What I've Learned After 8 Years of Eating Real Food

Do you ever feel like real food is just exhausting?  I'll admit, I sometimes go to the grocery store and just want to pile random stuff in my cart that makes me happy, that I used to eat when I was a child!  Or I scan the grocery ads and think, "Man, I sure wish all the sales weren't for processed food."

Living a real food life in a processed-food world takes serious mental adjustment.

Wouldn't you think that after 8 years of a real food lifestyle, I would've gotten used to all this by now?  Well, maybe not.

  My family has, for a long time, enjoyed the benefits of raw milk.  We have had raw milk farm shares (what's a farm share?) with a few different family farms here in Oregon, and right now, we're loyal patrons of Helios Farms, which is "out Yoncalla," (rural Oregon slang for "in the Yoncalla zip code, but so far out of town you'd barely guess it.")

I really respect Theo's dedication to his farm, his family-friendly philosophy, and his quest for constant improvement.

However, I also...you know, like to actually drink milk.  And give it to my kids.

But sometimes, that doesn't happen as often as I would like.  So many little things can make small farm food production unpredictable: the sow goes on a rampage, and the farmers are up all night hunting it down, or the cow gets into the garden and everything tastes like tomatoes!

And the next thing I know, my 4-year-old is in the kitchen, tugging on my pant leg and crying because he can't have milk with his dinner!

This is the trade-off when you start pursuing real food:  You gain your health.  But you lose the convenience and predictability of the American food system that is based on speed and uniformity.

Is it a bad thing?

I don't know.  I think it's more of a hard transition, away from food being an afterthought.  Once upon a time, I could go through my whole day barely thinking about where my meal would come from.  No dinner plan?  No problem, we'll go through the drive through!  No lunch plan?  No biggie, I'll grab a granola bar from the vending machine.

But when, in the history of the world, has food been an afterthought?  Most people on earth even now spend much more of their time, income, and intention on feeding their families than the average American.

Here are a few of the main changes I've had to make in my thinking as we've adopted a slow-food lifestyle:

1. It's ok for food to make up a significant portion of our budget.

We are not trying to win an award for lowest grocery budget here.  Not that that's a bad goal!  We've been there!  Super-low prices have been very important to us in years past, but as our goals and priorities and opportunities have changed, so has our budget.  We are nourishing tiny bodies, bodies that are growing so fast, and literally laying down the foundation for a lifetime of health.  And did you know that Americans spend much less on food now than we used to?  My grocery budget gets put in perspective when I look at that graph and realize how much more my grandparents spent on food, comparatively!

I've had to become ok with food being more important to me than other things I could spend my money on.  Will we buy all new school clothes this year?  Nope.  Will the kids wear hand-me-downs and use their same tired backpacks from last year?  Yep.  Will they be able to participate in every activity they'd love to do?  Probably not.  But some things that used to be important to me have become more peripheral.  And good food has not.

2. It's ok for food to take up a significant part of my day.  

Making yogurt, sprouting beans, chopping veg, shaking the milk before pouring it into cups, washing so.many.dishes, these little things add up to make food prep more of a time commitment than it used to be.  I have to schedule time into my day to prep, eat, wash, repeat, and it can sometimes interfere with the other things I would like to be doing instead.  But it's worth it, both for the nutritional value of the food, and for the values it instills in my children and myself: patience as they wait for lunch to bake, diligence as they help me in the kitchen, and (let's be real here) independence when the control freak part of me is fed up with kids in the kitchen and tells them, "Just go play!  I need to finish in the kitchen by myself!"

3. It's ok for food to be an adventure.

Sometimes we have milk to drink.  Sometimes we don't.  You can't set your watch by it.  But isn't that what an adventure is?

Has eating real food been a big mental adjustment for you?  What are the hardest things about the change?  

Why We Love Raw Milk

When we found out we were moving to Oregon, one of the first things I did was start looking for a raw milk dairy near our new home.  In Oregon, just like in Colorado, it's illegal to sell raw milk, but you can own a share of a cow, and receive your own milk from a dairy that cares for your cow for you.  So our family owns 1/25th of a sweet Jersey cow who lives about 30 miles away (and they have a drop-off site in the nearest town!)

The kids and I went to go meet our cows on Saturday.  It was a perfect, sunny day (the last sunny day for a while, I think...), and we got to tromp around the farm, see the 8 cows rambling around in their pasture (they have names like Marla, Daisy, and Grandma - very cute!), visit the milking area, and see where the milk is bottled.  

