Both Food and Thoughts - Recipe philosophy

My recipe philosophy is they be no fuss, minimal cleanup, and always use fresh, organic ingredients. My father, his family were all diabetics, so I use a minimal amount of sugar as well. (more on sugar later). My advice to someone who can't afford all organic, start with organic fats as fat retains chemicals that you don't want to ingest. Fats are important for your brain health which includes your mental health.

My recipes are mostly my own. Of course any recipe can be found online and are sometimes copied from one location to another. Recipes are always "tweaked", a little change here or there for ingredients that are preferred. Some of mine have their roots in other recipes but I will mention the original source if so. Some are just recipes passed throughout generations, fund raiser cookbooks, etc.

With all the troubles I've had with weight, and various health issues, I've returned to focusing on my degree attained in Food Science and Nutrition. Many of my troubles started in the late 1990's, which as I've discovered, is about the time that the food industry began adding a lot of extra chemicals to food products starting with MSG. Now that I no longer eat that food, and am recovering from Small Intestinal Bacterial Overflow (SIBO) my recipes all avoid added chemicals.

I've transitioned to completely organic foods and avoid all GMO's. With family members who have cancer or lost the fight with cancer, organic is something I strongly believe in. While the science  community tells us that GMO structures may be no different that the original organism, they have impacted our environment, changed farm practices so that soil no longer has the nutrients that get passed onto the plant and may also have impacted our gut health. The increased use of glyphosate (round-up) is destroying our heath.

Whether you follow Paleo, Blood type, or any "diet", the main approach is to eat the best ingredients you can afford. You can eat organic now and pay a little extra in your grocery budget.  Or not and pay a lot later in medical costs or serious health conditions, including obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and auto-immune disorders.

I believe that obesity is no longer a simple calorie/exercise issue. I think the chemicals in foods are causing food cravings that lead to increase calorie consumption and slowing metabolism at the same time. So when you try to lose weight these foods are basically sabotaging your efforts.

If you aren't trying to lose weight my recipes all support better health using the most updated information on nutrition knowledge. This knowledge is always changing as more research is completed. It's important to note that the fund source of the research should always be considered as the food industry has strong influences on what does and doesn't get published. Case in point the sugar industry suppressing for years that sugar was more detrimental to heart health and pushed that dietary Cholesterol was the culprit. Nutritional advice is still slow to recognize that sugar rather than cholesteral in meats, eggs, etc., causing more health issues. This is due in part to the heavy influence of the pharmaceutical industry that is heavily invested in cholesterol lowering medications.

So, you can see that my recipe philosophy is influenced toward creating nutritious, health conscious food that doesn't rely on factory prepared foods yet is still easy to prepare.