's MOTD Wed Oct 22, 2008

[Guest guest]

HOMEMADE

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

What has happened to all of you out there? You've become "processed people." And what do I mean by that? Well, never in human history have people relied so much on processed foods to live on. I mean, just take a look in your local neighborhood supermarket. It's just full of processed foods. What happened?

Way back when, people grew their own fruits and vegetables. It's true...they did! They baked their own bread and even raised their own farm animals for things like milk, eggs and even meat. Back in those simpler times, it was just part of their existence. They'd plant seeds in the ground, cultivate their crops and watch them grow until it was time to harvest their green bounty.When their crops matured, they'd bring them into the house, clean them and make wonderful, homemade stews or soups from the crops they'd grown. (There was no little red and white cans marked "s" back then.) Their families got to eat healthy foods grown directly on their own land from the earth itself. When grocery stores began appearing in the marketplace, their purpose was to sell to the masses products that other people had grown. But in the early days of the supermarket, things were still pretty fresh. But as technology "advanced," things began to change.Someone came up with the idea of preserving foods to make them last longer. They accomplished this by adding salts, stabilizers, preservatives and later, even a few chemicals to give foods a longer shelf life. Thus, processed foods were born. And soon, our supermarkets were filled with more boxed and canned foods than they were with fresh ones.Our ancestors ate oats and whole grains for breakfast. Now we have a cereal aisle filled with hundreds of brands of cereals that are very little like the way Mother Nature grew them in the first place.Besides helping preserve foods longer, the other reason they came up with all of these new processed foods was for...convenience. That meant you could spend more of your precious time doing things besides "slaving" in a kitchen all day. Instead of making a batter for your waffles, you could just go into your supermarket's freezer section and pick up a box of frozen waffles or pancakes. Oh yeah, just heat 'em and eat 'em!

And while you're in the freezer section, you discover that you never have to cook dinner again. Oh, you'll find hundreds of frozen entrees ranging from lasagna to stuffed green peppers to fried chicken and even those little White Castle hamburgers.Do this the next time you're in the supermarket. Check out what your fellow shoppers are plopping into their grocery carts. Check out all of the boxes and cans of processed foods they're buying. And while you're at it, take a second look at what you're putting in your grocery cart, too!But I want you to consider this. Even with aisle after aisle of processed foods in the average modern supermarket, there are still plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables and other pure, unprocessed foods for you to purchase.You need to get into your kitchen and examine what percentage of the foods you're eating that are not quite "food" at all. The healthiest people in America rarely partake of processed foods. And that's why they look and feel the way they do...healthy!So be like your ancestors and...eat fresh! Go to the supermarket or to a local farmers market and stock up on really fresh home-grown produce that local farmers have grown for you. And by the way, when was the last time you actually baked a loaf of homemade whole wheat bread?Love,