What is NOT real food?

In case you are new to real food and don't quite understand what it is, let me begin by telling you what it is not.

• If a fifth grader could not pronounce the ingredients or it has more than five ingredients, then the product probably is NOT real food.
• Look at the labels on some of the products that you regularly purchase.  Here are the ingredients for Utz Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips.  How many would a fifth grader not be able to pronounce?  What ARE those things that you would be putting into your body?


• Potatoes, Cottonseed Oil, Dehydrated Whey, Dextrose, Salt, Shortening Powder (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Corn Syrup Solids, Sodium Caseinate (Milk Derivative)), Dehydrated Sour Cream (Sour Cream (Cream, Nonfat Milk, Cultures), Cultured Nonfat Milk.


• Refined sugars are NOT real food.  This includes white sugar, cane juice, corn syrup, and any artificial sweeteners.  There are some wonderful real food alternatives to using refined sugars in cooking.  


• Refined grains are NOT real food.  This includes white flour and white rice.  Items that you buy that contain flour must state whole wheat, not just wheat.


• CAFO produced meats and eggs are NOT real food.  

Florida chicken CAFO

• If you don't know what a CAFO is, it's time you found out! CAFO stands for Confined Animal Feeding Operation.  As you can see from the photo, CAFOs are more of a factory than a farm.  Not only is too much manure concentrated into one area which leads to the necessity of using antibiotics, but to increase and quicken weight gain, the animals are fed growth hormones, some of which are genetically modified.


• Foods that don't eventually rot are NOT real food.

• When I first began going to my wellness doctor, he had a loaf of white bread on the counter where I checked out.  Next to it was a sheet of paper tallying how many weeks it had been sitting there.  I remember looking at it at 8 weeks and it still looked the same!  It never rotted.  The bugs and organisms that cause decay wouldn't even eat it!

Switching to a real food diet can be difficult for some people.  Knowing where to start by knowing what to avoid can make the transition a little smoother.

This post is part of Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday.