This is the Real Food Good Mood Podcast, where I'm helping you regain control of your mood through real food nutrition. Hi, I'm Amy, a therapist who has personally experienced the difference real food can make, and now I'm on a mission to help you do the same. You can get started today with my free 30 quick good mood breakfasts by clicking the link in the show notes.
Talking about one of my favorite topics today, because with the title of this podcast being Real Food Good Mood, I thought I'd better define what real food actually means. And I just love learning and talking about real food with you. More and more people are becoming aware of how bad processed foods are for us, with the sugars, food dyes, artificial flavors, and even the suspicious natural flavors we see on ingredients lists.
So I know there's a good chance you have an idea that real food is the opposite of all of that. And good guess. But even with that little bit of clarity, things can still get really confusing.
With more awareness around processed foods, of course, food companies are quick to jump on that bandwagon and create food packaging and labels that try to convince you that it's healthy and natural. Like I'm not a regular processed food, I'm a healthy processed food. Yeah, okay.
But I want us to get to a point where we are confident enough in our ability to make good so that we no longer fall for these gimmicky labels and false claims. Because instead of a company telling us how a certain food is going to make us healthy and feel good, we're going to be our own judge of how different foods make us feel. It really starts with common sense.
Like I talked about in the last episode, the God who made us also made the food we need to nourish us, so we can trust that it's good and enough for what we need. So to me, real food is just that. It's off the vine, pulled from the ground, directly from the cow, and laid fresh from the hen.
It's any food that you can look at and identify what it is or that you can draw a straight line to its source. So we don't need to know all of the nutrition profiles of every single food when we're simply eating good food in its original form. Too often, we still fall for that knowledge trap that Eve fell for.
We're no different even like today. We think that we need to know more and more because that will give us more control over our lives and our health. It's easy to think that if we find just the right information or the latest study to tell us what to eat each day, and then we spend our lives measuring and weighing and tracking, then we'll be in perfect health and our food problems will all be solved.
But it can so quickly lead to more and more research, looking for the next expert to tell us what to do so we can follow the plan and then conquer our cravings. Part of the problem, though, is that even when we use our common sense, our food has been so corrupted that what might seem real is actually a poor substitute for the real thing. We just haven't been exposed to the real thing, so we think the new modified version is the original, and then we think the original is weird.
I really started getting interested in this idea of real food years ago when learning about einkorn wheat and the difference between this ancient wheat and the wheat we find in the grocery stores today. So einkorn is wheat in its original form before being modified and hybridized to allow for larger, hardier crops. These modifications are what give us the wheat that we mostly see in stores today.
The problem is that instead of 14 chromosomes that einkorn has, the modern wheat has 42, which changes the gluten structure and makes it more difficult for us to digest. So many people who have struggled with gluten sensitivity have been able to eat einkorn or other ancient wheats like spelt or heritage varieties without issues. This is not including those with celiac who still need to avoid any and all wheat, but compared to modern wheat, einkorn has around 15% more protein, is anti-inflammatory, is rich in antioxidants, is low glycemic, and is high in B vitamins, all of which are essential for healthy brain function and the synthesis of mood-regulating neurotransmitters.
Knowing this difference is important because some of the unrecognized effects of gluten sensitivity can be depression, anxiety, brain fog, memory problems, and even panic attacks. So you can be sensitive to the gluten in modern wheat without even realizing it because you're not connecting your cognitive issues to what you're eating. And it's something that simply changing the kind of wheat you're eating could solve.
It might sound simple to say, eat more real food, but we also must understand that it means taking a deeper look into the origins of the food and what the original version actually is. Because the original is what will give us the best nutrient profile and is what our bodies were designed to digest and absorb well. A few years ago, I had a home-based bakery where I made breads and scones and other baked goods with as natural original ingredients as possible.
So as I researched, I learned even more about what real original versions of foods really were. For the longest time, I believed brown sugar from the grocery store was more natural because it contained the molasses that is removed from white granulated sugar. Well, what you know, that's not even the case because brown sugar in the store has actually refined white sugar with molasses added back in.
