Ditching the Drive Thru

Today it seems like we never have enough time and certainly not enough time to make a dinner from scratch like our grandmother's make unless it's a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Most of us are families in which both parents work and we barely have enough time to get it all done, along with taking our kids to school, picking them up, homework, sporting events and finding time for dinner is usually something we grab on the go or head to the nearest drive thru. While we know it is not healthy, what else can the average home do to ensure we are feeding our families healthy food and just how can you be sure what you are buying is truly healthy anyway.

J. Natalie Winch wrote a book just for people like us called Ditching the Drive-Thru, how to pass up processed goods, buy farm fresh, and transform your family's eating habits on a modern mom's schedule. Just hearing that was enough to make me want to check out this book. She teaches you the difference between grass-fed versus grain-fed, pastured versus free-range, or organic versus sustainable. Readers will gain a much needed lesson not only in knowing why but in how to do it, along with a 30-day plan to convert your family from junk food to real food without a revolt, something that I absolutely needed because my kids are hard to get them to try something new, especially if it sounds healthy. This book even includes recipes and advice on planning and preparing meals to you can make home cooked a habit for your family besides those special holiday times. Tips are included from locating local farms, seeing through marketing buzzwords and shopping with CSA's.

"The diet industry present us with a simple equation: fat=unhealthy. Of course, it tends to ignore the possibility that increased body fat is related to the chemicals and additives in processed foods manufactured by the industrialized food system. Fat in itself is not inherently unhealthy, although fat-laden refined food generally is. As our food becomes more and more processed in order to make food easier and faster to consume, our people are rowing less and less healthy. Food quality declines, overall healthy declines, people start gaining weight, and then the diet industry gets a major boost. " (pg 8).

I received Ditching the Drive-Thru by J. Natalie Winch compliments of Spikehorn Press and iRead Book Tours for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation, aside from a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. After watching my husband at 46 have a major heart attack, this was a huge wake up call for both of us. After meeting with our cardiologists, he agrees that the ages of people having heart related issues is getting much younger than ever before and it is based on what we are eating. This is why this book is so critical to gain the knowledge we need to make the right decisions to start feeding our families the right way and in doing so, give them a quality of life that they can pass on to a future generation. It is interesting to note that there has also been a rise in cancer deaths and when you look at the facts, it is hard not to put it all together and discover it has to do with our food we are eating. This book helps put all of that into perspective and well worth all 4.5 out of 5 stars in my opinion.

For more information about Ditching the Drive-Thru, J. Natalie Winch or where you can pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the links below:

Ditching the Drive-Thru by J. Natalie Winch 

You can find J. Natalie Winch on Facebook to stay up to date on all her latest tips on healthy eating.

To read more reviews on Ditching the Drive-Thru, please visit iRead Book Tour page. 

Unprocessed

I don't think I have ever read a memoir quite like Megan Kimble's. In fact the only time I will really read a memoir is if the author is someone I really want to know more about. However, her year long challenge to see if she could go without eating anything that is processed, was something I was truly interested in, especially after watching, Super Size Me, and watching how processed fast food impacts the body. I was more than pleasantly surprised after sitting down and reading this from cover to cover in one sitting and asking myself if I could do the same thing Megan did. My outcome, probably not, but I loved living vicariously through her while she did so on a very meager budget I might add.

When you think about it, most of the food we eat outside of fruits and vegetables are mostly processed in order to preserve shelf life and to last longer than it would without all those additives we seriously never considered what they do and if they are good for our bodies. I mean, they wouldn't be able to sell the stuff on the supermarket shelves if they did right? You might be just as surprised as I was after reading this. As Megan experiences things such as learning how to make bread, the old fashioned way, and what is the right grains to use, yes, she becomes a younger version of Martha Stewart and buys a grinder. She learns what it means by "rule of thumb" and how through trial and error manages to pull of home made bread that calls to her after she finishes baking it in the over. She shares with us all that even those tried and true places we believe may in fact be healthy like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, might in fact not be as innocent and healthy as we thought.

She takes you on a journey not only how things are made, but at the conclusion of each chapter, she shares her secrets on how to make things like sea salt, bread, chocolate, how to can tomatoes, how to make your own almond milk, and so much more. For someone like me, this book is chalk full of great facts like knowing for example that 90% of our sodium intake is from processed food and only 10% is added by us in our daily diet. What the difference is between all those brands of sugars, raw and natural as well as artificial sweeteners, along with the differences between all those milk products we find, which is truly the best for our body and why we are often lactose intolerant. You might be more than surprised. I applaud her efforts to pulling this off and I learned quite a bit about reading my labels more accurately and supporting local farmer's markets to sell strictly organic, pesticide and antibiotic free produce and meat. We may not be able to change how supermarkets sell produce but we can decide how to spend the money we earn in a better way to support small co-ops and organic farmers and dairies.

I received Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food by Megan Kimble compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review aside from a free copy of the book, and the opinions expressed are strictly my own personal. For this reader, I may decide to take up canning if done properly to ensure I have some great produce available when it is out of season, and now found some new uses for my food processor. Overall, well written, informative, and engaging to keep me interested in finishing this in one sitting, thus a 5 out of 5 star rating in this reader's opinion.

For more information about Unprocessed, Megan Kimble or where you can pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the links below:

Unprocessed by Megan Kimble

You can find Megan Kimble on Facebook to stay up to date on all her latest books.

To read more reviews on Unprocessed, please visit William Morrow's Website.