My Real Food Diary

When I first began my journey toward health with a real food diet, I often wondered what other real foodies were eating. I wanted to compare my food choices to the food choices of others who I admired within the real food online community. If Blogger X was eating a certain food, it surely fit the “real food rules”. Right?

Well, maybe.

Pin This Article for Later What I Ate This Week Real Food

Don’t Get Stuck on Real Food Rules

I quickly realized that there are many choices when it comes to eating real foods. Just because Blogger X eats homemade sourdough bread only doesn’t mean that it’s against the rules to eat sprouted bread. Or just because Blogger Y won’t touch dairy or grains doesn’t mean they’re bad for us all. I think Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist, hits on this point when she discusses her decision not to regularly post a food diary.

It’s too easy for newcomers to the real food movement to get hung up on what a certain respected real foodie is eating and attempt to copy those meals exactly. This can lead to people not eating the foods that are appropriate for their individual systems and needs.

Keep it 80/20

Another point to consider – one that would certainly make many real food bloggers shy away from sharing what they eat – is that while following the 80/20 (or 95/5, etc) rule they may eat things that are outside of what we all know are optimally healthy foods. This may cause real food newbies to be mistaken about the healthiness of a certain food or meal and cause those who know real food well to accuse the blogger of promoting unhealthy foods.

Seriously, it’s okay to have donuts a few times a year. When you eat at least 80% honest-to-goodness real food, your body can handle a little junk without breaking down.

I Still Love Looking at Other Folks Diaries

It’s a complicated situation, as you can see. Regardless, I would love a peek into the food diary of other real foodies and am sure I’m not alone in that wish. And so, I will share my food diary from time to time.

I’ll record a few days and mark with an asterisk any food that I feel is in my 20% of less-than-perfectly-healthy foods and explain why it’s unhealthy.

Don’t take my food choices as the only ones acceptable on a real food diet. Realize the incredible combinations of foods that can create an infinite number of real food meals. Eat what your does your body good and use my food diary only as inspiration and not as gospel.

My Real Food Diary – What I Ate This Week

Monday

Breakfast – 6 oz raw, grass-fed milk
2 pastured eggs, over easy, fried in butter, sprinkled with sea salt

Snack – a few pieces of maple chocolate fudge

Lunch – Tomato, avocado and goat cheese salad, covered in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt

Snack – peaches and blueberries

Dinner – Slow cooker beef stew made from local, grass-fed beef

Snack – a few pieces of maple chocolate fudge, 6 oz raw, grass-fed milk

I also had a few ounces of homemade Kombucha throughout the day and organic black tea, iced and sweetened with raw honey.

Tuesday

Breakfast – Soaked oatmeal, 6 oz raw, grass-fed milk

Snack – blueberries, maple chocolate fudge (I LOVE this stuff.)

Lunch – Burger from local restaurant*, fries*

Snack – Homemade banana berry popsicle, sample sized at Farmer’s Market* and a spoonful of local honey and honeycomb (Have you ever chewed honeycomb like gum? Takes me right back to my childhood when my dad took up beekeeping as a hobby.)

Dinner – Tomato, avocado and goat cheese, covered in olive oil

I drank water and iced black tea, sweetened with raw honey

Wednesday

Breakfast – 6 oz raw, grass-fed milk, 2 pastured eggs, over easy, fried in butter

Lunch – 4 small slices of homemade sourdough crust pizza

Dinner – Grass-fed sirloin steak, summer squash sauteed in butter

Snack – Blackberries straight off of the vine

Snack–6 oz raw, grass-fed milk

I drank Kombucha and iced black tea, sweetened with the local raw honey I picked up at the farmer’s market on Tuesday.

Thursday
Breakfast – 6 oz raw, grass-fed milk, 2 pastured eggs fried in butter

Snack/Lunch – several cubes of gouda (I don’t advocate skipping meals! I was so busy that I didn’t realize I was hungry until I started to prepare dinner. I ate some cheese to hold me until dinner was ready. One benefit of eating a diet high in fat is that I don’t get hungry between meals very often.)

Dinner – Meatballs, rice, and green beans

Snack – 2 pieces of homemade sourdough bread with butter

I drank iced black tea, same as above.

Where are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? I forgot to record them. 🙁

* These items were part of my 20% of foods that aren’t so great.

The burger was not grass-fed or local and the buns were not soaked, sprouted or fermented making them more difficult to digest.

The fries were likely fried in rancid vegetable oils of some type.

The homemade popsicles at the farmer’s market contained cane sugar.

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