Goal:  Optimize health by avoiding artificial and overly processed food products, following sustainable practices, support local business, and regain knowledge and control over what goes into my body.

How I determine what to eat

• Does it contain meat or dairy?  No
• Does the ingredient list read like a chemistry book?  No
• Does it contain HFCS (high fructose corn syrup)?  No
• Is it high in sodium?  (on top of too much sodium being bad, salt is commonly used to replace "flavor" from too much processing)  No
• Is it high in fiber?  Yes
• Is it organic?  Preferrably yes
• Would my great-grandmother recognize it as food?  If all the previous questions pass, she probably would.
• TODO:  Pick a food culture...possibly Greek? (if it weren't a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn't still be around.  Let culture be your guide, not science!)

Staple foods (very WIP)

• Milton's 100% whole wheat bread
• Colavita aged balsamic vinegar
• Martini's kalamata extra virgin olive oil
• Todo:  have Dave bring some of the California olive oils we found in SLO
• lots of olives
• avocados (and avocado oil)
• FIGS <3
• Fresh and Easy roasted tomatoes
• Brussel sprouts
• Mushrooms
• Good Karma vegan carrot cake ice cream (although TreeHugger disapproves)
• Cucumbers

Restaurants

• Sipz asian fuzion in Sorrento Valley and Clairemont Mesa
• Spices Thai
• Stout Public House
• Greens (San Francisco)
• Millennium (San Francisco)

Fast food

• Subway Veggie Delite on Honey Oat w/avocado (note:  avocado not available in all areas, such as arkansas)
• Roberto's vegetarian burrito without cheese (not great, but sometimes the only choice is cheap mexican)

Articles

• Grains and human evolution

  Unfermented, unsprouted whole wheat bread may actually be the worst of all.

• Nutrition and physical degeneration

  While we understand proteins, carbs, and fats reasonably well, and have a pretty good handle on most vitamins and about a dozen minerals, there is simply an immense amount we just don’t know. We are researching minerals at about 5 per decade (around 50 to go - a hundred more years at our current rate). There are around 5000 enzymes in bee pollen alone, and few of them have been researched. There are an unknown number of phytochemicals and other things we have yet to discover that have been constituents of our food for perhaps millions of years. Science moves very slowly, and it could easily be several hundred or 1000 years before we get it all sorted out. And that doesn’t take into consideration the power groups who insist on muddying the waters for profit’s sake. Modern science is quite obviously incapable of giving us complete answers to our nutritional questions.

   

My user story:  Why did I start all this?

Goal:  What choices are available, how to make better choices, what choices definitely not to make.

1. Food is not a contest
   • Don't feel challenged to finish a portion that's too big
   • Train yourself to eat half
2. HFCS = no
3. Fiber:  feel the power
4. Research everything
   • Example:  sodium in taco bell salads
   • Be wary of supporting businesses that don't publish nutrition info!
5. Try vegetarian / vegan!
   • Calories saved by skipping cheese alone
   • Hormones
   • Economic reasons
6. Support locally grown
   • Some at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Henry's, etc
   • Really gotta get in a CSA or find a farmer's market
7. Hacks
   • Unsweetened toothpaste
8. Avoid processed / refined foods
   • Avoid shopping through the middle isles of the grocery store...stick to the perimeter as much as possible
9. Further reading
   • An Omnivore's Dilemma
   • King Corn (documentary)