Why would they do this? It seems like extra steps that would make it, you know, take more time and resources to create. Who knows? But unfortunately, this is what they do, which put me on the search for real unrefined sugar, particularly brown sugar. So I found muscovado sugar, and we can hear that sugar is sugar and all that, but I'm just not buying it.
Muscovado sugar is unrefined raw sugar with the natural molasses still in it. It looks and acts just like brown sugar, but it has a richer texture, color, and flavor, and it has antioxidants and trace minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron that you're just not getting when you eat refined sugar. You get a little of those things through the added molasses and conventional brown sugar, but they're significantly higher in the unrefined raw muscovado sugar.
Now, should we be eating a boatload of it if we want to feel good and be healthy? Of course not. But when we eat a variety of foods from real natural sources, we're getting all these added nutrients from the different foods we eat in moderation throughout the day. These are nutrients we're missing out on when we're substituting the real thing with an overprocessed or modified version of it.
As a baker, one thing I'm not super into is making quote unquote healthy versions of chocolate chip cookies, you know, the ones that are made with like almond flour and disappointment. I'm of the mindset where a chocolate chip cookie is exactly that and enjoy it as such. But if we can make it with ingredients as they are meant to be, like einkorn flour, muscovado sugar, and we are getting the nourishment and nutrients these real foods provide.
Again, not that we want to eat five of them at once, but when you make things with intention, you tend to eat with greater intention. So this isn't just a cookie giving us a satisfying sugar rush. It's a quality well-made treat and it is as much about what the experience is doing for you as the food itself.
And believe me, cookies made with these high quality ingredients are far superior to a standard chocolate chip cookie and definitely better than a version that's trying to be healthy. My point with these two examples of einkorn flour and muscovado sugar is simply that we can trust that the original truly natural form of a real food ingredient is going to have the nutrients we need without necessarily needing to know all the details. If you're like me and want to nerd out on that, then awesome.
That's great. But there's so much to learn there and, you know, you can spend hours and days and years learning all that. You don't have to in order to give yourself the nutrients you need.
Simply knowing that real food is good for you is enough to make the right decisions about what to eat because you're going to get what your body needs when you feed it well. When God looked at his creation and said it is good, we can trust that. We make things so much more complicated than they need to be.
Now, you might be thinking that einkorn flour and muscovado sugar sure do seem to be more complicated because you can't just go get them at the grocery store. And I will say baking with einkorn does have a bit of a learning curve too, but my point isn't to throw out everything you have and go out and buy all this new stuff that you might not even quite know what to do with. The point I really want to make is for you to be more aware of what you're actually eating and where it's coming from.
You literally are what you eat. Food is what gives your body what it needs to function, grow, and thrive. So it's pretty important that you feed it well.
To help you know how to do this, I want to give just a few guidelines to make it easy for you to know how and where to shop. So first, as I've been talking about, you want to choose foods that are whole and unprocessed. This way you are in control of how you cook them and what goes into them.
So whole grains, raw, fresh, or frozen fruits and veggies, dry beans, raw, unseasoned cuts of meat. If you do buy something that's packaged, it should have just a few ingredients that you recognize. If you buy, say, canned black beans, you want the ingredients to be just beans and water, maybe salt if you can't find it without that.
And second guideline is to shop locally and seasonally as much as possible. This will give you the freshest, most nutrient-dense foods. And think beyond meat and produce.
Some of our local markets here sell locally grown and milled flour, which is awesome because it's fresher and therefore more nutritious. I can even find einkorn and heritage wheat locally here. So once you get to know your local markets, you might be surprised at the variety of foods that are likely available right close by.
And that said, hey, if you can mill your own flour, even better. I haven't gotten a mill yet myself, but the local flour is a second best option. And the third guideline would be to buy the highest quality foods you can get and buy organic when possible.
So consider not just the food itself, but what has gone into the growth of that food. Is the animal being fed its natural diet like grass-fed beef and pastured chickens? Is the produce being grown without pesticides? Is it grown in a regenerative ecosystem? The health of the food you eat has a direct impact on your health. So take that into consideration when you're shopping.
