We’ve all been there. There’s always a learning curve whenever you’re trying out something new. But sometimes it would be real nice if that learning curve weren’t so steep. If, instead, you could simply learn from other people’s mistakes.

Today I invited Kelly the Kitchen Kop to share her Top 5 Mistakes she made as a Real Food Rookie.

Hi, Kelly! Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Let’s start by setting the stage. How did you first get interested in Real Food?

It was after I began the South Beach Diet over 6 years ago and a friend suggested it might not be the best way to lose weight.  She directed me to the Weston Price site and my life has never been the same!

What are the five biggest mistakes you made when switching to Real Food that you’d like to help others avoid?

1.  I wasn’t real sure at first about the whole “healthy fat” thing and it took me a bit to totally jump on board.  I questioned why I wasn’t hearing this from my doctors and figured that surely there was a reason they were still gung-ho about low-fat everything.  Soon common sense won out.  What fats have we been eating for thousands of years?  (Butter, lard, tallow, coconut oil.)  And what fats have we been eating since people started getting more and more sick and overweight?  (Modern, super processed oils like soybean, canola, safflower, along with trans fats, etc.)

2.  I didn’t keep my mouth closed enough when around my family, and my bulldozer opinions caused some to not dare ask me anything again, or not for a while anyway.  I wish I had chilled out a little and let them ask questions when they were ready.  That’s not easy to do when you know the people you love could feel better if they’d only _____ (fill in the blank).

3.  I went out and got huge jugs of Agave Nectar when I read that it was a “natural sweetener with a low glycemic index”.  I soon found out more, and an article by Sally Fallon Morell said that it is highly processed and should be called, “High fructose Agave Syrup” due to it’s high fructose content, the worst kind of sugar for our health.  Now I know which truly natural sugars work best in which recipes, and I’ll share that in the class. 

4.  We once bought a quarter of a cow (that’s a LOT of meat, trust me) from a place where we ended up not caring for the taste of their meat.  (That happens sometimes, depending on where the cows roam & what they’re fed.)  I’m glad we didn’t give up on pastured meats, we’ve now found delicious meat from a place we love (some local and some online).

5.  Early on I put the focus too much on getting the bad stuff out (buying organic for example, when often that was just another processed food), and not enough on getting the good stuff in (like fermented foods, cod liver oil, bone broth, etc.)

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can identify with these mistakes (particularly that last one). How many of you or the people you know, for example, wanted to take control of their health and began by switching to low-fat dairy, or eliminated sugar in favor of fake-food alternatives like Splenda?

So, Kelly, tell us why you created this e-course.

To answer that, first I’ll tell you why I began my blog.  It was when friends were all asking me the same questions about Real Food and I wanted one place to send them for the information I found in all my research.  Fast forward almost 3 years and there’s a lot of information on the blog – it can be overwhelming, so this course breaks all that down into a crash course over 12 weeks where you’ll learn all that it took me years to figure out. 

To find out more details about Kelly’s Real Food For Rookies E-Course, click here. You won’t regret it!

(photo by elcefeliz)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. GIVEAWAY: Real Food For Rookies E-Course
2. Good Fat, Bad Fat — A Video Tutorial
3. Real Food For Rookies

Confused about why so-called healthier food options like whole wheat bread, organic skim milk, or tofu aren’t really all that healthy? Overwhelmed by the process of changing your diet to include more traditional, nutrient-dense foods? Well, you’re not alone! There are lots of people just like you out there — people who are eager to take control of their diet, but are intimidated by a lack of knowledge. Thankfully, Kelly The Kitchen Kop created an online course to help all you Real Food Rookies out.

If you’re thinking of enrolling, enter this giveaway first. Not only will one of you lucky folks win a place in the online class, but everyone who enters will get a coupon code for 15% off the course (that’s an $18 savings)!

I remember what my own Real Food Journey was like — long, arduous, and full of mistakes. I honestly didn’t know where to begin. What was more important — organic milk or organic vegetables? Sourcing locally, organically, or humanely? Which foods should I eliminate from my diet altogether?

I’m so thankful Kelly’s put together this class to help people make that transition smooth & easy instead of bumpy and complicated.

What You’ll Win

Everyone who enters will get a coupon for 15% off the Real Food For Rookies E-Course, and ONE LUCKY WINNER will receive a completely free enrollment!

How To Enter

Leave a separate comment for each of the following possible ways to enter.

1. Click on this link, read about the class, then leave a comment HERE sharing why you want to take the class. This counts as your first entry, and you MUST do this to enter the contest.

2. Blog about this giveaway and link back to this page on your blog. Comment below with the link. (1 extra entry)

3. Sign up for my email updates or RSS feed. Leave a comment below telling me that you signed up. You will also get an entry if you already subscribe — be sure to leave a comment! (1 extra entry)

4. Follow me on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway. Be sure to include the URL to this page in your tweet. Click the TweetThis button at the bottom of the post, or you can use the following tweet: “Don’t enter to win a slot in the Real Food For Rookies E-Course! I want it all to myself. http://tinyurl.com/28wgl9u” Leave a comment telling me that you followed & tweeted. (1 extra entry)

5. Email 5 friends about the giveaway, with a link to this page. Leave a comment below telling me that you did. (1 extra entry)

6. Stumble this post and leave me a comment telling me that you did. (1 extra entry)

There are a total of 6 possible entries!

Questions? Comment below.

This contest will end Friday, September 3rd at 11:59 PM PST. The winner will be chosen via random.org, and will be announced on Saturday, September 4th. The lucky winner will have 48 hours to contact me with his or her full name and email address.

NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: http://cmp.ly/5

Proud to participate in the Real Food Wednesday blog carnival!

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. GIVEAWAY: Chaffin Family Orchards Olive Oil $59 Value
2. GIVEAWAY: Wellness Consult & Miessence Organics Samples
3. GIVEAWAY: Healthy Eats Here! Restaurant Guide

If the recent outbreak of salmonella in U.S. supermarket eggs is any indication, food borne pathogens are not going away. In fact, they are increasing in number at an alarming rate. Yet I’m not afraid of contracting salmonella from my eggs. In fact, I eat them raw.

Am I stupid? Do I have a death wish? Nah. I just know my farmer.

You see, the “family farm” where these contaminated eggs originated is huge. According to the New York Times,

The DeCosters produce 2.3 million dozen eggs a week (!) in Iowa. Over the years, many here have objected to the growing operations of Austin J. DeCoster. Neighbors sued the DeCosters’ farms for what they said were noxious gases, millions of gallons of uncovered manure and putrid animal carcasses left on roadways. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources declared Mr. DeCoster a “habitual violator,” making his the only operation ever to be deemed such in Iowa, for its handling of hog waste.

[emphasis mine]

It’s only common sense that chickens raised in such massive operations will produce and spread pathogens like salmonella. Of course contaminated fecal matter will spread more readily among 100,000 confined birds jammed into tiny cages (or even so-called “cage-free”, yet crowded spaces) than it will among birds roaming freely on pasture. Of course hens living in close contact with out-of-control rodent populations (which carry salmonella) will be more diseased than chickens living outside. Of course de-beaked and force-molted chickens will be more prone to disease than those that peck, build nests, exhibit their natural chicken-y behavior, and get regular exposure to sunlight (aka: Nature’s disinfectant).

This editorial from the New York Times summarizes the scope of the DeCoster operation this way:

It wasn’t simply that the operation is out of scale with the Iowa landscape. It is out of scale with any landscape, except perhaps the industrial districts of Los Angeles County. What shocked me most was the thought that this is where the logic of industrial farming gets us. Instead of people on the land, committed to the welfare of the agricultural enterprise and the resources that make it possible, there was this horror — a place where millions of chickens are crowded in tiny cages and hundreds of laborers work in dire conditions.

Thankfully, I don’t buy eggs from this kind of mammoth, disease-spreading system. I buy eggs from a local farmer just down the street. His hens are out to pasture with his cows. They eat grass, bugs, and larvae. Their diet isn’t even supplemented with feed. They get sun. It’s what’s called a pastured poultry operation, and you should try to find one near you, too.

Of such operations, Joel Salatin wrote:

So far, not one case of food-borne pathogens has been reported among the thousands of pastured poultry producers, many of whom have voluntarily had their birds analyzed. Routinely, these home-dressed birds, which have not been treated with chlorine to disinfect them, show numbers far below industry comparisons. At Polyface, we even tested our manure and found that it contained no salmonella.

Pastured poultry farms exhibit trademark lush pastures and healthy chickens with deep-colored egg yolks and fat. As with any movement, some practitioners are excellent and others are charlatans. Knowing your product by putting as much attention on food sourcing as you do on planning your next vacation is the way to insure accountability.

I’d be willing to bet that my farmer’s manure doesn’t contain salmonella, either. And you know what, even if it did, and even if his eggs became contaminated, I’d be willing to bet that the outbreak wouldn’t be responsible for more than 1500 cases of the disease (as the DeCoster farm is). That’s the glory of small-scale producers.

