Are You Eating REAL Food?

Food has always been a concern for me. Okay, that's not true. It has been a concern since my late 20's. Let's face it - most of us don't worry about our food intake until our metabolism begins to slow down and the numbers on the scale go up.

I'm nine years old. I am live with my mother who is putting herself through school and working a full-time job at the hospital working crazy hours in surgery. Because of no support from my biological father, money is tight and we rarely ate meat or junk food of any kind mostly because we can't afford it. A typical meal for my mom and me is opening a few cans of vegetables and fresh fruit for dessert. Therefore, rather healthy eating habits are established very early on for me and for that I am truly appreciative. However, my mother eventually remarries and our lifestyle changes. The older I get the more involved I become in extracurricular activities and eating on the go becomes a necessity. My love for junk food is born.

I am 18 years old. I'm off to college and with college comes even more junk food as well as beer. Lots of beer. And lots of calories. But who cares? My metabolism is still ticking away and burning all those empty calories without me doing anything.

I'm 28 years old and I'm in love. We're getting married. I'm marrying a man who has constantly struggled with his weight his entire life. He comes from a family that is overweight, fighting a battle with diabetes and heart disease and obviously has poor eating habits. I notice for the first time that my clothes are fitting differently, I'm more tired and I'm putting on a few extra pounds. My romance with junk food has flourished.

I'm 35 years old. We have two beautiful children. I shed most of the baby weight from my pregnancies but can't seem to shed the last 10 pounds or so. Because of the kids, eating habits have improved but can't seem to find the time to exercise with two little ones running about my feet.

Sound familiar? Motivation is a problem when it comes to exercise. But I think our biggest problem is the kid of food we're eating. Food Inc. opened my eyes to a lot of things. Some things I already knew but it definitely helped open my eyes to a real problem. A lot of the "foods" we're eating is not really food. Full of preservatives and processed crap is not healthy. We all know this. So why do we eat it? Because it tastes good. Because it's easy. But do we want our children to constantly struggle with weight, diabetes, & heart disease? I definitely do not. And I don't want to be widowed at a young age. And I don't want to miss my children's weddings or my grandchildren.

We're eating this:

Funny right? Toy food. But I thought it an accurate representation of the kind of food we usually put into our bodies. FAKE food.

We should be eating this:

Michael Pollen has a book that was pretty incredible, Food Rules. Basically, it's a very helpful guideline that shows us that eating does not have to be so complicated. And he's right. While educational, the book is also pretty witty at times. One of his rules is don't eat anything that your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. It made ME laugh anyway. But how true?! If your grandmother doesn't know what it is, most likely is processed crap.

So I'm curious.... What is a typical meal for you? For your kids? I want to do better. For me, my husband, my kids. I no longer want to fight with my food or my body.

Happy Friday to all of you!