Relish

IF YOU’VE BEEN IN A GROCERY STORE LATELY, CHANCES ARE the items that ended up in your shopping cart were as much the result of a clever marketing strategy employed by supermarkets to force you to spend money where they’ll stand to make the most profit as they were a product of the meals you’re planning to eat that week.

Think about it: You got some produce on sale, and it probably wasn’t organic or grown anywhere you could drive to; the things you got organic probably cost you an arm and a leg. Then you went to get your pantry essentials and you had to reach to the top shelf to grab them, but while you were up there on your tippy-toes, you noticed some expensive gourmet items that just happen to be on special this week— conveniently placed at eye level.

The cheapest things you got were some family-size, prepackaged “foodlike substances.” Ironically, these are the items that take the most time and money to produce because they have to be processed down from real food into barely recognizable bite-size pieces. Add in a few premade convenience meals for those days when you’re constantly on the run and your grocery bill is not only pushing the max but also loaded with stuff you probably didn’t really need in the first place.

Part of eating consistently healthfully is learning how to navigate the food system as a smart shopper and fill your plate with the right balance of ingredients without letting these goals sap the joy out of eating great meals. Figuring out how to get the best nutritional bang for your buck is understanding the facts and then figuring out what actually works for you so you’re not constantly obsessing over whether you’re supposed to get cage-free or free range or whether you have exactly four ounces of protein on your plate.

The point is to first empower you with the smarts and then to make the process simple and strategic. You don’t need one more thing adding stress to your life, right?

As it happens, reading up on food politics, the latest nutritional research, labeling laws, and factory farming are among my favorite pastimes. I know, I know, it doesn’t sound glamorous. But guess what? It may just save your life. The easier it is for everyone to have access to affordable, nutritious food, the easier it will be for everyone to make healthful choices. The better we feed ourselves, the better our quality of life will be—and the less likely it will be that we end up on an operating table or dealing with the chronic lifestyle-related diseases so many struggle with today.

Think about quality food as an investment toward a long, happy, healthful life. If you’re a gambling gal, the safest bet you can make is to spend the money now and avoid depositing it at the hospital down the road.

I’m going to spend a little time outlining what I think are the key things to keep in mind when it comes to incorporating healthful habits into everyday life easily, from portion sizing to navigating the supermarket successfully so you can make it second nature for yourself.

PLAYING THE NUMBERS

How we think about healthful eating boils down to numbers: calories in versus calories out. Basically, if you’re constantly taking in more energy (calories) than you are spending, you’ll pack on the pounds. Reverse the scales, and you should start shedding. But calorie counting isn’t so simple anymore, because a lot of the food we’re eating on a regular basis isn’t “real food.” Instead of the nutrient-rich energy your body expects to find in real food, a lot of our meals are full of “empty calories,” energy that comes without the valuable nutrition it would have if it hadn’t gone through complex chemical processing (essentially, digestion by a machine) before reaching your mouth—think of all your partially hydrogenated, sugar- and sodium-loaded, “part of me used to be a real food, I swear!” packaged foods. You never really feel satisfied, even after you’ve scarfed the whole bag and are fiending for another. And neither does your body.

Part of the reason we can’t just pay attention to calories anymore is that food is not the same as it was one hundred—or even twenty—years ago. In order to provide huge quantities of food at an affordable cost that also pays hefty profits, our food suppliers have had to cut a few corners (that’s an understatement) to deliver the goods. Within the meat and dairy industries, this may mean that animals are raised in dire conditions with no room to move around, given feed that historically they might never have eaten and that their bodies have no way to process (like feeding corn to fish and fish to cows), and that they are regularly dosed with antibiotics and hormones that get passed directly to us through their meat, eggs, and milk. As a result, we get a much lower-quality product that’s been sapped of many of the basic nutrients that food is supposed to deliver.

