What you can do: Eating Locally, part one

If there's one thing that you could do to really change the food industry - and leave an amazingly positive impact on your own health - choosing to eat locally is right up there with the best options. However, this is one of those things that's easy to say, but a little harder to actually do, because the people - farms, cooperatives, and so on - that sell the best products directly to you have neither time nor money to advertise to you. And on the other hand, the corporations selling you junk products that are supposed to be good for you spend millions of dollars to have massive, dedicated teams that sit around thinking of ways to make you buy their products. I have firsthand knowledge of this, so I know what I'm talking about.

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Not all foods are superfoods!

The TimesOnline ran an article listing "20 great foods you aren't eating" which was brought to my attention by my cousin, so naturally I went to check it out. I'm a bit surprised by some of these recommendations in this article. Not only do many of them seem like things people really would already be eating every day, but as they're also labeled "superfoods" by the article, I wonder whether the author has actually studied nutrition or is just repeating some things she heard on the internet somewhere.

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Raw Dining in Minneapolis: the Ecopolitan

Tonight I walked into the Ecopolitan restaurant to be greeted by what can only be described as the aroma of REAL food. It's the smell that's only and always found in health food stores, and there never was a better case for aromatherapy than this. The Ecopolitan is a raw-food restaurant located a few miles south of downtown Minneapolis, a restaurant created from a renovated and classically-styled duplex. It's a little small for a restaurant and there are a couple of seats in the place that are tucked into what were once hallways. I can imagine there must be nights when the wait for seating would be fairly long as there's really only enough to fit, perhaps, 36 people at most.

Despite the limited seating, not a single thing about the restaurant failed to please. The focus of the restaurant is on good, healthy food and minimized impact - that is, a reduction of waste. The food is 100% vegan and organic, and although personally I don't advocate pure vegan diets for everyone, the food here can be TRUSTED. It's a feeling you don't get at a typical establishment, and it's a great change of pace.

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Raw Milk in Minneapolis

Image via Wikipedia

Update, June 2010: Kalisch Farms is not an option for buying raw milk products.

Just a quick review of the Kalisch family farm, a Minneapolis-based CSA where you can get raw, organic milk products, eggs, vegetables (in season), meat, and more. My brother found this farm somewhere, but I have found their link on the Raw Milk Locator page on RealMilk.com as well.

My first reaction, which was as of this writing a few months ago, to finding the website was to scour their site for offered products, read about their farm and user reviews, and to check out the pictures of happy cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, goats, and other animals in their "Pictures from the Farm" album.

If sometime I get the chance, I'd love to take this fact-finding a bit further and actually go visit the farm, to see it in person, as I believe that to be an important part of the Psychic Lunch idea: knowing what you eat. Until then, the photos and other users opinions were enough for me to try them out, and I'm glad I did.

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InGREEDients the Movie: Another for your Watch List

David Burton, a registered nurse, discovered that he was feeding himself - and his family - with foods that were slowly killing them. Being a nurse, his job is essentially, supposedly, focused on being healthy and maintaining that good health. Yet as we can all see, even doctors and nurses can be as unknowing as the rest of us. David's experience with hydrogenated oils starts out in a typical fashion. He had heard these oils were bad for your body, but didn't really know why they were bad or how much damage they really did.

This film is the result of finding that information out.

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Vegetable oils are NOT healthy, especially hydrogenated ones!

Image via Wikipedia

Vegetable oils are typically soy, canola, or corn and are almost completely polyunsaturated fats. Oils from soy, canola, or corn are most likely genetically modified, definitely rancid by the time they are "finished," and are BAD for your health. Thus, hydrogenation starts with a bad product, and ends with an even worse one.

in reference to: Hydrogenated Oils And Your Health – What Is Hydrogenation (view on Google Sidewiki)

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Should people be freed from trans-fats?

Image by FranciscoDiez via Flickr

Update: Please review the comments following this post for a change in my position on this political issue.

It seems that along with a few major cities around the nation, the entire state of California will begin banning trans fats beginning with 2010, with a grace period for some (bakeries) continuing up until 2011. While it's fantastic to see that people are finally starting actually do something about trans fats, is this the way it should be done?

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In-depth Reviews of Recipe Websites

It may not be apparent why an in-depth review of major recipe websites is related to the subject of our health and well-being, but I felt the need to do some real searching for a tool that would help other foodies out there, if they were interested in something like this. I know a lot of us love to share the recipes that we come up with or come across in our journey to well-being, and usually what happens with these recipes is that they become an entry in each of our blogs, which are scattered across the internet and thus not very indexed and searchable. Sure, there's Google to the rescue, but it's still a very disjointed process with no standards to count on.

I thought it would be great if there was at least one well-thought-out recipe website that would cater to the blogging world as well, so that we could not only talk in detail about our loving creations on our blog but also put them all together in a kind of online book as these sites are so good at.

So, I began the arduous task of testing out what I consider to the be the big names in the recipe biz as well as some more obscure entries in the list that I have since come across. I hope the results will be of use to you.

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