Now I find out (in Michele Simon’s “Appetite for Profit”) that the “Whole Grains Council” is an industry front group that promotes breads, cereals, cookies, and crackers.

So cancel anything nice I may have said about them, and shame on them for using such deceitful tactics.

As a way to continue this healthy consumption of natural ingredients in less hefty portions, I’ve started eating from smaller bowls each meal. Sounds kooky, but our dinner plates could be used as the main entree platter for four back home! Eating fresh food every day IS more expensive, but because we’re consuming less and enjoying the flavors more, we do feel better. Quality over quantity IS more delicious and nutritious.

I think if people would just learn how to cook healthy grains and vegetables, these less-financially-fortunate individuals would find food much more affordable.

If you’re paying for the packaged alternative of something you can cook yourself, the industrial food chain has done you a great disservice. But the power of choice is still in the hands of the consumer, and we need to work to educate and inform that decision making. Granted, a single mom working 2 jobs doesn’t have the time to cook healthy well-balanced meals every night, but a bit of planning and bulk grocery shopping can make feeding yourself on a tight budget much more feasible.

It doesn’t have to be all frozen pizza’s, mac’n cheese, and hamburger helper….I feel like our communities, and grassroots food/health initiatives are going to necessarily produce a sustainable alternative American diet in the 10-20 years with much wider acceptance than you currently see. Part of this shift will be away from meat, as meat production – the biggest source of waste in our industrial food chain – becomes more expensive with rising energy prices.

Oh, it’s time to take my afternoon supplements.

As usual in recent days I’m late to the party, but felt the need to give an amen and some personal words.

Largely as a result of working with Elements and learning how real food tastes again (ahem), I’ve come around to some of this on my own. It’s not a good food relationship when you see a custard and immediately freeze up at the thought of making it because of — oh God! — whole fat milk, butter, and sugar!!! Yet, this was exactly my reaction at first. I don’t know when I got this way. I simply did. And I realized I was totally f’ed when it came to real foods. Not bad foods, because there are no good or bad foods — just calorically dense, wholesome food. Yes, and salt.

I am finding after a few months of gingerly experimenting that I am actually eating LESS food now than I did when I was eating “only healthy stuff.” There really is a portion of our brains hardwired to try to get us nutrition when we are starving — even, and perhaps especially, if we are taking in thousands of calories of substandard food a day.

Yes, whole milk and cream have more fats and calories and stuff. But guess what, your food is more flavorful and you need less of it to be satisfied!

I agree with the soul who said to try to eat processed foods again after a year. I’ll be honest. I still have some process floating through my kitchen. Nothing like before I started cooking, and I must say, I am relearning how to be with food. Much has been written about the things we lost as a culture with the mobile, convenience based family. I am convinced after my recent experience that the loss of the cook is a bigger one than people realize, for health and for many other reasons.

When reading this I instantly blacked out and flashed back to my neice’s trip to the jelly belly factory. I would wager that they informed us about 52 times that their treats were a healthy non fat snack.

Honestly I am always in the best shape when I am eating at the restaurant, and treating myself to riellets, foie, bacon, lardo and shortribs. Eating in non-titanic sized portions and doing so often, through the day is a way to enjoy many different foods, allowing food to make your day great and keep your metabolism rockin!

Thanks for your rant

Big Food spreads misinformation, then makes sure that someone else takes the responsibility and bears the burden. Either individuals, governments, insurance companies – it doesn’t matter as long as it’s not them.

So food companies load up their food with unhealthy but cheap (that is, profitable) ingredients, then squeeze healthy farmers and producers with regulations (they lobby for) and unfair competition (squeezing out competitors in stores.)

Even the “scientific” studies are fronts for pro-industry groups. The so-called “Center for Consumer Freedom” is a “non-profit organization” funded by Big Food.

Then, when the public’s BS detector makes even this transparent, they take on an affectation of penitence, promising to be “part of the solution.” The public is happy to see they’re “doing something about this terrible problem” and moves on to the next issue, and the fox sneaks back into the henhouse.

JMW: I agree that eating too much is also part of the problem (as are, to a lesser extent, genetics). Many people have lost the ability to hear what their body is telling them about satiety. Many people eat until they feel “full”… at which point you’ve usually eaten too much. However, you can eat a heck of a lot more “whole” foods than processed foods and still consume fewer calories. You can get thathis day and age, it can lead to almost addictive behat “full” feeling from all the dietary fiber, rather than HFCS, sodium, and trans fats. So, moving away from the processed foods can help reduce caloric intake, while still eating the same quantity of food.

