POSTED ON MAY 1, 2012 BY TALIA FUHRMAN

A few days ago, I was explaining my nutritarian diet to an acquaintance when he made a remark about the apparently dreadful sounding blandness of my diet. “You just eat plants? What?! You poor dear. That must be horrible, honey.” Boy did this get me frustrated! Putting aside the fact that I think the foods I eat taste divine, his comment got me thinking, what’s really sad here is our nation of over-processed eaters whom have become so far removed from the taste of real foods. The reality at the heart of his comment was that most people have now been conditioned to only enjoy the taste of heavily salted or overly sweetened processed foods.

While this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Americans are obsessed with the flavors of packaged foods and we are now eating 31 percent more packaged food than fresh, and we consume more processed foods per person than the individuals of any other country. We certainly do love our TV dinners, chips, sweet and salty snacks and ready-to-eat meals. My theory is that if we have to tear open a bag, unwrap plastic or open a box, people will assume the food will be tasty.
I recently read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, which is a sobering account of how far off the deep end we’ve become as a nation of processed food loving peoples. I’m sure any reader will agree with me that a meal of fresh tropical mango and papaya salad with thinly-sliced raw greens and coconut-lime dressing is just not going to maintain it’s natural flavors (or even stay fresh), if it were shipped from California to Connecticut and then had to stay on the shelf in a grocery store for a few more days after that. While French fries might not be as prone to perish as a tropical mango and papaya salad, those little fritters just aren’t going to maintain their natural freshness or flavors of the original potato either. In reality, almost all of the foods we buy in packages contain artificial flavors produced by food scientists in white lab coats in factories in northern New Jersey. I learned this and infinitely more in Fast Food Nation, and besides being a huge walking and writing advertisement for the book, my point is that our bodies haven’t evolved to eat this artificial processed junk yet and until we do, we need to begin evaluating where our food comes from and what ingredients are added to them.
So, not only do I love the natural, unprocessed foods that I cook for myself, I know there won’t be any of the ingredients that go into producing the artificial flavorings of a Burger King strawberry milkshake, such as amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, anethol, butyric acid, hydroxyphrenyl-2-butanone, methyl benzoate, or other obscure most of us have never heard of. Mind you, there are no real strawberries added to processed strawberries flavorings like this one. As my dad likes to say, our taste buds are adaptable and it takes time to adjust to the subtler flavors of natural plant foods. Once going nutritarian for even just a few weeks, taste buds can change and fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds become more desirable. My mouth waters at the thought of a fresh kale salad with lemon-tahini dressing, a Portobello mushroom burger or chocolate cherry “ice cream” made from bananas and almond milk. I love the taste of the foods I eat, I love that I’m not consuming any ethyl methylphenylglyci-date (an actual chemical used as an ingredient in many artificial flavors), and most importantly, I love being healthy. So who’s with me on a quest to avoid processed foods for good? For all of you already healthy eaters, how do you feel when someone thinks your diet is absolutely tasteless and you know it can be knock-your-socks-off delicious? As our obesity epidemic and disease riddled society continues to flourish, we are going to have to say no to those processed packages and hello to the new age of unprocessed, nutrient-rich plant foods.
TAGS: Healthy Food, Hurtful Food, junk food, processed foods

http://www.diseaseproof.com/admin/trackback/276942

All I would like to convey is that I don’t think it is necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on buying a state of the art blender unless you use it for powerful jobs everyday. I have yet to find a job that I do that a cheapie blender cannot cope with. Don’t get me wrong. I would love a blender that can crunch up metal but at a price in excess of £500 I don’t see it necessary at this point when I haven’t yet found a recipe with metal in it?

As my tastes evolve and my skills expand and my recipe repertoire increases I would imagine that my desire to own one of those exceptional blenders would start to peak but while the piggybank is empty and the daily need for a powerful blender is non-existant I will be happy with my $40.00 one.

The reviews for my blender were not great but with a two year warranty and a “so far” happy customer I am not really too perturbed!

Time will tell out.

GE 48-Ounce Digital Smart Blender

600 watts
ABS plastic housing with texture and stainless steel accents
1.5L (48 oz.) glass jar with easy-off lid and clear measuring cup
Power on/off button; blue power on light
2-speed pulse setting: hi and lo speed
LCD display with 12 pre-set blending speeds
Program controlled salsa and drink function
A timer button presets the running time displayed on the LCD
Unit completely disassembles for easy cleaning
Model# 169202

HOW?

WHY?

It was like drinking a great coffee which was spoiled by too much sugar.

In other words the base taste was nice but it was sweetened by dextrose and maltodextrine. All those unnecessary ingredients!

Now I am on a search for a different brand that might suit my palate more and eliminate all those worthless (corn) sugar derivities!

Update:

I found a hemp milk I loved. http://livingharvest.com/products/milk
I have eaten it for breakfast most days. I actually love the taste even though it was acquired. It is very creamy but it does not taste like cows milk so if you are looking for that kind of substitute then you are going to be disappointed. We tried it in mashed potatoes and it didnt taste right because it is generally too sweet. I would still try it again in my mash if I ever get around to making it from seed myself.

500g alexanders stems (chopped)
3 x onions (chopped)
7.5oz sugar
¼ cup sherry vinegar
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1½ tsp mustard powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp cornflour
eighth pint of water
Suggested Instructions

Boil alexanders stems and onions in just enough salted water to cover, cook until al dente then strain.
Put back in the pan with the sugar and vinegar, and boil for 15 minutes. Meanwhile mix the mustard, turmeric, cornflour and eighth pint of water into a smooth paste, then stir into the alexanders and boil for 15 minutes or longer if the mixture needs thickening more.
Sterilise your jars, then fill with chutney and cap.

See here for the Authors website

I decided to drink only two cups of coffee instead of three!

Everything was fine. It was not that much of a hardship actually. I realise it is more about a subliminal habit that I have (understandable I suppose when it is something you have done for years) but what didn’t happen which had in the past when I went “cold turkey” was that I didn’t get any intense headaches.

I can deal with that

So I realise that until I no longer crave coffee, my biggest challenge will be not to just pour myself a cup automatically.

I am also understanding that you have to be acutely “aware” of the “bad” choices you are making to conciously make the changes.

I am assuming that with time the good habits will override the bad without having to think about them so much?

Maybe that is the key to all of this?

I have had this conversation with lots of people about how we encourage other people to adopt a plant based diet and all that we can really do is recommend that they watch the film ” forks over knives” and hope that they feel the same way as we did after we had watched it but a lot of people are reluctant to even do that. They think they already know all there is to know or they don’t wan’t to watch it because they don’t want it to interfere with their status quo so the only real way forward is to lead by example. Show them how much more energy you have, how much better you look, how much weight you have lost and feed them yummy plant based whole foods at every opportunity and hope that they say “you look great, what have you been doing?”!

I have a long way to go before I reach this ideal but I am hoping by the end of 2012 I can “put my money where my mouth is”!

One of the hardest things for me to give up is coffee. I know that the reason for that is because I am addicted to it and I also know, from past experiences, that as soon as I stop drinking it I will stop craving it but it is easier said than done. I think when you are making so many changes in your life or even if your circumstances at the time make your life more challenging than it needs to be, then it is best to pick your battles. Stopping drinking coffee is a battle yet to be fought but I am making preparations and reading articles like the following helps to bring winning that battle ever more closer.

http://www.drfuhrman.com/faq/question.aspx?sid=16&qindex=0