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)
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Great interview. I made tons of mistakes when I first started eating a traditional diet. The hardest things for me to wrap my head around were the whole fat thing and soaking grains. I have to admit that I still fall down on the job when it comes to soaking grains sometimes. I’m not very good at planning ahead.
.-= Lovelyn´s last blog post …A Puff of Madness =-.
I’m laughing because I bought the Costco pack of Agave Nectar as well! Still haven’t been able to throw it out, but I don’t want to eat it either. So it sits in my cupboard just taking up space. =)
The minute I found out about the agave in a bottle I told my mother, who is borderline diabetic and was using it, and she got it right out of the kitchen. I do have an issue with throwing away food but not when it’s something which could cause health issues.
.-= Soli @ I Believe in Butter´s last blog post …Real Food for One- Frittata =-.
Maybe you can use it in a hummingbird feeder?
.-= Diana´s last blog post …Menu Monday =-.
If you haven’t opened it and it hasn’t expired, I’m sure a food bank would be happy to take it.
I’m glad now that I never bought or bought into agave. I have learned that if anything is being pushed as the latest new health craze to stay away from it for a couple of years until more information comes out.
Avoid These 5 Healthy Lifestyle Mistakes http://ow.ly/2Clz6 #health #nutrition #lifestyle
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
trying to do too much..buy Loads of expensive ingredients & never getting round to making the recipes. Keep it simple at first is my advice!!
Not giving recipes more than one try. I would try it, no one would eat it, and I’d move on…but I found later that it wasn’t difficult to get creative and make the food fit my family’s needs…and eventually they came around. Don’t give up!
*raising hand* I use Splenda. As far as I’m concerned it’s a compromise food, not a do-not-eat-ever. I get sick if I consume too much added sugar, and I’ve heard conflicting things about the safety of stevia, so even if I always liked the taste of stevia, I would not want to use it all the time. I may get to the point where I alternate between sweeteners as I figure out what I am doing in a culinary sense. But I also do not suck down sweet stuff all day long. When I was at my highest carb intake, most of that was savory carbs. I haven’t been a candy junkie since I was a kid.
oh and understand that most people are set in their ways & sadly wont share in your enthusiasm :0(
I learned the hard way and wasted a ton of money. I now tell people best time to start in the spring and summer and stick to the farmers markets…this way you dont get swallowed up by all the false marketing:) Or simple some shopping with me in the fall or winter! Great article!
Thank you for posting this. I keep making mistake #2, even after five years. I’ll try harder.
So about that chicken carcass: http://bit.ly/f3LElO
That’s interesting to know about the Agave. I’ve seen it in the supermarket and was a bit suspicious. Just because something’s an alternative to cane sugar doesn’t mean it’s automatically healthy for you.
I’m actually having the most trouble with number 2. My Dad and I have a health related argument almost every time I get on the phone with him. He’s the one bringing it up too! I know he’s just concerned but trying to explain why pasture raised/local hen egg yolks are good for you is like telling him I’m doing cocaine! I’m not even bring it up, he is! So I complied an email of links/articles/websites I use to make ‘real food’ and health choices. My step mother printed some for him to read. I’m hoping he does!