What do you eat? What should you eat?
This is a brief, food-for-thought post. Here I put something out there that I’d like to hear your thoughts on because you probably know more about food and think more about food than most people due to the fact that you are a gardener.
From best to worst, here is the order in which I would rank food.
1. Wild food
(Examples are stinging nettle, volunteer tomatoes, rabbits, the bluefin tuna shown above.)
2. Garden food
(The cabbage you grow, oranges from your tree, potatoes, walnuts, avocados.)
3. Farm food
(From a stall at a farmers market, you buy beets and strawberries, pastured poultry, honey.)
4. Grocery store whole food
(A bag of rolled oats from the bulk bin, some dry beans, raw milk, apples, a steak.)
5. Restaurant food
(A pasta dish, curry with rice, a hamburger.)
6. Food products
(Frozen chicken tenders, most cereal, most beverages, most bread.)
What’s the point of these rankings? The implications are that, therefore, I should eat most from the upper levels and least from the lower levels. And, therefore, the more I forage, catch, and grow, the better.
Any thoughts?
Explanations for the rankings:
1. Wild food
Wild plants are grown on rainfall, which is pure compared to our irrigation water. In Southern California, our irrigation water has added to it chlorine and flouride (and who-knows-what-else?).
Plants take up some portion of the substances in the water that they “drink” and therefore so do we when we eat the plants.
Also, in personal observations as well as studies that I’ve seen, the cleaner the water the better that plants grow. For example, see this study with bananas or this study with avocados.
I figure that a plant growing in the conditions that it likes the most, a thriving plant in optimal health, will end up being most beneficial for us to eat. And my assumption is similar with animals, that when they’re on their natural diet in their natural habitat they are healthiest and . . . you are what you eat eats.
2. Garden food
I have never sprayed a pesticide on anything in my garden, I have never drenched my soil with a fungicide or herbicide, I have never even applied fertilizer products, whose constituents and origins can never be certainly known.
Yet, I can count on one hand the number of farms I have visited (out of hundreds) that are this clean. So in general, my garden food is superior to farm food in that it is cleaner.
It is also likely to be fresher, which can be more nutritious and almost always tastes better.
3. Farm food
Comparing farm food to grocery store food, if you buy from a farmers market stand, at least you can ask about the produce: What variety cauliflower is this? How did you keep it aphid free?
And if you buy from a stand at the farm itself, then you can see the operation with your own eyes and get a sense of whether it is producing food aligned with your desires.
4. Grocery store whole food
At a store you can know far less about a head of cauliflower you buy. It might be labelled “organic” but what does organic mean, actually?
Nonetheless, at a store you can see the produce in its whole, raw state, which ranks it above restaurant food.
5. Restaurant food
At a restaurant, you get prepared food, cooked and chopped and ready to eat, on a plate.
This can nevertheless be better than food “products” because you may have ordered a salad whose leaves of red lettuce or arugula you can discern and whose ingredients might be few and made that day by hand in the kitchen.
6. Food products
On the other hand, there are food products which have been so transformed from the original plant or animal from which they (at least partly) originate as to make them new creations. I’m thinking of items like a bottle of salad dressing, a bag of chips, a box of frozen hash browns, most cereals, many breads. Processed foods.
You look at these and it is not immediately obvious what they are made of.
Then you look at the ingredients and you don’t know how to make some of them. Guar gum? Folic acid? Calcium chloride? “Natural flavor?”
If a food requires a chemistry lab to make, then it’s the lowest ranked food.
Pattern
I notice that the higher ranked foods are least convenient.
I wish this weren’t the case, but ain’t it like the rest of life?
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I concur completely.
It saddens me to see the cars lined up at fast food joints and the lines of obese people at the demo food carts at Costco. Manufactured Frankenfoods = excess weight and managed sick care.
A JERF diet (just eat real food) without an ingredients/warning label is probably the reason we are metabolically healthy. Sadly, there are very few who are willing to take the time to forage, harvest, grow food.
What is more important than health? The goal is to live long and die short.
70-something and skiing this winter!
Hi Lorie,
Good for you! I want to be able to say, “70-something and surfing this summer!”