When it comes to fruits, veggies, and grains, we’ve witnessed a surge in genetically modified foods—plants whose genes have been scientifically altered in labs and through crossbreeding to create an entirely new gene with a new set of properties, whether it’s to grow faster, be weed resistant, or self-destruct at the end of every year so farmers are forced to buy new seed the following spring. Then again, maybe you haven’t witnessed this, since the United States still does not have uniform labeling laws requiring producers to adequately label their products so that consumers know whether they contain genetically modified ingredients or not. Sound fishy? Well, given that your tomato just might have a cold-water fish gene spliced into it to make it frost resistant so it can grow in the snow, it might be tasting a little fishy, too. (No, that’s not a joke.)

Why does any of this stuff matter? It matters because for ten thousand years, humans have been relying on an incredibly evolved and complex system of digestion that has served us well. As our food choices and food quality changes almost overnight, our bodies cannot keep pace. If our bodies don’t know how to adequately extract nutrients from our food—or if the food doesn’t have many of these nutrients to begin with—we’re the ones who suffer, everything from depleted immune systems to chronic lifestyle-related diseases. There are plenty of people in this country who are both obese and malnourished because their bodies are missing key nutrients they need to function properly, even after enjoying an “extra value” meal. That goes for anyone who eats most of her meals out of a box or wrapper.

In fact, when our bodies are in constant overdrive—when we’re chronically deprived of the vital nutrients we need to function optimally—they eventually begin to break down. We get sick more often. We get tired more easily. So we dose ourselves with medicines to mask the sickness and consume more sugar and caffeine to give us fake energy, which only adds to the problem. The result is an increasing number of people who struggle with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other lifestyle-related diseases who are treating the symptoms but not the root cause of their sickness.

These diseases can often be entirely reversed and/or prevented by supplying our bodies a chance to heal naturally with high-quality, wholesome foods—those that arrive in our kitchens looking much the same as they do when they come out of the ground. Our bodies are self-cleaning, self-operating machines! They know how to heal themselves, how to function optimally—we just have to give them the raw materials, then get out of the way and let them work their magic.

In general, I try to keep industrial meat and dairy, genetically modified produce, and processed foods as far away from me as possible. Now, I’ve been known to keep a boxed cake mix on hand for dire emergencies—surprise dinner parties, impromptu birthday celebrations, and of course, those “I just need to eat cake batter with a spoon” scenarios, but these are very rare and desperate occasions. That’s because I have learned that if I have ten minutes and the right ingredients in my pantry, it’s just as easy to whip up something great from scratch and avoid all the unnecessary chemical additives, toxic sweeteners, and processed fats. The point is not that you can never eat this stuff. It’s that you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor if you see how it isn’t your best choice and how easy it is to do without, whether you make the stuff from scratch or find a healthier alternative.

Still, it can be tempting stuff, and since food producers are going to keep creating junk food until we the consumers demand otherwise (and vote with our wallets for better options), we’ve got to stay one step ahead for now and equip ourselves with the knowledge to successfully navigate today’s food scene.

Essentially, we’ve got to get smarter to keep pace with our constantly evolving food system, and this comes down to thinking about portion sizes rather than calorie crunching, understanding how to interpret labels and staying alert to some tricky advertising, and figuring out the easiest, most delicious ways to make cooking at home a part of our regular lives.

“JUST RIGHT” PORTIONS AND SERVINGS

Play Goldilocks for a minute. Instead of obsessing over calories, I’d like you to start thinking about portion sizes. Not too big—too much food leads to weight gain no matter how healthy it is. Not too small—too little food means lowered metabolism, not to mention constant, nagging hunger. Just right is what we’re going for: enough food to keep you energized, not so much that you overeat yourself right into an afternoon nap.

The simplest way to manage your portion sizes is to learn what they actually look like in the real world. By supersize standards, it’s too easy to imagine that beverages should be served in bathtubs and that popcorn comes in vats, not bowls. And it’s no surprise that the bigger the portion you take on your plate or get with your meal, the more food you’re likely to eat. Let’s get back on track with a few quick, simple tricks you can use to make sure you understand what true portions look like.

First, gather your tools. No, you don’t need to go anywhere. Choose a hand—it’s all you’ll need to measure with.

Carbohydrates are the fuel (sugars) our bodies run on. Without them, we would be tired, cranky, slow-firing messes, and eventually … dead. Fortunately, they’re delicious, and you should be at no loss for easy ways to incorporate them into your diet, especially after working your way through the recipes in this book!

