If you're like me and have been eating a lot of processed food over the years, you may not even recognize you could feel better just by making some changes in what you eat. While I was in Chinese Medicine school, I would hear how food was 70-80% of the solution to help a person feel better, and that meant fresh and local foods.
I wanted to know if what I ate really did make a difference in how I felt, so I tested it out.
I am a person who LOVES convenience and comfort. Cooking is not convenient. It is time consuming. It is messy, Often at the end of the cooking experience, the food is burnt, or undercooked, or too salty, or tastes like cardboard, or just not that great. So started to choose the convenient route; frozen individual meals from Trader Joe’s. I would fill my freezer so I only had to shop once a month. I lived off prepared and microwaved meals.
To test the theory that eating fresh food would help me feel better, I signed up for a healthy organic meal program in Berkeley called “Three Stone Hearth”. This community kitchen provides a weekly selection of different healthy foods and all you have to do is order what you want and pick up from their kitchen each week. Very simple, easy, and convenient. Here is a sample of what they are offering this week:
To see if fresh healthy food would change how I felt, I ordered from their weekly menu and would go after work to pick up the food. After just two weeks, I was SHOCKED how much better I felt. I really did feel a difference in my energy, my moods, and also was mentally sharper. I had a better memory.
But, after my office relocated to a different city, it wasn't as convenient to pick up the meals so I started to slip back into my old habits of the frozen Trader Joe meals. I started to return to that feeling of sluggishness. I was convinced I needed to stop eating prepared meals and also needed more fresh veggies. This meant I needed to frequently go to the store to get fresh veggies & fruits and then go home to cook a meal. So I went to the store every time I needed more fresh veggies & fruits. This turned out to be about every 3 days. For me, a person who hates shopping, I knew this was not going to be sustained.
So I looked for another solution.
I found an organic food delivery service called Planet Organics. They use local farmers and deliver at my door every Thursday. For me, this has helped tremendously. I get locally grown organic fruits, veggies, milk, bread, and meats delivered right to my door. The flavor of the food is sooooo much better from a grocery store and it helps keep me on my target of preparing meals and eating healthy food.
For example, I now always make a baby spinach and fruit smoothing each day. I have easily doubled my consumption of fresh and healthy veggies just by the changing to home delivery for locally grown organic foods.
Getting rid of old familiar behaviors and habits is difficult. For me, eating less processed food, filling up the kitchen with fresh organic and locally grown foods has helped improve how I feel. For me, these may still be baby steps of change, but they are making a difference.
I wanted to know if what I ate really did make a difference in how I felt, so I tested it out.
I am a person who LOVES convenience and comfort. Cooking is not convenient. It is time consuming. It is messy, Often at the end of the cooking experience, the food is burnt, or undercooked, or too salty, or tastes like cardboard, or just not that great. So started to choose the convenient route; frozen individual meals from Trader Joe’s. I would fill my freezer so I only had to shop once a month. I lived off prepared and microwaved meals.
To test the theory that eating fresh food would help me feel better, I signed up for a healthy organic meal program in Berkeley called “Three Stone Hearth”. This community kitchen provides a weekly selection of different healthy foods and all you have to do is order what you want and pick up from their kitchen each week. Very simple, easy, and convenient. Here is a sample of what they are offering this week:
- Chicken Afritada (Filipino Chicken-Vegetable Stew)
- Pork Mole Verde with White Beans
- Tex Mex Ground Beef*
- Shepherd's Pie
- Fresh Corn Succotash
- Hamburgers*
- Marinara Sauce*
- Sea Vegetable Salad with Carrot, Daikon, Cucumber with Sesame Dulse Dressing
- Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
- Chicken Liver Pâté
- Classic Kraut*
- TSH Mayonnaise
- Torta di Arancia
- Lime Gelatina with Coconut Cream
To see if fresh healthy food would change how I felt, I ordered from their weekly menu and would go after work to pick up the food. After just two weeks, I was SHOCKED how much better I felt. I really did feel a difference in my energy, my moods, and also was mentally sharper. I had a better memory.
But, after my office relocated to a different city, it wasn't as convenient to pick up the meals so I started to slip back into my old habits of the frozen Trader Joe meals. I started to return to that feeling of sluggishness. I was convinced I needed to stop eating prepared meals and also needed more fresh veggies. This meant I needed to frequently go to the store to get fresh veggies & fruits and then go home to cook a meal. So I went to the store every time I needed more fresh veggies & fruits. This turned out to be about every 3 days. For me, a person who hates shopping, I knew this was not going to be sustained.
So I looked for another solution.
I found an organic food delivery service called Planet Organics. They use local farmers and deliver at my door every Thursday. For me, this has helped tremendously. I get locally grown organic fruits, veggies, milk, bread, and meats delivered right to my door. The flavor of the food is sooooo much better from a grocery store and it helps keep me on my target of preparing meals and eating healthy food.
For example, I now always make a baby spinach and fruit smoothing each day. I have easily doubled my consumption of fresh and healthy veggies just by the changing to home delivery for locally grown organic foods.
Getting rid of old familiar behaviors and habits is difficult. For me, eating less processed food, filling up the kitchen with fresh organic and locally grown foods has helped improve how I feel. For me, these may still be baby steps of change, but they are making a difference.
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