Wellness Wednesday

As part of my low-cost/high-health cookbook project for our local food pantry, a few weeks ago I met with a very nice woman from our county's cooperative extension office.  She will be holding some cooking classes for clients of the food pantry, so talked her to find out what her needs were and how our cookbook could help satisfy some of those needs.


We talked about the need for healthy snacks for children and she emphasized the need for healthy alternatives to soft drinks.  As someone who is very concerned about what we are putting into our food system and ultimately into our bodies, I was taken aback by some of her examples which including making a juice mix using diet ginger ale.  Of course this led me to the following two thoughts:  We take out natural fat in healthy foods (i.e., yogurt), replace it with sugar, and call it healthy.  We take out sugar, replace it with chemicals, and call it healthy.  Rather than continuing to consume excessive amounts of adulterated foods, maybe we should just consume more moderate amounts of food in their natural state?  What we need to do is follow author Michael Pollan's advice:

1. Eat [real] food.
2. Not too much.
3. Mostly plants.

If we followed this advice, we would save our health and our wallets, as we would be putting the diet food/supplement/book industry out of business and reduce our healthcare costs.