Pioneering

Because I just read In Defense of Food, I've been re-evaluating everything I choose to eat. It turns out, we are eating lot of food that isn't actually food. In his book, Michael Pollen claims that we are no longer eating "food," that is, the stuff we do eat is so nutrient-pumped and filled with additives and preservatives, that our great-grandparents wouldn't even recognize a lot of what we eat as food. So I went through our cupboards, pantry, and food storage, and found, among other things, many non-food items:

• Rice-A-Roni
• Chef Boyardee ravioli (not mine; leftover from when Andy had roommates)
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
• Ramen noodles
• Cup-O-Noodles
• Fruit By the Foot (leftover from when we made dessert sushi - looked cute, but there wasn't a food item at all in there)
• Green apple flavored candy corn (leftover from last Halloween)
• Lay's Stax chips
• Sodas galore: Coke, Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Apple Soda (yep, it's good!)

Granted, I don't always eat all of this non-food, since most of it is there for Andy, and the stuff I do eat, I don't eat all that often. But seeing it all sitting there, in my own cupboards got me thinking - what did my great-grandmother eat? Was she healthier than me? I'm not sure. I do know that the farther away from food I get, the worse my body feels. I get headaches, allergy symptoms, I'm bloated, I'm cranky, and just all-around yucky.

All this thinking about what my ancestors ate helped me decide that in honor of the upcoming Pioneer Day, I was going to try to eat like a pioneer. Well, not exactly like a pioneer, but kind of. I could definitely work on using more basic ingredients in my cooking, and try not to snack on so much junk food. So I pulled out my grandma's cookbook to see what she ate. Granted, she cooked during a time when processed food was just becoming popular, but a lot of her recipes didn't call for processed food at all.

The madness began on Saturday. First of all, it's expensive to eat food. Processed food is so much cheaper! But I decided my health was worth more than a few extra bucks, so I loaded up on fruits and veggies, and started with a homemade jam recipe. I made 12 jars of jam - mostly strawberry and some strawberry-blueberry. Then I made salmon with roasted vegetables for dinner (water only for our drinks - no soda). Andy sat down and said, "Hey! Everything we're eating is food!" How novel. We continued the madness on Sunday when I got up at 7:00 to make homemade blueberry muffins. After church I made my grandma's bread.

I think I chose the worst day to do so much cooking, because our house has been almost 100 degrees inside. I opened the front door last night and realized it was hotter inside than it was outside! Despite the heat, I did make a lot of food. Real food. And I have a great respect for those pioneers. Not only did they walk across the country pulling handcarts, but they prepared food every single meal of the day. No running to Taco Bell. No popping the Rice-A-Roni in the microwave. No opening the can of soup to warm up in three minutes.

I don't know that I'll cook like a pioneer every day, or that I'll entirely give up non-food, but I'm definitely going to make a better effort to prepare and eat real food. The payoff is much greater than the work I put into it.