Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
This rule can be viewed a couple different ways, maybe it means that we should stop eating meat altogether, maybe it is referring to all the boxed foods we rely on, or pre-packaged foods.
I have been finding ways to reduce our costs and to eat healthier for years. Recently I decided that the granola bars we were buying for lunches could be made at home with wholesome ingredients and less packaging. Everyone seems to really enjoy the new ideas and they even have begun to offer ideas on what to put in them, such as apple chunks etc.
I don’t see this as a vegetarian stance. I was a vegan for 2 ½ years, and successfully found ways to include all the vitamins, minerals and proteins that we all required to live. During that 2 ½ years I was pregnant with our first daughter, and she was perfect and wonderfully healthy.
I thought that I would be healthier without the meat, and my mother suggested that I take a course to learn how to cook in such a way that I included everything we needed to stay healthy. It is amazingly time consuming to cook that way might I add. ? I really missed meat during the later part of my vegan journey, and I realized that I needed to have red meat in my diet. That is the only reason why we chose to add meat back into the equation. Notice how I didn’t say that I gave up all I had learned while being a vegan. We still enjoy some of the dishes that I learned to create back then, and I still use a few of the “tricks” I learned.
I believe that this rule includes the animals that you eat, after all what do the cows, chickens, and pigs eat? I would like to say that I know exactly where all my food comes from. Unfortunately I do buy food from the grocery store, and therefore most of what we consume is manufactured in some way. All of our food is manufactured for profit, which means that farmers want their product to grow quicker, last longer, and yield them the best profits.
I have a very close friend who runs a hobby farm, and when I buy eggs, chickens, pork, or beef from her, I know that the animals were raised with care and concern. There were never any drugs administered to the animals unless there was actually a medical reason for it. My uncle raises organic beef cattle in northern Saskatchewan, and anything he sells can not be given any drugs at all. Buying either kinds of meat costs more, because the farmers are not making as much profit per sale. More of their animals die, or become sick from natural causes, and it takes longer for animals to mature then their genetically altered cousins.
There will come a day when all our meat comes from either Tammie’s farm, Uncle Sam’s farm or another farm like them. I will have the money to spend on eating healthier.