Carbohydrates are traditionally broken down into two categories: complex and simple, and the easiest way to remember which is which is to think about whether it will be “complex” or “simple” for your body to extract the sugars it needs from the food you’re eating.

Imagine carbohydrates as the pot of gold at the center of an obstacle course. With complex carbohydrates, your body first has to conquer hurdles like fiber, and sometimes protein and fat, before it can claim its prize. This extra work helps slow down digestion and keep you full for longer. Complex carbohydrates are generally left in their whole form or are minimally processed. They include whole grains (like oats, amaranth, quinoa, millet, and even whole-grain bread), beans, and legumes. Fruits and vegetables fall into this category, too, but we’ll keep those separate for now.

Simple carbohydrates, on the other hand, have gone through mechanical and chemical processing to break down whole grains such as wheat, corn, and rice and create products like white-flour bread, crackers, bagels, and other baked goods, all of which are loaded with refined sugar. Essentially, these products have already been digested for you. When this is the case, the obstacle course becomes nothing more than a quick slide down a jungle gym before your body has all the sugar it can handle. Instead of a slow and gradual replenishing of sugar in the bloodstream the way complex carbohydrates are digested, you get a sudden sugar spike all at once. The shock forces your body to immediately go into overdrive to bring your blood sugar levels back to normal, but the spike and then dive in blood sugar catalyzes a chain reaction that sets your body up for carb cravings all day—bad news for you and your waistline! When it comes to carbohydrates, the harder your body has to work to break them down, the better they are for you.

A single portion of complex carbs is about the size of your palm or a deck of cards, and you’re aiming for three servings a day. Even though they’re absolutely essential, you can go overboard: If your complex carb portions up to now have been the size of, say, a kitten, you may be seeing the results in a little extra padding around your midsection. Your body loves the fuel it is getting from these types of foods and needs it to function properly (everything from cell renewal to brain firing works on carbohydrates, so don’t go cutting them out entirely!), but it will store extra reserves in all the wrong places if you don’t give it some good ways to put that energy to work. If you’ve been overindulging in the CCs, quick, get thee into your sports bra and spandex and break a sweat—or risk kissing those skinny jeans good-bye for a while.

Please note that I’m not including any daily serving recommendations for simple carbohydrates. In stripping away the fiber and many of the nutrients that naturally occur in a whole food, all you’re left with is something that’s going to spike your blood sugar and leave you on a carb-craving binge all day. These types of items—think of all your boxed cookies, cakes, crackers, and snacks plus processed breads and baked goods—are really best left for special occasions, tasty though they may be.

Piling your plate high with simple carbs tonight is a surefire sign that you’ll be frowning at the scale tomorrow (and probably sporting a few more pimples and wrinkles to boot, since refined sugar not only feeds bacteria throughout your body and weakens the immune system but also speeds the aging process along—yikes!). Simple carbs are loaded with empty calories, meaning energy/sugar that enters the body without a ton of nutritional value. Because your brain is smart and knows to look for nutrients, not just calories, coming in, simple carbs don’t satisfy its needs, so the brain signals you to keep eating. Even worse, a diet high in refined, simple carbohydrates saps your energy by distorting normal hormone production. All good reasons to keep the simple carbs to a minimum.

Fruits and vegetables are an essential part of a good diet because they’re loaded with a wide array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants we need to feel and look our best. For optimum results, and to make sure you’re getting the full benefit of nutrient-rich, fiber-loaded produce, you need to stick with the real deal: Eat raw as much as possible, cook lightly as needed, and avoid fruits and vegetables that have been fried, candied, drowned in cream sauce or syrup, or are otherwise no longer recognizable. And though all fruits and veggies are great choices, some are better than others when it comes to watching sugar intake. Ideally, you want to limit starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes (except for sweet potatoes) in favor of cruciferous ones (broccoli, cauliflower) and colorful options such as peppers and leafy greens (kale, spinach). For fruits, the lower the sugar content the better, so berries, melons, and citrus are your best bets, while sweeter fruits like bananas, cherries, and grapes should be eaten in smaller portions. But any vegetable or fruit is preferable to a highly processed alternative.

