It started when I purchased the follow up to the only nutrition book I've read, Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food (the first book was called Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads... you can see why the title might appeal!). The first part of the book exposes the factory food industry and what it's doing to people's waistlines, energy levels, and even life expectancy.
I was obsessed. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in 3 days flat.
I heard about a lot of stuff the author, Christine Avanti, writes about when I watched Food Inc. Like most who have seen the film (it's on Netflix for anyone who hasn't watched it), I was disgusted. I swore off factory farmed beef, poultry, pork, soy and dairy... for about a week until I realized how hard to find and expensive it is.
Watching Food, Inc. helped me to realize that I wanted to stop eating factory food, but I still didn't have the tools to figure out how to do that. Enter: Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food. It provided a how-to (e.g. what foods to eat, what not to eat, and why) and meal plans. There were also profiles of real foodies whose blogs I've been reading for inspiration:
Now I have enough to go on to be able to truly implement a lot of these changes into my food lifestyle.
I made/ate some awesome real food recipes last week, including asparagus quiche on sweet potato crust, chickpea salad on quinoa with lemon caper dressing, and elk burgers with organic mac'n'cheese (thanks to my boyfriend, R.J.). No word of a lie, after eating this way for a week I dropped 5lbs! (But, I'm still not convinced that my scale didn't go wonky.)
As I embark on this real food journey, you might be reading a little bit more about something we all know and love: MIDJIM!