rules to live by

I have to say I am a bit disappointed. Not in the work out or how my body has reacted to the extreme work out that we are all participating in. What I am upset with is my food budget and how it is a lot higher than what I thought it was going to be. Before I began this journey I thought that since I was cutting out all the junk food and focusing in on simple veggies and fruit that my budget was going to be well below what I had currently been spending. However after 30+ days of buying a ton of fruit and vegetables I have spent fifty dollars more each week than I was before going on the PCP. Why is that? Well the answer is what is known as the “western diet” and how the American food system is designed to provide cheap and easy food that will give you nothing but diabetes and heart disease later on in life.
Over the past year or so, the American agricultural system has become sort of a passion of mine. In fact I have switched my current degree in education so that I can pursue this passion even further. I became interested in what I was eating and how it got onto my dinner plate and after months and months of reading and studying the American food system, I set out with a list of rules to eat by…

1. Stay away from corn. Corn has found its way into almost everything American’s eat. Without going into an extensive scientific lesson into how and why that has happened, I will say that Corn is bad and it must be avoided at all costs. This includes high fructose corn syrup, confectioner's sugar, dextrin, malt dextrin, invert sugar or invert syrup, xanthan gum starch, food starch and modified corn starch. These are all major no-no’s.
2. Buy local. Purchasing foods from a farmers market or the local section at a grocery store is a great way to support your community and promote a sustainable food system.
3. Eat actual foods. If you see something on the ingredients list that sounds like something out of a science journal, most likely it is not food and more of a lab concoction.
4. If a food item has more than five or six ingredients, something in there isn’t right and probably not very good for you.
5. Eat food. Vegetables, fruit and foods that are untouched by man and will give you the best nutritional value for your dollar.
6. Try your best to make sure the meat you are eating is free-range grass fed beef. Most meat, whether it is chicken, beef or pork was most likely fed a diet of corn and protein supplements and if that is the case you can count on the fact that the animal you are eating spent the better part of its life standing in a dark holding sell in a pile of its own shit. That animal suffered and all the marbling in the world is not worth the suffering of an animal.

Sticking to these rules can be tricky in American but it is indeed very possible. However if you plan on spending the same amount of money that you did before, you are just lying to yourself. In order to eat a healthy you must accept the fact that your food budget will increase. You just have to ask yourself is it worth it. It is to me.