Now loosely touch the tips of your four fingers to your thumb to form a circle. See the size? Your hand should look more or less like a tennis ball. That’s your basic measurement for fruits and vegetables. And you’ll want five to eight tennis ball-size servings of these a day, mostly vegetables and some fruit for sweet treats.

Now touch the tip of your pointer finger to your thumb to form a circle about the size of a golf ball (or, for those of you not into golf, imagine it’s about the size of a nail polish bottle without the cap). The golf ball is a good indicator of how much cheese makes up a serving. For milk and yogurt, ¾ cup is usually the right amount—that’s about as much liquid as you can cup in both hands. In both cases, pay attention to how many servings a given package contains by checking the nutritional label to help you hit your target. Try to stick with two servings or fewer of dairy daily. And if you’re not a fan of dairy, you can get calcium and vitamin D elsewhere, such as from cod liver oil, leafy greens, and supplements.

When it comes to red meat, you’ll want to keep it to a minimum—we’re talking less than two palm-size (4-ounce) servings a week. Even lean cuts are fatty, and new research is showing that consumption of red meat contributes to colon cancers, because our bodies have trouble digesting and excreting meat products and wastes efficiently Red meat is, however, a great source of B vitamins, iron, and valuable protein (though, in general, Americans need way less protein than most of us are getting—some of us are getting up to five times too much each day!). The most important thing to keep in mind is that when you do choose to enjoy red meat, enjoy a little less of it and make it a really high-quality piece. The last thing you want is something that came out of a factory farm, where the steer was loaded up with feed that made it sick and fatty, hormones to make it grow faster, antibiotics to ward off the many diseases it was exposed to, and so on. Bottom line: When you can, spring for the best-quality meat at the grocery store, farmers’ market, or farm. And when you’re enjoying your favorite burger at that restaurant you love, maybe go halfsies.

Fats have gotten a bad rap over the years, but they’re finally being granted redemption as we come to understand how crucial good fats in the diet are to overall health. They add lubrication to all parts of the body—from lustrous skin and nails, to properly functioning joints, to efficient nutrient absorption, and even to help balance hormone production to keep you naturally healthy and happy—and are an integral part of every cell membrane. But best of all, fats carry flavor and help us feel full, so adding a bit of fat to a meal not only helps it taste better but may also help you eat less overall. Score!

However, not all fats are created equal. Some are highly processed, low-quality, altered versions of the original—these are the ones you typically see on ingredient labels as “hydrogenated” or “trans fats.” And saturated fat, like the kind in butter (any fat that is solid at room temperature), should be enjoyed in moderation, and the less processed the better. The exception to this is extra-virgin coconut oil, which, though a saturated fat, is a medium-chain triglyceride—basically, just a fancy way of describing a fat formation that’s very easy for your body to metabolize. Cultures where coconut oil is the predominant fat have a low incidence of heart disease and obesity, and some research indicates that fats like coconut oil may even help us lose weight by speeding up metabolism. This news is doubly exciting, because coconut oil tastes divine!

The best kinds of fats come from natural sources such as nuts and seeds, olive oil and coconut oil, and avocados and fatty fish. These contain essential fatty acids (EFAs), which are basically the fats your body cannot synthesize on its own, so you need to get them through your diet. There are three types of essential fatty acids: omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 (technically, the body can produce a small amount of omega-9 but only if the other essential fatty acids are present in the diet).

Of course, even though these are great fats, you still want to keep them in balance and relatively small amounts. Most Americans get plenty omega-6 EFAs because they can be found in vegetable oils like those used in many store-bought, shelf-stable goods, so focus on the omega-3 and omega-9 essential fatty acids—ideally, you want to get a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, but even 4:1 is great. You can do this by limiting vegetable oil consumption, and instead of settling for the vending machine snack at the office, throw a fistful of raw nuts in a baggie for on-the-go snacking, slather a little organic coconut oil on your toast, add a dash of olive oil and a sprinkle of hemp seeds on your salad, take a spoonful of cod liver oil in the mornings (shots! shots! shots! with orange juice), or simply opt for an avocado or two and a few servings of fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, and anchovies each week. You’ll be glossed up in no time!

