How one family broke its junk food addiction

[big dog cowboy]

How one family broke its junk food addiction
Wednesday, August 24, 2011

How long could you go without junk food? Last year, the Leake family attempted to abstain for 100 days. A year later, it's still going strong. “Halfway through the first challenge I took the basket of Halloween candy I was hiding in the guest room for when we'd completed the challenge, and just threw it out,” says Lisa Leake, a stay-at-home mom of two daughters, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Inspired by an Oprah interview with food activist Michael Pollan, Lisa and her husband, Jason, embarked on the challenge as a way to rethink their unhealthy eating habits. Lisa was raised on Doritos and powdered macaroni and cheese. She tried to prepare healthy meals for her daughters, Sienna, then 3 and Sydney, then 5, but like most busy moms, she relied heavily on processed frozen meals and boxed groceries that had mile-long ingredients lists and the potential to cause long-term health problems, like heart disease and diabetes. Even the foods she thought were healthy weren't as natural as she had once believed. "I was so surprised by how much food is processed," says Lisa, "like for example, bread that lists wheat as an ingredient isn't good for you unless it's made from whole wheat. You really have to study the ingredients."

In an effort to force themselves to consume more cautiously, the Leake family set some temporary guidelines: no refined grains or sweeteners, nothing deep fried, only local hormone-free meats and organic fruits and veggies and absolutely nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package with more than five ingredients listed on the label.

Read more: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food...its-junk-food-addiction-2530910#photoViewer=1

 

[tupperware]

 

[hairic]

Just stop eating it? And stay busy enough that you don't think of food.

brb making triple layer chocolate cake.

 

[Signals]

Great article! I need some inspiration to make a change.

 

[StevenOtero]

Thanks for the article!

 

[CATCH17]

Great article! I need some inspiration to make a change.

You don't have to completely cut out junk food.


Just make sure the majority of your diet comes from nutritious foods.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

They sound like a bunch of quitters.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I was shocked to see their pic... They don't all weigh 400 lbs.

 

[notherbob]

My wife and I have gotten away from all junk food and all store-bought processed foods due to MSG, high fructrose corn syrup, additives, salt, GMO ingredients, etc. We follow pretty much the same practices they do.

Living on a ranch we are lucky enough to be able to raise our own beef, pork and poultry and have fresh eggs, milk, butter and are beginning to make our own cheeses. We have a big garden but gardening was a real challenge in this year's drought which also wiped out our orchard. It will rain again and when it does we will replant. In the meantime we buy organic.

When we cook, we cook large meals and freeze portions so that we can eat full nutritious meals with minimal preparation whenever we want or need to. We have two emergency generators to power the freezer in event of power failure.

Eating sensibly this past two years, my wife has lost a few dozen pounds and is looking pretty good, better than she has in many years, has more productive energy and seldom gets hungry except at mealtime. We both feel much better and we will not be going back to the world of packaged, processed and adulterated foods. These kinds of foods make people sick in many ways in the long run and our food tastes better anyway.

I used to have full confidence in our country's food supply system and now I have confidence only in what we or other small organic/sustainable producers grow. Certainly I would not buy anything to eat that comes from China these days.

 

[vta]

Living on a ranch we are lucky enough to be able to raise our own beef, pork and poultry and have fresh eggs, milk, butter and are beginning to make our own cheeses.

Do you slaughter the beef, pork & chicken yourself?

 

[ShiningStar]

im eating healthy write something about me im doing what everyone tells me to do and im making my own decisions as long as others tell me how to do it. Isnt this called life? Why do we have to read about it.

 

[notherbob]

Do you slaughter the beef, pork & chicken yourself?

The chickens, rabbits and turkeys we kill and process ourselves and usually make a big family day out of it with nephew Nick bringing the rabbits and everyone has a job to do and the job goes faster. Everyone gets a chicken, a rabbit and a turkey and the owners get the rest to put in their freezer.

The pigs and the cows are taken to the little processing plant in town where they hang for a couple weeks before the get professionally cut to our specifications. Costs the head, hide, entrails and fifty cents a pound to process, based on the carcass hanging weight.

Brother-in-law Fred raises the pigs and takes them to town for processing and shares the pork with other family members who share the beef freely with other family members, including Fred. We are members of an informal family co-op. We freely share the veggies we grow with other family members. We're neither commies nor hippies, just family folk who live in different parts of the same family ranch.

Before we got our Jersey cow, my wife would drive 150 miles round trip to buy raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk and now we have our own raw milk and will be trying to make more exotic cheeses as we learn the craft. Whole milk from organically raised grass fed cows with sanitary milking conditions is far healthier than pasteurized milk for many reasons, despite what some big business dairies say. They are right about one thing, though, their milk is not healthy to drink raw and must be pasteurized to be fit for consumption, even if minimally, while ours is naturally better and healthier in many ways.

If I still lived in an apartment in town I would have to find a public garden I could join to grow a few things.

 

[vta]

The chickens, rabbits and turkeys we kill and process ourselves and usually make a big family day out of it with nephew Nick bringing the rabbits and everyone has a job to do and the job goes faster. Everyone gets a chicken, a rabbit and a turkey and the owners get the rest to put in their freezer.

The pigs and the cows are taken to the little processing plant in town where they hang for a couple weeks before the get professionally cut to our specifications. Costs the head, hide, entrails and fifty cents a pound to process, based on the carcass hanging weight.

Brother-in-law Fred raises the pigs and takes them to town for processing and shares the pork with other family members who share the beef freely with other family members, including Fred. We are members of an informal family co-op. We freely share the veggies we grow with other family members. We're neither commies nor hippies, just family folk who live in different parts of the same family ranch.

Before we got our Jersey cow, my wife would drive 150 miles round trip to buy raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk and now we have our own raw milk and will be trying to make more exotic cheeses as we learn the craft. Whole milk from organically raised grass fed cows with sanitary milking conditions is far healthier than pasteurized milk for many reasons, despite what some big business dairies say. They are right about one thing, though, their milk is not healthy to drink raw and must be pasteurized to be fit for consumption, even if minimally, while ours is naturally better and healthier in many ways.

If I still lived in an apartment in town I would have to find a public garden I could join to grow a few things.

That sounds awesome. It also reads as a more interesting story than the OT.

 

[ZeroClub]

An after-dinner treat meant getting creative with applesauce, fruit juice and yogurt.

oh baby!

 

[tupperware]

Maybe I'm just not fit for the country life, or too lazy, not sure. But I couldn't imagine jogging outside to milk a cow before kick off.