{"id":24539,"date":"2025-10-23T12:14:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/?p=24539"},"modified":"2025-11-01T09:03:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T16:03:23","slug":"food-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/food-rankings\/","title":{"rendered":"Food rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What do you eat? What should <\/em>you eat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

From best to worst, here is the order in which I would rank food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Wild food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Examples are stinging nettle, volunteer tomatoes, rabbits, the bluefin tuna shown above.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Garden food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The cabbage you grow, oranges from your tree, potatoes, walnuts, avocados.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Farm food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(From a stall at a farmers market, you buy beets and strawberries, pastured poultry, honey.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Grocery store whole food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A bag of rolled oats from the bulk bin, some dry beans, raw milk, apples, a steak.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Restaurant food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A pasta dish, curry with rice, a hamburger.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Food products<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Frozen chicken tenders, most cereal, most beverages, most bread.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any thoughts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Explanations for the rankings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Wild food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plants take up some portion of the substances in the water that they “drink” and therefore so do we when we eat the plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> or this study with avocados<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Garden food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also likely to be fresher, which can be more nutritious and almost always tastes better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Farm food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Grocery store whole food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a store you can know far less about a head of cauliflower you buy. It might be labelled \u201corganic\u201d but what does organic mean, actually?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, at a store you can see the produce in its whole, raw state, which ranks it above restaurant food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Restaurant food<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a restaurant, you get prepared food, cooked and chopped and ready to eat, on a plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Food products<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You look at these and it is not immediately obvious what they are made of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a food requires a chemistry lab to make, then it’s the lowest ranked food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pattern<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I notice that the higher ranked foods are least convenient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish this weren’t the case, but ain\u2019t it like the rest of life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for your support<\/a> so I can keep this website ad-free!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of my Yard Posts are listed here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFood rankings - Greg Alder's Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/yardposts\/food-rankings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Food rankings - Greg Alder's Yard Posts: Southern California food gardening\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What do you eat? 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