Before You Stick It In Your Mouth, Find Out Where It's Been

You just think you don’t like vegetables. The truth is, you’ve probably never tasted one. Most of us have had some frozen or canned or battered and fried variation. We try to choke down raw vegetables with copious amounts of cheese or salad dressing or other smothering sauces that strangle the taste of the natural vegetable. We mix them into soups and casseroles or use them to top baked potatoes and tacos. But when is the last time you tasted a clean, raw, unprocessed, fresh-off-the-plant vegetable?

Sure, it’s an acquired taste, but so is beer and most of you managed to work through that one.  So I challenge you, as Obama challenged Congress: “It’s time to eat our peas.” And our carrots and our corn and yes, even our cauliflower. Go to your local grocery store or farmer’s market and stock up. Buy things you think you don’t like. Try new things. Learn.

On your way out the door in the morning, grab two pieces of fruit and three veggies. Throughout the day, eat an avocado with a spoon; eat a tomato like you would an apple; satisfy an ice cream craving on a summer afternoon with frozen grapes. There are about 17 squillion different kinds of produce out there and most of them can be eaten raw. Keep exploring new tastes and odds are, you’ll find several you actually enjoy eating.

That’s not to say you should only eat raw food, but the goal is to eat your foods as close to the way they occur in nature as possible.   

Helpful hint: nothing grows in a can or a box.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating meat, either, but the same rules apply. Nothing processed or injected or chemically-enhanced; avoid deep-fat frying and covering food in gravy.

Basically, don’t settle. You deserve actual food, not some synthetic approximation. If you need help getting motivated to eat whole foods, try watching this.

Now, I will admit, I am still working on a few of my synthetic food addictions - aspartame chief among them - so I don't mean to sound preach-y. Like I have been saying since I started this blog (lo those many days ago) let's do this together!