images Complex carbs: 8 to 11 servings

- Complex carbs from grains, beans, legumes: 3 servings

- Complex carbs from fruits or veggies: 5 to 8 servings

images Dairy: 2 servings (a golf ball-size serving of cheese or ¾ cup milk or yogurt; check the package to confirm serving sizes)

images Protein: 2 to 3 servings

images Red meat: no more than 2 palm-size servings per week

images Nuts and fats: 2 teaspoon-size servings (check the nutritional label for measurements)

* The servings above were computed for a five foot five woman who weighs 125 pounds. Hand sizes change with height and weight, so chances are if you’re working off your own hands as a measure you’re in good shape. But keep in mind that if you’re smaller, you may want to eliminate one serving of complex carbs or one from fat or dairy. If you’re taller or an athlete, you’ll want to increase your food intake by increasing servings of complex carbs or proteins—not fats.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS A GMO?

It’s easy to see the world has become obsessed with health-food labeling, or at least advertising. Sure, we all want to eat heirloom tomatoes, and seeing the words free range on the menu next to your chicken club sandwich is exciting—even if the twenty-five-dollar cost is not. But what do all these phrases mean? Is there really a difference between organic and conventional? Which labels should we care about, and which are designed only to part us from our dollars as quickly as possible? Here is my breakdown of the whole kit and caboodle:

rBGH-, genetically modified-, and antibiotic-free. Always look for meat and dairy products from animals that were not given rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone, used to artificially boost milk production), genetically modified food, and/or antibiotics. The easiest way to do this is to buy organic options or find a local farm where you can go and check out how the animals are raised. Many local farms can’t actually afford organic certification since it is an expensive, taxing process—but because they are smaller scale and can give their animals individual care and attention and space to run around, they don’t need to rely on tons of medications to keep the animals alive. If you can take a weekend trip out to see what an actual running farm functions like, chances are you’ll be much more comfortable with their business practices and want to take home some fresh meat and dairy that will not only taste better but will likely be more nutritious, too. Maybe you’ll even make friends with the farmer. Field trip!

The bottom line: Spend your money buying higher-quality in smaller portions and/or less frequently. That way, you’ll get the great flavor and taste you crave without going overboard (on money or portions) and without exposing yourself to toxic chemicals and additives in low-quality products that could wreak havoc on your health.

Organic. Fruits and vegetables labeled organic were grown without the use of toxic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, genetic modification, or sewage sludge (sounds delicious, huh?). So if you wouldn’t order a side of toilet water with your broccoli, buying organic is the way to go. There’s a ranking system of those fruits and veggies it’s most important to buy organic versus those you can get away with having conventional because they won’t absorb as much of the toxins from pesticides/fertilizers (see Obsess About Organic for … “The Dirty Dozen”).

When it comes to meat and poultry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) insists that in order to be called organic, animals must not be given hormones or antibiotics, and they must have room to exercise, sleep, and be outdoors, at least for part of the time. Organic farming is good for the planet as well as your body since it limits the amount of toxic chemical runoff that flows from farms into our water supplies, and it keeps workers from being exposed to potentially hazardous materials. Good news all around!

Free range. Free-range poultry get some access to the outdoors, although there’s no USDA specification for what this means precisely—it could just be a single open door at the end of a huge factory that the chickens never actually find. Egg-laying hens may not get any time outdoors at all. It’s not necessarily a label to take a lot of comfort in.

MYTH BUSTER

Healthful foods are not always more expensive! Most comparisons that claim healthful food is significantly more expensive look at cost per calorie, so if you divide the 300 calories in a candy bar by the $1.00 it costs you to buy, you get 3 calories to a penny, whereas 70 calories in a banana that also costs you $1.00 equals about .7 calories per penny. But when it comes to health, the ideal isn’t necessarily to get tons of calories on the cheap. Not to mention the fact that the calories in that candy bar are pure fat and sugar, while the banana is going to give you some fiber with that sugar, and tons of vitamins and minerals to boot. What you’re not paying for upfront with the candy bar is the potential health-care costs of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer down the road that go hand in hand with a highly processed diet.

