For the health conscientious person, there are a lot of buzz words buzzing around. When I first began diving into a more healthy way of eating for me and my family, I referred to our exit from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) and entry into health food as clean eating. It made sense to me - we ate food that was clean and pure. And furthermore, that was the name of my first ever purchased healthy eating magazine. And I still love Clean Eating Magazine to this day.
I had a blast using real, whole, clean foods to create new recipes that my family [mostly] enjoyed. The majority of my recipes in my old old old blogspot blog included "Eat Clean" in the recipe title. But then I read somewhere that clean eating was described as consuming 5-6 meals a day. Healthy ones, but definitely a lot of them. That's not what I was doing. So I began hunting for the correct term to use for our new way of healthy eating.
I saw many "whole food" terms and a few "real food" terms. To me, they probably had similar descriptions, if not exactly the same. I came upon article after article that chose to battle the meanings of different healthy eating styles. After a while, boredom set in from this exhausting topic. My head was spinning from overload and was quickly approaching the "I no longer care" category. I mean really, it's not football teams we're cheering for ... it's a healthy eating lifestyle. Can't we just unify and call it one basic thing? I'm certain that comment will get negative kickback. Whatever.
Based on nothing scientific or any specific article, I landed on "whole food". And that's where I've stayed for 2+ years.
"Whole Food for your Whole Life"
I should have just left good enough alone. Now, I stumbled upon an article with the whole food vs. real food title. Dare I even read it? Nah. I've been using the whole food term for far too long to consider reconsidering. I'll never read that.
After I finished reading it, I'm back to confused. Maybe even a little miffed. Really? Whole food is vegetables, fruit and whole grains only? Sounds like a strict vegan diet. And in the same article it defines a real food diet as eating whole ingredients. Ok, so Real Food is whole food. Whole food is .... wait. What? Am I alone here on confusion island?
I give up.
To break it down,
here is what the Costa Family & Now Go Cook
considers a Whole Food Diet:
