What to eat

In the past few months I've been working on improving our diet.  Our mainstream American diet and the foods that we can buy at the supermarket make it difficult to eat wisely.   Our food production is about quantity, not quality.  Our food makes us fat and unhealthy.  In my household, we are moving to a more plant based diet.  It's good for us, good for the animals, good for the planet. 

My reading plus several documentaries have made me painfully aware of how bad America's food industry is for us.  Personally, I am most horrified by how the animals are treated.  I am not against eating meat.  I am against abusing animals.  And the meat you can buy in the supermarket comes from truly abused animals. 

Chickens get their beaks trimmed off and are bred to have so much breast meat that their legs can't hold them up.  They are kept in horrible conditions.  Pigs are abused.  Cows are abused.  Everything is abused by big business.   The animals.  The land.  And us. 

Dairy is also an issue for me.. my middle name is better-with-butter....  I think dairy food isn't very good for me but I do love the taste.  I've also faced the fact that dairy cows are pretty mistreated.  Their calves are taken away when they are 2 days old.  The calves mostly become veal, a terrible life for them.  The dairy cows are fed a bad diet that makes them produce more milk but is very hard on them.  Like us, they are made fat and miserable.  

So, what to do?  I plan to cut back on dairy and am working on getting my dairy products and meat more directly from farms that treat their animals humanely. 

I am looking for Step 5 animal products. Whole Foods has a great explanation of the Steps.

And, guess what?  They taste better, too.  Our current American diet is based on making food cheap and convenient.  I think we are paying a terrible price in quality. 

  

If you want to learn more, check out these documentaries, which are available on Netflix instant play.

Forks Over Knives

Vegucated

Hungry for Change

Food Fight

Food Inc is good, too, but not on instant play.

May we all eat better in the New Year.