Christine: With regard to cost: have you looked into a CSA? It’s essentially a subscription to one (or a small group of) farmer’s produce for the production season. It is usually in the $250-400 range (depends on location/amt of produce delivered/ length of growing season). I subscribed to one for my last year of undergrad. While the initial cost was painful, it was nice to have fresh produce all spring, summer, and fall. I didn’t have to worry about paying for it then. Also, it can save time, as most farmers deliver to your door or have a few drop sites from which you select the most accessible. It is typically a lot cheaper to eat more at the vegetarian ends of the spectrum, with meat a few times a week, rather than every night. As for your love of Rice a roni.. everybody has their guilty pleasures, I don’t think anyone is suggesting you give it up entirely.

Finally, a note about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is important to remember that our bodies are still very much evolutionarily wired to not only store energy from sugars, but also to remember where we found large sources of sugar. The same is true of large fat sources. These large “fuel” sources, when consumed with great frequency, subtly change one’s brain-chemistry to crave those foods. It’s almost an addiction. And sure, you may crave bacon or you may crave a big Mac, but there’s a lot of “hidden” fats and sugars in many processed foods. This leaves people craving muffins made by Hostess over a homemade muffin… in search of those highly refined sugars and fats. Anyway, it is a very complex issue, but it is nice to see it being discussed and debated.

But…and there’s always a “but”…and in this case, several. I’m a grad student with a full time job and a dissertation to write. My husband’s a medical student–80 hour weeks for no pay, soon to be replaced by a resident’s schedule (90 hour weeks for the equivalent of about $9.00/hour pre-tax). When are we supposed to have time to make a meal that isn’t at least partly composed of convenience foods? That’s something that, at this point in my life, I can’t really spend time feeling bad about. I can do things to try to change what I’m capable changing, but I have to be real about what changes my life can sustain right now.

I mentioned jobs and pay rates because that’s entirely germane to the topic. Unfortunately, right now it’s difficult for me to afford many whole foods, especially when you’re talking properly raised, fresh meats or organic fruits and veg. This is a difficult proposition for my family, and I recognize that we’re likely better off (with our zillion dollars of loan debt and $9.00/hour jobs) than many other families out there. How are they supposed to make this whole-foods thing happen? It’s hard to ignore those “10 for $10″ deals at my local Kroger. I could get 10 boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes or Rice-A-Roni for the price of ONE 2 pound package of fresh, organic chicken. See the problem there? I don’t live in abject poverty, and even I can’t make this a reality in my home. How are we supposed to expect single mom on WIC to do this? As Luis has said, you can’t ignore economics when you talk about this issue–although I suspect we’re discussing different types of economics.

But let’s take a step back and take all the institutional/economic/”big picture” issues out of this. Let’s get into the matter of personal tastes. I can’t help it, but I LOVE Rice-A-Roni. I would eat it every day if I could. I would eat a whole box at one time if it wouldn’t be embarassingly gluttonous. Sure, it’s laden with like 10000% of your daily value of sodium, but I like it. Maybe that’s an artifact of my “suburban child of the 80’s” upbringing. Who knows? I didn’t grow up with this whole foods concept or on a self-sustaining farm. But why do I feel like I should apologize for the fact that there are some processed foods that I love? As though admitting to this makes me a lesser person? There are some processed foods I’m just not willing to give up, but that doesn’t mean that I’m giving in to the man, or that I’m ignorant to the benefits of “real food.” It just means I like it. A big part of eating is pleasure, and I just can’t help loving my Rice-A-Roni, Swiss Cake Rolls and Duncan Hines yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

Does all this mean that I eschew the benefits of real food? That because I (and many others) can’t do it well (right now), that nobody should do it well? Hells no. I truly agree with everything Ruhlman said in his original post, but it’s simply too big an issue for there to be clearly polarized “rights” and “wrongs,” or to believe that most people can achieve the kind of change required to go totally (or even mostly) whole foods. Anytime you get into the realm of change and human behavior, there are going to be A LOT of obstacles to making long-lasting, significant changes. Sometimes we need to take a step back and see that there are degrees of change, not just 100% success or 100% failure.