I recently read Dr. Frank Lipman’s article on processed foods and immediately I wanted to fashion a soapbox to stand on and start the anti-processed food revolution. Fruit is nature’s candy. Veggies are the original Ex-lax. Why are we disrupting our innate diets with Lean Cuisine?
I will be the very first to admit that I am wooed by certain processed foods, namely sea salt and vinegar chips and cookie butter from Trader Joe’s. When I asked my friend (who introduced me to the cookie butter) what we put it on, she looked dumbfounded and said: “In your mouth is what you put it on.”
I had seen the cookie butter numerous times at Trader Joe’s and always knew better than to ever put it in my cart, because much like Oreos, I knew it would have a seductive siren call that I didn’t want to hear for the rest of my days.
I succumbed and did put it in my mouth and I haven’t stopped thinking of it for days.
But Dr. Lipman’s article really got me thinking: maybe I should start a revolution. Maybe I should be one of those people who make an incredible life change; decide to give up the processed food I still cling to for an entire year and see how profoundly it changes me.
I started to plan my new processed foods-free life that would start after my 28th birthday—obviously—as I was definitely banking on mimosas and Coca-Cola and cake on my honorary day, and no one would stop me if I wanted to put myself into a sugar-induced coma. Kidding. Of course I don’t want to be in a sugar-induced coma, but I do relish the ideas of mimosas and cake on my birthday.
But this is the thing that hit me about going processed foods free—graham crackers. What about graham crackers?!
As if graham crackers would be the one corrosive element to destroy the whole plan. I eat graham crackers all of once, maybe twice a year—in the summertime as the housing for my s’mores. Do health professionals understand this? Do they honestly say good riddance to s’mores? Do they make their own graham cracker?
According to Dr. Frank Lipman a graham cracker is probably a franken-food that could never be replicated just so we stay addicted to its goodness. But I am not addicted to graham crackers though admittedly they are quite good, I just can’t imagine summertime without an open fire. And what’s a fire without marshmallows, chocolate and graham? Maybe the cavemen didn’t have s’mores but surely they were depressed over it.
So I will still start my revolution. I will wean myself off of the last processed foods I still cling to like flax seed, gluten free, salt free, organic tortilla chips that I convince myself are super good for me because they have flax and no gluten, happily devouring half a bag guilt-free.I will acknowledge that processed foods really are heathens in sheep’s clothing. Not because I am a fad-ist, but because I truly am embracing becoming a health junkie, and any good health junkie knows that real food is best.
But I think I’ll still keep s’mores—at least one, for summer.
I can still be a revolutionary with a little marshmallow stuck to my lips when sitting near a crackling fire. Maybe I’ll just make homemade marshmallows and buy extra-dark, fair-trade chocolate that will balance out the chemicals in my graham cracker. Fair enough?
-Cassandra