So shake that faulty logic next time you try to convince yourself that fast food is the economical choice. To save money on the good-for-you goods, buy in season and local to save on shipping and middleman costs. And if organic really is outside the price range, skip pricey, perishable items like berries and opt for frozen or canned veggies and hardy fruits like bananas, apples, and pears. At the end of the day, I would rather see you eat conventional produce frequently than organic produce once a week. Buy dried lentils, beans, and brown rice in bulk and save a fortune. Be practical and see what fits your lifestyle.

Grass fed. Animals that have been allowed to graze are considered grass fed, although it doesn’t mean that they were raised on a pasture or that they haven’t been exposed to growth hormones and antibiotics (unless it says so on the label). Cows were designed to eat grass, but the ballooning global demand for beef is such that producers have had to get crafty in raising cattle on the cheap to get them fatter faster so they’re ready for slaughter sooner. Instead of grass, they’re fed grain, which they can’t digest. The result is animals get sick easily because they’re not getting the nutrients they’re used to (and are often living in horrible conditions, crammed together with no room to move, exposed to each other’s sickness), so they’re also constantly receiving antibiotics along with growth hormones. This is not even getting into the environmental toll of growing enough grain to feed all the cows being bred today. Pasture fed is a better indication that producers are thinking about the health of their animals and a likely sign that the cows actually spend a good deal of time outdoors in a field.

Certified humane. This gold standard indicates that animals have lived as they would on a regular farm, under “normal” circumstances: with open space for wandering, shelter from the elements, no confinement in tiny crates. Likewise, they are not given artificial growth hormones or antibiotics and must be butchered quickly and as painlessly as possible. Certified humane eggs come from free-nesting hens. This is the best of the best of product labeling when it comes to wholesome food!

Local. Local means that your product was grown, well, locally—generally by neighbors in a hundred-mile radius. More than one hundred miles and you may not be able to call yourself a locavore; but an apple grown five hundred miles from your door is still better for you—and the planet—than one shipped to your door from, say, New Zealand.

Something more to think about: While there are primary safety standards kept throughout the United States, imported goods are an entirely different ball game. All imports are labeled, processed, and exported at the whim of their own local governments. In Mexico and Chile, for instance, where many of the grapes we eat are grown, it’s not illegal to use human feces as fertilizer. If that sounds gross to you, it’s an even bigger argument for becoming a locavore …

Non-GMO. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are those in which the genome of a given plant or animal was altered by adding genes or components of genes from another genetic structure. We want to pay attention to the development of genetically modified foods because we don’t yet know the long-term effects of eating them. There is suspicion that changing the genetic makeup of plant and animals, while in some cases delivering immediate results—like fast-growing animals and bug-resistant crops—could yield less nutritious products with unknown long-term problems. Think about the genetically modified fish that are engineered to grow faster with less food—the net result is a possible hazard to their health because they’re being forced to grow at too rapid a pace and a decline in their overall nutritional quality when we consume them. And we have no way of knowing the possible resulting health detriments they could pass on to us when we eat them.

The big fight right now is to compel producers to at the very least label foods when they contain genetically modified ingredients and to let us know if an animal was raised on genetically modified feed. It’s interesting that Europe has almost unanimously rejected large-scale genetic modification in food, despite the claims that it would “help feed the world” (this is largely bogus, especially once you start analyzing the way genetically modified crops kill heirloom seed crops that farmers have cultivated for years, how they’re actually programmed to self-destruct after a year so that farmers must keep repurchasing seeds, and how they only work with the addition of a specialized fertilizer or pesticide that, conveniently, is also made by the seed’s producer, and so on). Maybe they know something we don’t.

BE A LABEL JUNKIE

When it comes to clothes, being too focused on labels isn’t always a good thing. When it comes to your fruits and vegetables, it’s exactly what you should be doing. You know those little stickers you’re always peeling off before you bite into a supermarket apple? Next time, take a closer look.

