What is a Real Food Diet?
The idea of eating a real food diet has been becoming more and more mainstream. At the same time, the definition of exactly what a real food diet is remains a little fuzzy. Here, I’ll explain the key points of my own definition.
Not that long ago, only a few decades really, we all ate real food diets. This was by default – there simply wasn’t anything else. Now, we have a lot more choices.
Eating a real food diet today isn’t nearly a common as it once was. In the U.S., anyway, our food supply is very much different from what it was a hundred years ago. While you can debate the pros and cons of this, our health seems to show this as a change for the worse.
So much of our typical diet now arrives in a package, the product of a lot of processing and fancy food science. A food selected at random from a grocery store shelf is likely to have many ingredients that we don’t recognize, and would never have in our own kitchens. Our meat, dairy, eggs, and vegetables are produced in places that run more like factories than farms.
Now, food produced by this more industrial system is inexpensive and everywhere. Sadly, though, most of it isn’t very good for us – and it doesn’t qualify as “real”. Moving to a real food diet simply involves replacing these foods with their real counterparts.
Here’s the more precise definition. A real food includes only foods that have been part of the human diet for many thousands of years; foods that have been raised and prepared in long-proven ways; and foods that are sustainably produced. Almost any type of food can be included – you just need to seek out the real version. Here are some guidelines…
Poultry, eggs, dairy, and meat are all part of a real foods diet; they just should be produced by grass-fed animals, not grain-fed. They should also be antibiotic-free and hormone-free, and organic whenever possible. Fish are OK, too, but should be wild-caught, not farmed.
Vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes should be minimally processed, and organic.
Fats and oils should be traditional choices like butter, coconut oil, and olive oil, and should also be lightly processed.
Although there is much more you could learn about real food, now you know all you need to get started. My recommendation is to try a real food diet for yourself for several weeks and see what you notice with your own health and the way you feel. The potential benefits are huge!
Want to find out more about real food diets? Visit Maria Campbell’s site on how to choose the best real food diet plan for your needs.
