Sylvia's Scenario

It's that time of year again, are you ready?  Are you ready to eliminate all processed food from your diet?  Last year there was quite a discussion about what is "processed".  Basically, unprocessed food is whatever you can make in your own kitchen using a whole food.   You can check out all the  rules  and see if you can do this for a month.  Honestly, I've already broken the rules because I ate my  zucchini bread  today and sugar is not an unprocessed food.  Too bad and it's only October 1!  I'm not starting off very well!  How well will you do this month?

I went to the grocery store today and decided to buy my usual grocery items.  I know I'm suppose to avoid "processed" foods this month but I decided to go ahead and do my usually routine, including asking my husband what he wanted from the store.  (He's not doing October Unprocessed )  Here is an evaluation of the things I picked up at the store today. First of all, I buy most of our food from our local Brown Box Organics home delivery service which is delivered to our doorstep each week.  I place my order on their website and it's delivered shortly after.  I get our milk, vegetables, fruits and meats from this service so I don't go to the grocery store very often.  I know all my food will be local from the Brown Box, as local as it can be, and it's superior quality than the grocery store.  But some items the Brown Box offers, you can get cheaper at the grocery store and the Brown Box doesn't carry all items we eat.  So, off to the grocery sto...

Are you ready to start your October Unprocessed 2011? Tomorrow it starts and I think it will be fun! I am going to use my definition of processed foods as reported in my  post  on the session I went to on "Fresh Look at Processed Foods". I plan to avoid the "ready-to-eat" and the "prepared" processed foods only and eat the "combination" and "minimally" processed foods. That makes a lot more sense to me. But if you want more details, read the food blog that I got this from. http://www.eatingrules.com/2010/09/defining-unprocessed/ He did it last year, too, and went into great depth on explaining what he thinks is "processed". Basically, if you can't make it in your kitchen, then its "processed".  I think that's reasonable, except sugar is a processed food so not even homemade cookies, etc., unless you use honey or agave syrup as the sweetener.  I will tell people to go ahead and eat "j...

I recently returned from attending our national conference for dietitians in San Diego on September 24-27 and was refreshed to get updated on all the latest research, as well as having a little fun in San Diego!!  This is a good event for all of us dietitians to go to because it keeps us abreast of current recommendations backed up by studies.  For example...have you see the blogs going around about "Unprocessed October" where they are trying to get people to eat "unprocessed" food for a month?  Well, I think its a fun idea, however, I went to a session called "Fresh Look at Processed Foods" and basically, the definition of "processed foods" is everything we eat unless it's pulled straight out of the garden!  Even bananas are considered a processed food!  The home grown tomatoes we can ourselves  are "processed foods".  So, as a dietitian, this conference is good at keeping us grounded with the scientific community so we don...