As this year began, I’ll bet your social media feeds were flooded with people resolving to eat healthier. We can all talk a good game about eating clean and exercising more often, but unless we have a plan in place — and understand what we’re doing, and why — it’s all too easy to tumble right back off the bandwagon, isn’t it?

I have talked with so many people about how Danny and I eat, and why we eat the way we do, and there are always a lot of questions — because I’ve learned that, for a lot of people, food is really intimidating. When Danny and I got married, I was intimidated by cooking, and he would get upset whenever I veered from a written recipe (because back then, the results were never good). But in six years’ time, things have changed! And so now I bring you Food 101, a five-week blog series that will explore the kind of food we eat, how we keep our food budget in check while eating healthy, how we eat healthy even when we’re busy, and recipes and resources I go back to repeatedly. For today, I wanted to share our food philosophy. Our food worldview, if you will.

For a few years now, food has been a whole lot more than just something I consume. It’s been one of my favorite topics of conversation, it has led me to some of my favorite reading material (really, cookbooks are fun!), and even influenced who we spend time with. I jest, although not entirely: when you get passionate about food and eating a certain way, it impacts your life beyond just mealtimes.

A bit of background: I grew up in a house with parents who were very health-conscious when it came to food, and they jumped on the organic train long before it was trendy. My father composted and had a backyard garden for my entire life. By the time I was 14, we consumed only organic animal products, mostly organic produce, and very few processed foods. About half of our meals were vegetarian, and we started eating tofu before it was mainstream . . . if you can even call it mainstream now. Danny grew up with a grandmother who was also into organic food way before it became normal, and since his family is Korean, he grew up eating dinners that weren’t your basic American meat-starch-vegetable combo (and breakfasts that weren’t remotely like typical American breakfasts — kimchi, soup, dumplings, and again, tofu). When we started dating, he began introducing me to ethnic foods — and now Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, Jamaican, Greek, Japanese, and Middle Eastern foods are responsible for many of my favorite dishes. Throw in a couple food documentaries, a stretch where we were juicing daily, and my experiment with eating hardcore-vegan for a few weeks last year, and I really solidified my stance on food and the way I want us to eat.

Basically, our food philosophy is very simple:

1.) Eat mostly natural, whole foods (that are also organic, ethically raised, non-GMO, etc., whenever possible)
2.) Learn to listen to your own body.

Let me break it down even further. When you’re eating unprocessed foods and cooking from scratch, my experience is that you end up a) eating less per sitting, b) eat only when you are actually hungry, and c) gradually stop craving processed, sugary, fatty foods — you even feel immediately physically bad when you do consume them. I pretty much can’t drink more than a few sips of soda anymore. I’ve also realized that I’ve been able to get in touch with what my body actually needs at any given time. I can tell when my body needs more protein (such as when I’ve been working out consistently), and I’ve become acutely aware of when my body is telling me I need more water. (Right now, for example.)

Since we rarely eat processed foods and find that we feel a lot better when we’re on a fairly low-animal-fat diet, I mostly prepare meals that revolve around vegetables, whole grains and legumes, and plenty of protein, although I rarely use meat for more than three or four meals per week. At first, limiting certain ingredients might sound restricting, but what I learned when I began dabbling with eating vegan is that cutting back on processed foods and meats just pushes you to be more creative and adventurous — and pushes you into using a whole slew of ingredients you might overlook if you stick to the familiar staple ingredients of the typical American diet.

Next Monday: What’s In Our Pantry — I’ll be going over some of those ingredients as I share what I keep stocked in my pantry to keep our (non) diet on track.

~ Laura