You don't have to stress about getting it perfect every time. Just do the best you can with what's available. Remember that this is a lifestyle.
So yes, it will mean shopping differently and in a way that's probably less convenient. Preparing ingredients from scratch takes time and effort, but it's not hard. It just takes a shift in thinking about what you're moving towards rather than what you're giving up.
This is your health and your quality of life. It's worth it to make it a priority in your time and energy. I'll give you a little glimpse into what it looks like for me.
Now, I'm a single mom to my daughter, so it's just the two of us. I'm not feeding a family of five or anything. So I won't pretend that what I do will work for you.
But I just want you to think about what it would look like for you. How can you make this work for your life and your family? What are you willing to do differently for the mental and physical health of your family? So I have mainly two local markets that I shop at. I'm very fortunate.
We have a lot of farms and markets around here. But there's two that I mostly go to because they're convenient. I like their values and how they raise their foods, and they have what I need.
One I go to mostly for meat and raw cheese, and another for seasonal produce. Both have raw milk and yogurt, so I'll get those at either place. I can also get eggs at both.
For things I can't get at either of those places, there is another local market. I will get some things like bulk items, like oats, sea salt, baking soda, maple syrup, pantry, things like that. I also get some produce, meat, and decaf coffee there sometimes.
I love coffee, but I gotta have decaf because the anxiety will be right back if I have caffeine. And we'll talk more about that in the next episode. But then anything else that I need, I'll mostly get at Grocery Outlet because I can find some really great organic items there, like almond butter, extra virgin olive oil, dry beans, raw tahini, decaf coffee I can get there too, and other pantry items.
That can be hit or miss. I don't always know what they're going to have, but it's fun to see what they have each week. Speaking of almond butter, nut butters are another thing you can probably find locally where they grind it fresh for you and it doesn't have any added ingredients to it.
So yeah, I'll typically shop at the two local markets, then Grocery Outlet, which Grocery Outlets are, I think, all over the country. So you might want to see if you have one near you or if there's probably something similar. A grocery store that sells kind of like overstock items or things like that that they get.
And so they're at a really great price and you get a lot of organic things there. Um, we also have a kombucha place that I'll go to sometimes that is made locally. And so I get a growler filled there.
Actually, one of the other markets I go to also sells the same kombucha, so I can fill that up there too. It's just usually more flavor options at the actual store. All in all, it might take a little bit longer than going to one store, but I'm not even sure I would say that because these are pretty small markets and I'm in and out pretty quickly.
I'm not wandering around a big store and loading up on impulse buys. I still do impulse buys, but they're real food because that's what these markets sell. And yes, things like the milk are more expensive and the meat is more.
But even for those things that cost more, I'm really not spending a ton on groceries because I'm getting what I need and not buying a bunch of other unnecessary stuff. Like I used to be getting coffee creamers and cereal and snacks, and I just don't buy that stuff anymore. I honestly don't miss it.
I never thought I would say that about cereal, but here we are. Whatever it is that you think you can't live without, I promise you that you won't miss it once you're eating the things that actually satisfy and sustain you. That said, I do have cereal on occasion, so I won't say I never buy it.
But my daughter does like Honey Nut Cheerios, so we do get that sometimes. But overall, this is not about restrictions. It's not being obsessive about it, but it's just about making intentional choices.
Oh, and another thing you can do to really save money, of course, is to grow your own garden. Raise your own chickens or meat if you can, if you have the capacity for that. I can't say a whole lot about that because I don't do those things at this point.
But even having a small produce garden will maybe give you some more margin in your budget to buy better quality meat or other high quality foods. So growing yourself would be the best option because you know exactly what's going into it. But that really just depends on your capacity for that, which right now I know I don't have.
But knowing the difference between real and modified or processed foods gives you the power to eat the best version of the food you can get your hands on. It's kind of like an art, where when I was in art class, I was told that you have to know the rules before breaking them. Because then you know you're doing it on purpose for a purpose, rather than just throwing paint on a canvas and hoping it looks good enough.
