newb
(noun/adjective)
1. Sometimes spelt newbie, a newb is a player new to a game. Inexperienced and occasionally frustratingly so. However, due to them being a newb, they should be treated with patience because everyone was new once. [Urban Dictionary]
Hi, my name is Amy.
“Hi Amy”
I’m a real food newb and this is my first meeting.
(quiet, supportive applause)
There, I said it. I’m a real food newb. Feels good to get that off my chest. See, lately I’ve been hanging out with food bloggers. I mean kick butt foodies like Stephanie from Stupid Easy Paleo and Kelly & Tamara from Oh Lardy! These people KNOW food. Some of them are certified nutritionists and I, well, I’m not.
I only learned how to pronounce quinoa within the past year…
(It’s pronounced “keen-wah” by the way). I’ve heard of Kombucha (kawm-boo-chah) but I haven’t tasted it let alone considered MAKING it. Sure, I’m familiar with yogurt & chicken broth, but I usually buy it ready made. (Make yogurt at home? You can make yogurt at home??!) Of course deep down I KNOW these things all have a beginning point and that they were handily made by our ancestors without thinking twice. But somehow, somewhere along the way, we got a little sidetracked.
I blame Tupperware.
Are you a child of the 60’s? Did you, like me, grow up during the convenience food boom? An era where we learned to burp re-usable plastic food storage bowls and “lock in freshness”? Convenience foods were marketed as time savers, giving many housewives the idealized notion that being hip and modern in the kitchen was equal to being a smart and sophisticated woman. After all, you can’t go burn your bra if you’re slaving over a hot stove all day!
This time period also saw the beginning of more and more women working outside the home. With this evolution came the birth of latch key kids. Latch key kids were children of the 70’s who wore their house keys around their neck so they could let themselves into their parent free home after school. These kiddos were hungry when they got home. The solution? MICROWAVES! More convenience foods made their appearance, and so it went…until now.
Real Food: A true revolution or just a triumphant return to glory?
Suddenly everything old is new again. Cloth diapers, cooking from scratch, gardening, raising chickens and stay at home moms (remember that brief spell in the nineties when admitting that you were a stay at home mom was taboo? UGH!). I don’t see the real food movement as a revolution per se. I see it as one of many lifestyle comebacks, thankfully with a modern twist.
My great grandma didn’t have a bread machine, a dishwasher or a fuzzy logic rice cooker, but I do. So why I shouldn’t I be able to cook as she did? I never met her but I have to (want to) think she was a smart, classy woman who would have shook a finger at me if she were to see me taking convenience food shortcuts. Especially when I have access to amazing machinery that makes healthy cooking (and clean up) so damned easy. (Word G-Ma!)
Why I eat real food.
I’ve seen a phenomenon among my life energy coaching clients as they work through transforming their lives for the better. In almost every case, the person develops an interest in eating right. Many of them voluntarily cut out soda, cigarettes and fast food because those habits no longer support the higher vibrational being they are becoming.
Looking back I can see my own food evolution. I used to eat peanut butter snack cakes for breakfast and a double cheeseburger, fries and large soda for lunch. Every. Day. It was cheap, it tasted good and it satisfied my hunger. But as I grew as a person and learned to love myself more…well now there are days when the thought of drive thru makes me queasy. I’m not saying I never do it, but it’s not daily like it used to be. There are other so called staples that are leaving my life right now for the same reason, they don’t support my highest and best self. Those things are processed sugar and processed flour. I still eat them, but not as often, and I’m actively experimenting with healthier alternatives.
I don’t have a food guru.
You’d think I’d have a food high priest that directs my grocery shopping and meal planning. After all I work and network with over 100 food and wellness bloggers! But no. When it comes to choosing new foods, or deciding where to turn to learn about preparing or creating foods in a new way, I rely on only one source. My intuition.
My intuition is that tiny voice of my higher self. You have one too. Everyone does. Some of the people who DIDN’T get on the Titanic did so because they had a feeling, a premonition, a thought that they shouldn’t. That was their intuition speaking. I wonder how many people ignored their intuition and went down with the ship. We’ll never know.
My intuition knows what’s best for me, more so than my mind which at times succumbs to advertising, peer pressure, emotions and boredom (do you eat for any of those reasons?) When it’s time for me to learn a new cooking technique, that technique will make itself known to me (“when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”) Like that homemade yogurt I mentioned earlier. When I was ready to learn about lacto-fermentation (that’s fancy speak for curdling milk with live bacteria) Jill from The Prairie Homestead did a series on butter making, yogurt making, and cheese making. That’s just how intuitive learning happens for me. It probably happens the same way for you.
Ok, so what?
Ok, so I’m not a foodie, and I’m definitely not a food snob. I just don’t know enough to be an expert on any of this and that’s ok. I am exactly where I need to be. And I guess I’m here to encourage you to be ok with where you are as well.
No matter what your diet (or lifestyle) is, know that you are an ever evolving being. If you’re not happy with the foods that you eat, or the choices you make (either due to convenience or budget needs) it’s ok! Where there is a will and an intention, there will be a way. If you commit yourself to making positive, long lasting changes, the right teacher will appear.
And maybe that’s me…
If the real food newbs of the world need a champion, then I’m willing to be their man girl. I’m prepared to stand as crusader for all the Gen X’ers who, like me, learned to cook during a time when everyone was leaving the kitchen. I’ll boldly stick my neck out in a world of foodies and share my favorite from scratch recipes, even though they may not be 100% “real food” (I’m talking 80/20 here kids…we’ll get to that later). Elect me as your leader, and I promise I will share with you all that I learn about preparing healthy, real food as I learn it.
Join me– let’s stand together, newbs united! Individually we may be lost and confused in a world of GMOs and other icky things we probably shouldn’t eat, but together, together WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD ONE DIET AT A TIME!
(Word G-ma!)