Want to know how to prioritize your egg purchases? Check out this article on Healthy Eggs: What to Buy.

(photo by cskk)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Organic Is Not Enough
2. Heirloom Poultry, I Love You
3. HR 2749 Nearly Passes And Spells The End Of Local Food

Welcome back yet again to another Fight Back Friday! Today we are bringing together another collection of recipes, tips, anecdotes, and testimonies from members of the Real Food Revolution.

Who are they? Why, they’re the Food Renegades. You know who you are — lovers of SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical) food, traditional food, primal food, REAL food, the list goes on. I believe that by joining together, our influence can grow, and we can change the way America (and the industrialized world) eats!

So, let’s have some fun.

If you want to participate but aren’t sure how, please read these guidelines for how Fight Back Fridays will work.

Please be courteous and use your BEST blog carnival manners! In the very least, that means remember the two most important things you can do:

1. Share a relevant post from your blog with us using the McLinky Widget below (don’t just link to your blog’s home page).
2. In your post, be sure to link back to this post (not the Food Renegade home page) so that your readers can have access to all the information and encouragement we’ll be sharing.

Please also feel free to make use of any of the banners below by saving the image to your desktop then uploading it to your own server. (You don’t have to use them, but they’re there for you!)

If you don’t have a blog but are interested in joining the conversation, you can leave your comments below!

Fight Back Friday Banners

PLEASE NOTE: The smaller banners are also available as badges/buttons for your sites over on my sidebar so that you can sport your Real Food Lovin’ Pride and inspire others to join us in the Real Food Revolution. Just copy the code and paste it into your sidebar. (Again, you don’t have to use them to participate in the carnival.)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Fight Back Friday August 20th
2. Fight Back Friday August 13th
3. Fight Back Friday August 6th

Did you check out this amazing Sneak Peak from the Surf & Turf e-course on How Food Impacts Our Mood? The first lesson was AWESOME. Ann Marie’s still accepting late-comers (this week only). Email me for a $20 off coupon!

Thankfully, I discovered the world of Real Food when my youngest was an infant. Translation: it’s pretty easy to get my kids to eat Real Food. They don’t put up a fight when I serve them salads, seafood, or liver. Oh sure, they still beg me to take them to McDonald’s or get them doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, but at least they’ll also eat what I cook. But what do you do when you started eating Real Food after your kids already developed a picky, junk-food loving palate?

I watched an absolutely hilarious video posted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop this morning, and it brought this question to the forefront of my mind.

First, watch the video. Kelly made it to serve as a brief promotional spot for her new Real Food For Rookies E-course. But she used her teenage son to film it, and his responses to their midnight trip to the grocery store had me laughing out loud.

You see, I regularly get emails from Readers asking me how to help their older kids appreciate Real Food. Since my situation is so different, I don’t have advice. What do you do when your teenage son would rather eat Fruit Loops than the eggs and bacon you cooked up?

So, rather than trying to sound like an expert when I really know nothing about the best way to respond, I thought I’d ask you, my Readers, for advice.

What would you do? What do you do? What works? What doesn’t? Let’s help each other out!

(Oh, and to find out more about Kelly’s class, click here!)

Also, these are some of the articles I’ve written on the topic of Real Food and kids over the years. Enjoy!

Raising Kids To Enjoy Real Food
How To Quit Eating Fast Food
Marketing Food To Your Kids
It’s The Junk Food Commercials

(photo by maurag)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Junk Food Isn’t All Bad
2. There Is No Love In That Food
3. Raising Kids to Enjoy Real Food

In my house, the new homeschooling year starts next week. Since I know many of you are on a similar schedule, I thought I’d give you an update about the educational materials I’ve made available. Considering that I’ve been getting at least 5 or more emails a day asking for such an update, it’s probably long past due.

There are a lot of great things in the works, so I hope you’ll keep reading.

Book For Ages 12 & Up
Real Food Nutrition & Health teaches nutrition in an intensely readable and engaging way. It’s inspired by the same love of wholesome, traditional foods that you find in the cookbook Nourishing Traditions, the work of Weston A. Price, the Slow Food movement, and farmer’s markets everywhere. The book is currently available as both an e-book and a 203 page, spiral-bound book.

Book for Ages 6-11
Real Food Nutrition & Health For Kids contains 15 simple and easy to understand lessons written for the elementary aged child. Each lesson includes a creative & fun coloring page relevant to the topic discussed, as well as activities including puzzles, experiments, & more. The publication of this book was delayed due to the birth of my third child. I’m currently working on the final round of edits and hope to have it available to you soon.