If you know your real food options, you can then decide what's important to you in that moment and make the decision on purpose instead of just grabbing things that seem good. I don't always use einkorn or heritage wheat. I don't always go to the local farm markets to buy produce.
I do as much as I can because I truly do enjoy it and I value the nutritional benefits of them. But again, this isn't about obsession or freaking out if I eat a processed food or a non-organic fruit. Sometimes I just happen to be near a bigger grocery store and I go in and grab what I need.
It's just good to know the guidelines of what is real food before you break them so that you're doing it on purpose. You've probably heard of maybe the 80-20 rule, where you eat healthy real foods 80% of the time and then have flexibility for the other 20%. So you can, you know, eat the cookies or the ice cream or go out to eat with friends and not worry about what is or isn't on the menu.
So, you know, it's kind of a good guideline to go by. But with that, I encourage you to view the 80% as still good, satisfying foods. Not that you are suffering through the healthy food to get to the 20% so you can binge on junk.
Like suffering through the work week at a job you hate just so you can enjoy two days on the weekend. No, hopefully you work for a job you love that's satisfying and fulfilling. And then on the weekend, you have time to do some other fun things.
Just like your job gives you the means to afford things that help you have a great life, the 80% of real intentional healthy foods gives you the nourishment and fuel to feel good and healthy so you can live a great life. Again, you want to choose foods based on how they make you feel overall, regardless if they fit into the 80% or the 20% category. When I eat something, I think about whether I'll feel bloated, tired, calm, energized, light or heavy, or some other way.
Over time, I've had to think about it less and less because I just know. And that's going to be a factor in how enjoyable the food is. So eating for a better, calmer mood includes not stressing yourself out about it.
And if I'm going to a birthday party, I'm having cake if I want it. If I'm going to eat at somebody's home, I'm going to graciously eat what they're serving. So it's not about being so strict that you're stressing yourself out or beating yourself up for eating Doritos at a party.
With all that said, I want to give just a few examples of real food and each of the three categories of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Because these are the types of foods you want to incorporate into your meals throughout the day. Keep in mind all the colors that foods come in.
We're talking natural, of course, not artificial dyes. But real food is colorful. So the more colors you can eat in a day, the better.
So some examples of protein would be grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken and eggs, wild-caught salmon or other fatty fish, woodland pork, bone broth, raw milk and cheese, plain whole yogurt. I get this from a local farm and it's so, so good. I have a major sweet tooth, but this does not even need any sweetness added to it.
I use it for everything from fruit to tacos as a substitute for sour cream. It's just so good. So go check out your local farms to get plain yogurt with whole milk.
So you can always add honey or maple syrup if you want a little sweetness. Some other proteins are nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, quinoa, wild rice, and oats. Remember that protein from animal sources are generally higher in the amino acids that are essential for creating the neurotransmitters that regulate your mood and give you mental clarity.
They're also a complete protein because they have all nine essential amino acids that your body needs and can't produce on its own. Plant-based proteins are still great, just most of them are not complete protein. So make sure you're eating a variety of protein sources to get the amino acids your brain needs to function well.
And you might wonder why raw milk? Again, you get to choose what you eat. If you're not comfortable with it, then no harm, no foul. But raw milk has the enzymes and good bacteria that support your gut health and absorption of nutrients.
So for example, just one of these enzymes is phosphatase, which is necessary for calcium absorption in your bones. Otherwise, the calcium stays in your blood, leading to cardiovascular problems while your bones get weaker, even as you're taking in more calcium. And it also has lactase, which is needed for your body to digest lactose.
So interestingly, those who are lactose intolerant generally don't have an issue with drinking raw milk. Raw milk is also probiotic, meaning it's great for gut health, which is great for brain health. And this is just one more example of trusting the original food to give you what you need without it being tampered with.
Now, I will say that the farm I get my milk from tests every batch to make sure it's safe for drinking. So if you do decide to get raw milk, it's all about the cleanliness of the farm, which you can build that trust by getting to know your farmers and their values. And really, small farms especially are not going to want you to get sick any more than you do because that's their livelihood.