You may be wondering, in this age of rampant pasteurization, why in the world would we want to drink raw milk?  Here are the basics:

1. It's from grassfed cows: 

Even the best organic milk generally has no guarantee of being grass-fed, for the simple reason that grain is cheap (especially when it's subsidized by the government).  Since we know where our cows live, and we know their farmers personally, we know exactly what they're eating, and we're happy with it.  Also, the hay that they're fed during the winter is all local, not grain shipped in from who knows where.  Research has shown that ruminants (cud-chewing animals) are healthier when they're fed grass, not grain.  That means their grass-fed milk will be healthier too.

2. It's alive! 

 Raw milk retains all kinds of beneficial enzymes and bacteria like lactobacilli (that pasteurization destroys).  These bacteria not only kill pathogens that could be present in the milk, they also help prevent pathogen absorption through the intestine wall and strengthen the immune system.

3.  It's easier to digest.  

Did you know that in the last 20 years, pasteurized milk sales have declined about 1% per year (in spite of rapidly rising population)?  More and more people are abandoning pasteurized milk because it's so difficult to digest and has been linked to all kinds of problems like lactose intolerance, asthma, allergies, frequent ear infections, gastro-intestinal problems, and constipation.  In contrast, raw milk still contains all the enzymes necessary for proper digestion (like lactase, which breaks down lactose).  In one survey, 80% of lactose intolerant patients could digest raw milk just fine!

4. It's fat-full.  

The cream in raw milk is full of fat-soluble vitamins and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), which is known for its cancer and body fat-fighting properties.  

5. It encourages responsible animal care.  

As opposed to the standard Holsteins, who have been bred over the decades to produce maximum amounts of milk, not necessarily for their own health, many raw milk dairies use other traditional dairy breeds like Jerseys, Ayrshire, Swiss, and Gurnsey.  This not only encourages genetic diversity in the dairy cow population, it also provides for excellent milk (Jerseys like ours are known for their milk's extra-high butterfat content...excellent!)  Also, obviously, if milk is not going to be pasteurized, it has to come from animals in excellent health in order to be safe.  Farmers have extra incentive to practice ideal herd-management techniques to keep their cows in peak health.

6. It's not as "risky" as we've been told.  

This was a key factor in our decision to switch to raw milk. Many of the stats for milk contamination come from testing of "factory-farmed" milk that was intended for pasteurization.  In contrast, milk from grass-fed animals, collected using the latest sterile milking and cleaning, herd testing, and refrigeration technology, is much less likely to be contaminated.  In fact, raw milk is 10 times less likely to cause illness than deli meats, per serving!  Just like any food, it can be contaminated if it is not handled correctly, but I've done enough investigation and statistics-reading to be convinced that raw milk is safe for my family.

If you are at all interested in raw milk, are wondering about some of these claims, or would like to see some data for yourself, please visit RealMilk.com for pages and pages of extensive research, analysis, and statistics.

Source: http://www.realmilk.com/rawmilkoverview.html

Posted at Fat Tuesday, Monday Mania, WFMW, Real Food Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Living Well, Fight Back Friday 

Bittersweet

Sorry, this post is not about chocolate.

It is about goodbyes!  As in, we're packing up and leaving for Oregon in 5 days!  And all of a sudden, there are lots of "lasts."  Our last Sunday at church (not really that sad, because I'll see most everyone I am close to again before we leave), our last weekend of campers at our current camp, and today, our last raw milk pick up in town!

Okay, that last one might sound kind of dumb.  But we've been picking up our milk at the same little store for the last 2 years, and what started out as a hassle has turned into one of my favorite outings with the kids.  We always go around the same time of day on Friday mornings, so the same staff are always working.  We follow the same milk pick-up routine, play for a few minutes at the kid's toy table, and pick a treat to eat outside on the porch before heading home.  We always visit with the same sweet lady (the owner or manager, I think) who gushes over the kids and lets them ring the bell on her counter, and the kids always have to be reminded not to play in the basket of shelled peanuts at the check-out.

It's the little things.

So, today, we said our goodbye to good ol' Sammy's Organics on 8th Street, received hugs from the manager (have I mentioned that I love small stores?), and moved on to the next chapter of our little lives.

It was (and I think much in the next week will be) bittersweet.

Now, off to realmilk.com to find a new raw milk dairy!  What?  There is actual gorgeous green, growing grass in Oregon that doesn't have to be irrigated to survive and feed dairy cows?  I think I am going to like this place...