Coloring & Activity Book
For the truly little ones, this book compiles the activities and coloring pages from the elementary book and makes them available sans commentary or lessons. This book will be made available when Real Food Nutrition & Health For Kids comes out.

Real Food Nutrition & Health Discussion Questions
For those among you who want to lead discussion groups, or want to give your child a more directed reading of Real Food Nutrition & Health, these discussion questions will probably not be made available until next semester. So look for me to make it available in December.

Real Food Nutrition & Health Audio Book
If you’re an audio book lover who likes to listen to books while driving, exercising, running errands, or doing your laundry, this will be available for purchase in December.

Real Food Nutrition E-Course
This 10 week e-course will run from October 1st through December 10th, with a week off for Thanksgiving. Registration will open September 6th. As a concession to parents, coursework can be graded. Class will include audio files, videos, online group discussions, weekly assignments, and reading materials.

Hope you have a good school year!

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Real Food Nutrition & Health Book List
2. Wardeh’s E-Course Frequently Asked Questions
3. Announcing a Real Food Nutrition & Health Course

Are you a total newbie to the world of eating Real Food? Are you wondering just how to start making the changes to your diet that you know are necessary? Do you want to start eating healthier foods, but aren’t clear about how to prioritize your choices in the supermarket? Do you want to know how to fit Real Food into your busy schedule without going broke?

Let me introduce you to Kelly The Kitchen Kop’s Real Food For Rookies E-Course. While there will be recipes, this isn’t a cooking class. This is an all-out introduction to eating Real Food, starting with the most basic first step of identifying fake foods and moving on from there with regular, attainable goals.

You could spend months, or even years, researching and implementing these changes on your own. Or, you could pay someone like me hundreds of dollars for individual one-on-one coaching sessions to help walk you through the process of improving your diet and sourcing better foods.

But why would you do that when Kelly’s compiled everything you need to know to get started into 12 weeks of online learning?

What You’ll Get

Audio Interviews

• Sally Fallon Morell (President of the Weston Price Foundation)
• Dr. Kaayla Daniel (author of The Whole Soy Story)
• Jane Feingold (Director of the Feingold Association)
• Tom Naughton (Fat Head filmmaker)

Videos

• Visiting a farmer’s market
• Interviews
• Recipes
• Real Food Basics such as the benefits of raw milk, alternatives to refined sugar, and more.

Written Materials

• Weekly handouts
• Kitchen Kop Real Food Ingredient Guide

Exclusive Forum Membership

• Ask and answer questions
• Exchange tips
• Chat about making the change to Real Food without anyone thinking you’re a weirdo!

Coupons (More Than $60 in Savings!)

• Cod Liver Oil
• Probiotics
• Online Sources of Real Foods like grass-fed meats
• Stainless Steel Cookware
• & more!

Lifetime Acces

• Listen, watch, and read at your leisure!

Watch This Video

For more details about the class, including pricing, class schedule, and in-depth goals for what you’ll learn, click here.

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. GIVEAWAY: Real Food For Rookies E-Course
2. Real Food Nutrition For The School Year
3. 5 Mistakes Real Food Newbies Make

The news doesn’t surprise me. Female infants in China have been growing breasts. “According to the official Chinese Daily newspaper, medical tests performed on the babies found levels of estrogens circulating in their bloodstreams that are as high as those found in most adult women. These babies are between four and 15 months old. And the evidence is overwhelming that the milk formula they have been fed is responsible.” (source)

When I first read that headline, I thought that soy formula was to blame because of its high estrogen content. But no, further investigation revealed that the biggest culprit is actually milk-based formulas. You see, like the US, China has no laws prohibiting the use of bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in dairy cows. Isn’t it wonderful to be part of such a large biological experiment without your consent?

The dairy industry wants you to believe that milk from cows administered growth hormones is safe — that there’s no difference between rBGH milk and regular milk. As such, the labels on milk and cheese and other dairy products aren’t even required to tell you the products are made using rBGH milk. In fact, the only way you’ll know if your dairy comes from cows raised without the hormones is if it’s labeled as such. But guess what? The dairy industry has even fought (unsuccessfully thus far) to keep labels such as “rBGH-free” or “growth hormone free” off of dairy products.

Yet there’s plenty of evidence from around the world implicating growth hormones, not just the recent findings in China:

In the 1980s, doctors in Puerto Rico began encountering cases of precocious puberty. There were four-year-old girls with fully developed breasts. There were three-year old girls with pubic hair and vaginal bleeding. There were one-year-old girls who had not yet begun to walk but whose breasts were growing. And it wasn’t just the females. Young boys were also affected. Many had to have surgery to deal with breasts that had become grossly swollen.

