers and therefore my kids are going to eat terribly as well (mac n cheese, chicken fingers, wee!)

I said to Michael “man that’ll suck when I’m pregnant because we eat terribly!” and he said “sucks for you not for me I can eat what I want when you're pregnant muahaha!”

Right after reading this post I picked up a magazine with an article called Cheap Thrills: Why Extreme Thriftiness Stunts are All the Rage. The article is about, "a growing population of consumers chronicling their efforts to do without, swearing off such things as riding in cars and buying clothes — or buying anything new at all." People join online communities, write blogs, get book deals based on their commitment to eat on only $1 a day for a month, not step foot in a car for a year, live strictly according to Biblical commandments or a year, or refrain from buying anything new except underwear. I find it so interesting! Sometimes they lapse and have to buy something and their followers get angry, such as the no-car bike rider who purchased some lumber and had his friend drive it home for him in his car. People said Thats Cheating! haha. Whats a guy to do? 


So all of this got me thinking about the pregnancy diet and my desire to learn to eat real food, and a thought occurred to me...


I will do my own experiment!! 


Ever notice how women usually decide to eat healthy once they become pregnant? Because we're now growing this delicate, new person inside of us and therefore have to take care of ourselves and it better? Well, really we should just be eating right all life long, to take care of ourselves all the time. 


So I am going to eat as if I were pregnant. 


I am going to read up as much as I can on Real Food, recipes from scratch, how to buy groceries, and so forth. Unfortunately the closest Whole Foods is quite far so I may have to work with what I've got, plus Trader Joe's. I have a feeling this is going to be rough... I'm such a picky eater! 


I'll let you know when I officially start (I'll have to get rid of some things that are already in my house first and do some reading).  And I'm making Michael do it with me - muahaha!