Real Food Challenge

A few weeks ago I came across the Real Food Challenge, which basically dictates eating unprocessed foods for one month - and I decided to dedicate April to it. In order to gear up towards eating real food, I've slowly been phasing my diet for the past 3 weeks, starting with one meal per day, then two, and for the past six days, I've been at three, plus desserts.

As a note, I'd like to define what "Processed Food" means: it is any processing from the time of the Industrial Revolution on. Therefore, I am eating some "processed" foods (after all, olive oil is processed, but I'm not about to grow an olive tree in my backyard), but it is traditionally processed. This food is nutrient-dense and is generally akin to the food our ancestors ate.

My main interest in doing this was two-fold. First I wanted to see how it would make me feel, how my body would react to eating unprocessed vs processed foods. Will I have more energy? Not be bogged down by a food coma? Second, I'm actually really curious just how hard this is actually going to be, considering that not only am I going up against The Food Industry, but I also work a full-time (sometimes more) job. What works in my favor is that Chicago has a local-food culture, giving me access to some of the key staples.

So far, each day has presented itself with new challenges. First there was the list - what is acceptable and what is not. Already for the past several years I've slowly been eliminating highly-processed food from my diet; and having recently moved into a new apartment meant that my pantry and fridge are mostly empty. Now it's just about finding out what "real food" means within these categories: Grains, Meats, Fruits and Veggies, Dairy, Fats, Sweeteners; and where I'll have the make the biggest changes.

Meats and produce present the least change for me; I already eat grass-fed and pasture raised beef and pork - or at least Whole Foods tells me I do. While I can't always justify the cost of organic fruits and vegetables, I do try to buy local and am planning to split a CSA with a few friends for the summer. The program recommends raw milk and dairy products. However, raw milk is really hard to find and technically illegal, so I've switched to low heat pasteurized and non-homogenized instead. I have sought out raw milk cheeses, and I find both the milk and cheese to be delicious!

Sweeteners are limited to raw honey, sorghum syrup, maple syrup and unrefined cane sugar, all of which are fine by me. As I've told people about this challenge, sugar always comes up - why isn't brown sugar ok? Basically, brown sugar is processed the same way as white, but the molasses have been added back in at the end. In unrefined sugar, the molasses have never been separated.

Fats fall into two categories: Fats to eat raw and fats for cooking. The former is basically olive oil (heat breaks up the vitamin E) and butter, which isn't preferred for cooking because of the residual milk solids. Fats for high heat therefore include ghee (clarified butter), coconut oil, red palm oil and any rendered fat such as lard (from pigs) or tallow (from cows). I've bought ghee, coconut oil and red palm oil and am currently experimenting with each to see how their unique flavors impact what I'm cooking. I've already determined that coconut oil, due to it's residual sweetness, is better for vegetables and probably baking. I've used the other two enough to have an option - yet.

Finally grains. Grains have officially become the bane of my existence. It is easily the category that has been the hardest to transition to for a several reasons. So, white bread, white flour, white rice, instant oatmeal, dried pasta (the list goes on..) are all out. What's in? Any whole grain anything, preferably soured, sprouted or fermented - which therefore removes even the whole wheat bread or pasta I might buy. This basically means that I have to make all my grain food from scratch, a time consuming effort indeed.

In order to mitigate the effect of phytic acid (an anti-nutrient present in whole grains that binds up minerals and other nutrients and prevents your body from absorbing them), whole grains must be either fermented (several days), sprouted (1-2 days) or soaked (overnight) in a slightly acidic solution before they can be cooked, baked or eaten.

But what's exciting is that I've started baking my own bread; Later tonight I plan on starting a sourdough starter, which requires 3-5 days fermentation before I can even use it in the bread recipe, which is another 10 days of fermenting - in other words, it'll be two weeks before I bake my first loaf of sourdough. I bought The Laurel's Kitchen Whole Grain Bread Book which has been a godsend. So far I've baked 4 loaves of bread and I've found that whole wheat breads are a lot harder to get to taste. Either I'm not using enough salt or I just need to reset the expectation for my palette.

The other exciting thing is that all of a sudden, I've discovered all these options that I never knew existed because I've never cooked with whole grains before. It's funny, but I'm almost learning how to cook all over again. Or at least it feels that way because every recipe in this category is new; nothing is tried and true. And while that exploration can be invigorating, it also means I don't really have much to fall back on. If I'm tired because I had a long day at work (such as today) and I don't feel like cooking (again, today), then, well...I can't exactly order take out. I can't just react to being hungry, I have to plan for it. And that, more than anything, is the biggest challenge.

DIY Salad

The Artisan Cellar in the Merchandise Mart is easily my favorite place to eat lunch. It's a small shop and they only do a few things (wine, panini, salad, coffee, cheese, and cured meat), but they do them extraordinarily well. I've been eating there several times a week for 3 years now, and neither the food nor the service ever fail.

Tonight was a build-your-own-salad for dinner kind of a night. In complete homage to the wonderful creations Artisan puts together, this was my salad:


Romaine, clementines, strawberries, figs, and gorgonzola in a citrus vinagrette (fresh squeezed grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime juices, minced jalepeno, a touch of blue agave sweetner [similar in texture to honey] with sunflower oil). Yum.