Real Food Challenge: Day One

My real food challenge based on Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food" was originally going to be last week but I soon realized it would conflict with Thanksgiving. Because we were eating with a lot of my husband's extended family, I didn't want to be the jerk asking everyone what they used to make their dishes so I decided to hold off until today.

I started the morning with my typical toast. Since the bread I buy has only 6 ingredients - all of which are real foods instead of food products - I got to enjoy my usual fair with some basic salted butter. For lunch I had some homemade macaroni and cheese with the addition of tomatoes to add some vegetables. I know, technically tomatoes are a fruit but oh well. That afternoon I knew I needed to head to the store to get some food as my cabinets were bare after the long week away. Because I live in a small town my options for shopping are limited and since my time was limited today I had to head to the big town Walmart. I spent most of my time in the produce section buying what was in season and what looked good. I didn't have any sort of list with me so I just grabbed a hodgepodge of things - spaghetti squash, tomatoes, and broccoli. I added some Parmesan cheese and was on my way out when I noticed that Walmart actually sells some bulk goods like beans and dried peppers. I had ever seen these items as they were tucked in between the donuts and the store made cakes! I decided that it doesn't get less "produced" than that and got some pinto beans and peppers. When I got to the checkout I soon discovered that I am not the only one that hasn't seen these items since after literally ten plus minutes of the checker trying to figure out what to make of them I gave up and told him to keep the beans and dried peppers!

For dinner I threw most of those things together except the broccoli, added some cooked cubed potatoes, olive oil, garlic, spices and red pepper flakes into some sort of squash goulash. It felt like some sort of food peasants in Italy might eat but I was happy since it definitely met the criteria of mostly vegetables. I knew I'd like it but was very pleased to see my kids enjoy it as well! So day one seems to have worked. My boys are already missing their honey-nut cereal and my husband cheated by eating some doritos for lunch but all in all it wasn't too hard to choose foods that make such a huge impact on my health and the health of the planet. We'll see how the next few days go!

~Megan