And a major recall or illnesses or bad press is going to be detrimental to them. So if you're kind of curious or even skeptical about raw milk, you can look into the Weston A. Price Foundation to learn more about why raw milk might be a better option for your health than pasteurized. I'll put a link for that in the show notes.
So just something to think about. And that was a little bit of a side trail. So that was some examples of real food protein.
And now let's talk about fats. So some examples of real food fats would be extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, leaf lard and tallow, nuts and seeds, grass fed butter, preferably raw and ghee. Is it would be is like a clarified butter and it's great for like high heat cooking because the milk solids have already been cooked out of it.
So it won't burn. I don't often get raw butter because it's pricey and can have somewhat of a cheesy flavor that my daughter doesn't like. I personally love it.
And of course, it has the beneficial probiotics, but it's not always worth it for me because I just don't go through it very fast myself. But, you know, you do want to kind of at least prioritize getting grass fed butter. So now some good examples of carbohydrates that would be whole grains like oats, whole wheat, brown rice or wild rice, barley, quinoa, legumes like beans, chickpeas and lentils and vegetables, any and all veggies.
Try to eat a variety of colors and seasonally. Same with fruits. Try to eat a variety of colors and what's in season.
Carbs tend to get a bad rap usually, but it's all about paying attention to how your body responds to different carbs. So some people may do better on a higher carb diet, while others do well with the very low carb diet. So think about your own cultural heritage and what the traditional foods were where your ancestors come from.
So start there with what real foods they ate, because there's a good chance that that is what you will do your best with eating. So when you look at different cultures and their traditional foods, it was less about the specific foods they were eating and more about that they were eating the real foods that were naturally available to them in their environment. And I want to encourage you to focus on the things that you want to eat rather than the things you want to avoid.
So instead of telling yourself you can't eat potato chips, tell yourself you're going to eat popcorn, which is a simple whole grain, because otherwise all you're thinking about is the chips. Think about what you're moving towards, because then that is what you'll be focused on. So I will share a little bit here about what to avoid if you're wanting to eat real food.
So none of this will probably be a surprise, but here we go. So you'll want to avoid most processed food like products that take up the majority of the space in the grocery store. So shopping for real food really does simplify things because you don't need any of that stuff.
These foods are made from refined sugars, refined carbs, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, food colorings, vegetable oils, fake fats, just other additives that you don't need and that your body has a hard time processing because they're mostly made in a lab instead of grown from nature. So these foods, they're linked to chronic inflammation in your body and neurotransmitter imbalances, which keeps you from functioning in a mentally and physically healthy way. So you want to avoid also enriched or fortified foods.
This is something you see a lot with bread, crackers, pretzels, and other snacks. So enriched wheat flour has been stripped of its nutrients and replaced with synthetic vitamins and minerals that your body has a hard time processing. So these fake additives are linked to blood sugar spikes and digestive problems, and a lot of people have an especially hard time digesting folic acid, which is the synthetic substitute to folate, which can lead to symptoms of anxiety and depression because it inhibits the regulation of amino acids and neurotransmitter production.
Again, it's not like you need to know all of that. You simply need to ask yourself, is this the most natural version of this food? And aim for whatever that natural version is. It's focusing on what you're moving towards rather than what you're moving away from.
And you might want to kind of change your idea of what normal food is because if you're the standard American diet, eating lentils or fish or barley might seem weird. So give yourself time to think about what normal really is when it comes to feeding your body. Just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal and good for your body.
And as you start to incorporate these real foods into your daily life, they'll become what's normal to you. So to help you get started or to support what you might already be doing with eating real food, I want you to grab my free download with 30 real food breakfasts that are simple and will give you the nutrition and nourishment your body and brain need to get your day going. So you can find the link for that in the show notes.
Get it. Make yourself a nice breakfast tomorrow morning. Let me know how you like it.
Now, if you like washing your breakfast down with a good old cup of coffee, you'll definitely want to tune in next week where I'll be talking about the caffeine dilemma. Two things our society has plenty of and it's caffeinated beverages and anxiety. So let's chat about the connection.
Hit subscribe and join me next week.