I am confident that you will accomplish that with your kids and grandkids are catching waves right next to you!
Eating the right food is essential to good health, Still, we must always remember that the quality of what comes out of our mouth (our speech) is more important than what goes into it.
Hi Joshua,
On that note, I’m reminded that our words come from our heart, our souls. They are a manifestation of what’s inside. Sometimes I’m very ashamed of that reality.
I agree with your rankings. This is something we inherently follow in our household, but thank you for the visual. In what way do you cook and eat stinging nettle plants? I’d love to know!
Hi Katie,
I add stinging nettle to other cooked greens in a dish called moroho. My wife and I lived in a part of Africa where this was a common side dish for maize-meal porridge. Even our kids like it since we’ve been making it for them their whole lives.
I see that I mentioned this in my post on greens: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/growing-greens-in-southern-california/
My favorite would have to be “Garden Food”. We have a family compound on 2.5 acres in a canyon on the central coast. Currently we are enjoying tomatoes, potatoes, beets, asparagus (since spring), celery, carrots and strawberries, as well as the last of the Hass avocados. The hens provide eggs and manure for the garden and the rabbit provides an abundant supple of manure. The volunteer kale, and broccoli plants feed the hens. My next favorite would be “Farm Food” from my neighbors’ farm stands.
Living the dream, Bev!
I really enjoy your posts. I am a new comer to your site. I have a volunteer tomato plant that sprouted up along side a hot pepper plant from the nursery. The fruit is light green and about the size of a large Roma tomato. I tried to attach a photo but could not do it. They grow in clusters, the plant is quite hearty. Can you tell me what it might be and if we can eat it? Will it turn red?
Thanks,
Linda Chase
Pace yourself on the blue fin. I been working my way through about 100 pounds from a fishing trip. It has really high levels of mercury. Wild food is not without its problems.
Good point. Good thing to remember. Thanks, Chris.
Hi Linda,
I think the only way to find out is to bite into one. If it doesn’t taste good, then give it more time. My tomatoes are turning color very slowly now that it is the fall season so you might need to be extra patient.
Maharishi said “Don,t eat dead food”. IMHO a good rule of thumb. Applies to vegtables, vegan foods as well. And there are degrees of dead, rememver Princess Bride? “Hes only mostly dead” : ^ )
Hi John,
Princess Bride . . . my wife’s favorite movie!
That’s great advice. Most animals seem to follow it intuitively. If I put seeds or bugs in front of my chickens, they go for the most alive first.
Agreed!
Raw milk. Nope. There is a bacillus that can curve your back. It is related to the same bacilli that cause TB and other nasty diseases.
Raw milk which is safe (if safe that is), works great for health with many people. I’ve had no problem consuming raw milk for the past 10 years. Although I normally find fermented milk is healthiest for me, even raw, because non-fermented it can be a bit congestive,… so I normally consume it as clabbered/soured milk, homemade, though the raw milk I start with I buy at the store. And sometimes I have pasteurized Kefir from the store, but non-homogenized is necessary, homogenized is more congestive in our bodies,… not good for the vein health.
Scott, I have consumed raw goat’s milk, raw cow’s milk, and made butter and buttermilk with the latter.
Then I got a degree in Microbiology. You can take your chances, but here is some info to consider.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1472979222000038&ved=2ahUKEwjY79v9kdGQAxWrH0QIHY2hHl4QFnoECBYQAw&usg=AOvVaw2XHrwznd4lDr4aL6h3sSgq
Do you eat rabbits you catch? I tend to dispatch them.
Hi Leslie,
I have, but I don’t on a regular basis. I probably should do so more often.
I wrote this post on the topic some years back: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/eating-the-rabbits-that-eat-my-garden/
Restaurant food could be at the bottom. Why does it taste so good?…salt, sweet and fat. In large quantities. Not saying all restaurants are guilty. And what about the quality of the prepared food and the person preparing it? Again, not saying it’s the norm but you just never know.
Very true, George. Restaurant food is such a broad category that it could be up near the top or at the very bottom, depending on the restaurant.
This reminds me of something we ask our kids if they say a particular food is “good.” We ask, “Good for the tongue or good for the whole body?”
(Most restaurant food is good only for the tongue.)