Welcome to another edition of Change The World Wednesday. If you're new to our weekly challenges, please click HERE for a little background and information.
Lately my thoughts have been leaning towards starting a garden and enjoying fresh herbs and vegetables. As we talked about last week, whole foods are good for us and the environment. So, with that in mind, here's this week's challenge:
This week prepare at least one meal using only whole foods (if it's processed, labeled "low-fat" or "enriched", or includes ingredients that you can't pronounce ... it's not "whole". Instead, look for fruits, vegetables and whole grains.)
Or,
If that isn't challenging enough for you, eat only meals made with whole foods for one entire day.
Or,
Still not challenged enough? Okay ... your challenge is to go the entire week eating only meals made with whole foods.
So ... are you up for this tasty challenge?
Speaking of challenges, did you turn out the lights for Earth Hour (last week's challenge)? This year we decided to spend the hour enjoying the quiet ... we turned off everything, didn't light candles and instead spent a lovely hour simply appreciating the night. Let's check in with our Honor Society:
Mrs. Green took the challenge and wrote a wonderful post entitled "The Biggest Climate Awareness Campaign Ever". She and her family not only turned off the lights, they turned off electricity into their house ... and they extended the hour by keeping everything off until the next morning.
T.Rusk4u joined us! She also shared that her parties have gone green. Instead of paper and plastic, she's opting for glass plates, bowls, cups and inexpensive flatware.
Our friend Ange, took the challenge ~ she had a dinner party that night and they ate by candle light. Bet it was lovely!
Marcy celebrated Earth Hour ~ Family Style. Her post includes some great pictures! Thanks, Marcy ... it looks like it was fun!
Argentum Vulgaris decided not to join in Earth Hour. He has some valid concerns about candles and their carbon emissions. It's a good point ~ replacing an Eco-friendly activity with a non-Eco-friendly one doesn't work. May I suggest using soy candles or ... just enjoying the darkness for an hour. Thanks for raising our awareness, AV.
Kira took the challenge and emailed everyone she knows to spread the word. While she wasn't as successful at turning off the lights as she had hoped, I think she did a great job.
Thanks, Everyone!
As always, I've Stumbled and Tweeted your posts.
WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!
i must have forgotten last week's post! well i was out to dinner that night so the lights were off at home, does that count?
ReplyDeletea week of whole foods? not sure if i can do a whole week as i just bought tamales from my neighborhood tamale guy...hmm. how about 2 out of 3 meals so these don't go to waste?
whole foods - a whole blog on that might be good. is cheese considered processed then? pasta? sigh, my brain is confused...
Fab challenge; I've been looking into my diet recently and Mr Green has switched to a high raw diet ready for the summer.
ReplyDeleteI've written something up. Instead of agreeing to try and eat whole foods for a day, I thought it would be fun to look at what I ate yesterday to see where I could improve things.
http://littlegreenblog.com/blog/green-news/eating-whole-foods/
Good challenge, posted.
ReplyDeletehttp://tomusarcanum.blogspot.com/
AV
Count me in! I'll come back and share the recipe. :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://theaccessorylady.blogspot.com
Great challenge!
ReplyDeleteHi EcoGrrl ~ great question! Whole foods are not processed or minimally processed. So, unfortunately, it's not clear-cut. Here are a couple of links to help:
ReplyDeletehttp://naturalhealthperspective.com/food/
http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php
I would say that organic cheese is whole. With pasta, if the first ingredient is a whole grain (i.e. whole wheat) and there aren't many other ingredients like preservatives, etc., then I would consider it whole. The idea is to get food as close to it's original state as possible.
Hope that helps! Thanks for asking!
SF
My husband is a health nut. Apart from some 0% yoghurt for me, practically everything we buy is organic and wholegrain/wheat whatever. I make practically all of my meals from scratch and rarely buy take out (living in the country helps there - no one delivers!!) and have always done. Even our olive oil comes from a friend's farm. Guess it's chocolate our weakness - but then it's organic and from fair trade companies. I can give that up though.
ReplyDeleteLucky it's spring and some extra fruit are coming out. Having said that - can I still have home made jam made with the minimum amount of raw sugar?
Our bread is organic quinoa or spelt and made by friends who have an organic bakery.
it's my kids who are always asking me WHY we have to have everything organic and why they can't pig out on nutella and crap snacks like other kids. Every now and again I crack and buy a pot of Nutella or some bought cookies just so they don't go crashing a MacDonalds one day and over eat it to spite me.
Must admit - it's so 'strict' in my family that I crave a bit of the old junk food myself from time to time. But I can't eat white bread any more, although I'm a sucker for French desserts and pastries. Yep - thank goodness I live 20mts drive from the nearest yummy patisserie ;-)
Great challenge. This is another reason why gardening is so great. It amused me the other day, when my husband opened the pantry. He said to me,"You know what I love about this pantry? There is nothing processed in it. No crap food."
ReplyDeleteAs always, your blog is great!
I have put a recipe on my blog for a very yummy Curry Bean Soup that is a great wholefood lunch -if anyone is looking for ideas. I also have a new blog called Cancer Resolution at http://cancer2resolution.blogspot.com
ReplyDeletethat aims to help people with cancer fight back with food, supplements and complimentary therapies. Wholefoods and low sugar are a must.