Those codes are called PLU codes, which stands for “price lookup.” They were introduced in 1949 to help grocery stores use new technologies more efficiently, but these days they’re good for much more than just pricing. If the fruit you’re about to enjoy has a four-digit PLU code, it’s just a conventional piece of fruit, likely grown with pesticides and possibly in depleted soil. If it has a five-digit code beginning with the number 8, it’s a GMO and contains genes not put there by nature. The best option is produce with a five-digit code beginning in 9, which was grown to organic standards.

If you want to do even more research on where the food on your table originated, check out www.plucodes.com, which lets you look up PLU codes so you can Nancy Drew where your banana was grown. You smarty-pants overachiever, you.

We need to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables every day, but not all produce is created equal. Produce that isn’t organic is often grown with the help of toxic fertilizers and pesticides, which means that all of those vitamins and minerals we’re eating to be healthier can come with a side helping of health issues. According to government agencies, pesticides have been linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and more. Think about it: Pesticides are designed to kill living things such as bugs and worms! Imagine what they’re doing inside your body. Moreover, pesticides that are used on crops get washed away by rain and irrigation into our water supply, ruining natural habitats, which disrupts life cycles at a much more basic level.

The ideal is to buy everything organic because these foods will have had the least exposure to pesticides, but that can certainly get expensive. My best policy is to shop as often as possible with small, local producers—the closer my produce was grown to my home, the more intact the nutrients are and the fewer preservatives are needed to make sure the fresh food reaches me looking great. Moreover, small producers generally don’t need to use the extremely efficient (and toxic) pesticides that industrial farms do.

Get to know your farmers at a farmers’ market and ask the right questions: What do they think is perfectly ripe right now? Any particularly great crops you should try? Join a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm, and you’ll have access to fresh, seasonal, local produce at a great price. Use the experts who are all around you—your grocers, your butchers, your fishmongers—to learn which are the safest, healthiest, most delicious, best-quality ingredients you can purchase, and then see what your budget will allow!

The Environmental Working Group does research to check out threats to the environment and to your health. Every year, it publishes a list of the fruits and veg that pose the biggest risks, and the ones that are the safest. Copy these lists and keep them in your wallet for convenient reference while grocery shopping:

EASY PRODUCE WASH

This is a great all-natural, homemade produce wash to help remove any remaining waxes, residues, or dirt from your fresh produce. It’s great to use on any hard fruit or veggie with skin you’d like to eat—think apples, pears, cucumbers, and zucchini. You can also use this for citrus fruits so you don’t bring toxins from the skin into the flesh when you’re cutting into them.

For potatoes, I find it’s easier just to get a scrub brush and scour the skin well under warm water before baking—ideally, buy organic if you like to eat the skin. As for berries and more absorbent fruits, it’s important to buy organic because they can only tolerate a quick dunk under running water to get off any dirt or they’ll soak up a ton of extra liquid and dilute their beautiful berry flavor.

1 cup water

1 cup white vinegar

1 tablespoon baking soda

Juice from ½ lemon

1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. Pour into a spray bottle and generously spray all over produce just before using. Let sit for 5 minutes, rub with a clean towel, rinse with cool water, and enjoy!

2. I like to make fresh batches, but you can keep the water, white vinegar, and lemon mixed together, covered in the fridge for up to 3 days, and just add baking soda right before using.

Clearly, I could talk (write) for hours about this stuff, but don’t worry—I’m done for now!

I just get so excited about what a huge difference our generation can make and how important it is that we do! Which brings me to my next point: Now it’s your turn to use your voice to start pushing for a healthier food source we can all enjoy.

The most important thing food producers need to hear is that we care about the quality of our food and will buy better if they make it available. Tell everyone you know to ask for organic at their favorite restaurants; to approach their grocery managers about getting non-GMO meat and fish; to talk to local schools about protecting kids by giving them adequate school lunches that aren’t loaded with toxic chemicals, sugars, and additives; to demand that we get to know—and feel good about!—what we’re eating because our country upholds strong labeling and growing standards. It’s up to educated consumers like us to focus on making the system better—we all deserve it.

THREE

JARGON SLAYER

navigating the supermarket like a pro

PLAYING THE NUMBERS

“JUST RIGHT” PORTIONS AND SERVINGS

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS A GMO?