Writing a few years later in the Journal of the Puerto Rico Medical Association, Dr. Carmen A. Saenz explained the cause. “It was clearly observed in 97 percent of the cases that the appearance of abnormal breast tissue was…related to local whole milk in the infants.”

The problem was traced, and found to stem from the misuse of hormones in dairy cows. When Dr. Saenz was asked how she could be certain the babies and children were contaminated with hormones from milk rather than from some other source, she replied simply: “When we take our young patients off… fresh milk, their symptoms usually regress.”

In light of just how much of the infant formula in the U.S. is imported from China, the recent news ought to scare you.

So, what are your alternatives? Of course, the obvious first solution is to breastfeed your babies. If, for whatever reasons, that’s not possible, then there are still better alternatives to commercial formula out there. Check out these life-saving recipes developed by the Weston A. Price Foundation. That page even includes a recipe for how to fortify store-bought formula to make it more nutrient-dense and more easily absorbed.

And, if you want to know how to prioritize your dairy purchases, check out this post on Healthy Milk: What To Buy.

(photo by seandreilinger)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Healthy Cheese: What to Buy
2. Decoding Supermarket Beef Labels
3. Healthy Milk: What To Buy

Did you check out this amazing Sneak Peak from the Surf & Turf e-course on How Food Impactss Our Mood? Enrollment closes this Saturday, the 21st. Email me for a $20 off coupon!

Welcome back yet again to another Fight Back Friday! Today we are bringing together another collection of recipes, tips, anecdotes, and testimonies from members of the Real Food Revolution.

Who are they? Why, they’re the Food Renegades. You know who you are — lovers of SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical) food, traditional food, primal food, REAL food, the list goes on. I believe that by joining together, our influence can grow, and we can change the way America (and the industrialized world) eats!

So, let’s have some fun.

If you want to participate but aren’t sure how, please read these guidelines for how Fight Back Fridays will work.

Please be courteous and use your BEST blog carnival manners! In the very least, that means remember the two most important things you can do:

1. Share a relevant post from your blog with us using the McLinky Widget below (don’t just link to your blog’s home page).
2. In your post, be sure to link back to this post (not the Food Renegade home page) so that your readers can have access to all the information and encouragement we’ll be sharing.

Please also feel free to make use of any of the banners below by saving the image to your desktop then uploading it to your own server. (You don’t have to use them, but they’re there for you!)

If you don’t have a blog but are interested in joining the conversation, you can leave your comments below!

Fight Back Friday Banners

PLEASE NOTE: The smaller banners are also available as badges/buttons for your sites over on my sidebar so that you can sport your Real Food Lovin’ Pride and inspire others to join us in the Real Food Revolution. Just copy the code and paste it into your sidebar. (Again, you don’t have to use them to participate in the carnival.)

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. Fight Back Friday August 27th
2. Fight Back Friday August 13th
3. Fight Back Friday August 6th

WOW. You’re in for a treat. I signed up for Ann Marie’s new Surf & Turf online cooking course, and today she released another Sneak Peak video from her first lesson: How Food Impacts Our Mood. It’s amazing.

It’s just a 4 minute clip out of an entire lesson, but WOW. Well-produced, informative, and including interviews from Sally Fallon Morrell (president of the Weston A. Price Foundation) and Julia Ross (author of The Mood Cure), this video is top-notch. If it’s at all like the rest of the videos and podcasts in the e-course, I will be getting way more than $100 worth of content over the next 13 weeks.

And, yes, I said $100. If you email me, I can give you a coupon for $20 off the e-course that can be applied to either the 4-month payment plan OR the one time payment option. So, I’ll be paying less than $8 a class to get videos, podcasts, 100+ recipes, exclusive forum membership, and step-by-step instructions on how to prepare nutrient dense organ meats, wild caught seafood, and grass-fed meats.

Oh, and did I you catch that enrollment was extended for an extra week? So, it officially closes this Saturday, August 21st. If you want to join me in taking the class, you’ve got just 4 more days to enroll.

Here, take a look at this Sneak Peak video and tell me what you think.

Check out the Surf & Turf E-Course for more details.

(Photo by ChelseaM)

NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: http://cmp.ly/5

Liked what you read? You may find these other posts interesting:

1. WINNER: Surf & Turf Course PLUS COUPON
2. GIVEAWAY: Surf & Turf Class
3. Wardeh’s E-Course Frequently Asked Questions