Real Food Face-Off: Hallee the Homemaker vs. Just Makin’ Noise

February 16th, 2010 · 11 Comments · Real Food Face-Off

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Faith brings another pair of real food bloggers to the Face-Off floor, where they’ll compare notes on following the same God from very different life perspectives. Both these gals are fairly new to me: Hallee the Homemaker was referred by Kelly the Kitchen Kop and Mare at Just Making Noise squeaked into the Face-Off just a week or so ago. I was tempted to dismiss her “Can I join in?” query, but the Holy Spirit must have led my mouse finger to click over to her blog. I found her story, style and personality to be so compelling that I couldn’t help but extend the invite, and she fit perfectly in my last empty spot. God is good!

Visit the Real Food Face-Off Introduction page for a full list of all the participants and the complete list of possible questions. Each week, only a handful of the contenders’ answers will be posted here.

Week 6: Hallee vs. Mare

Hallee at Hallee the Homemaker blogs about her deep faith, incredible recipes, and other homemaking topics. She is a fan of whole wheat, homemade bread and is married to Gregg, who is also active around the blogosphere.

Mare at Just Making Noise is a mother of two little ones currently residing in Central America as a missionary. If that fact alone wasn’t enough to keep her blog content unique, her tagline is “sound bites from a deaf mama.” Never a dull post over there!

Below are the answers to some real food questions, in the bloggers’ own words:

How do you describe the way you eat when someone asks you to define your food?

We follow a Levitican diet (not Kosher), which includes avoiding such things as pork, shellfish, bottom feeders, snakes, snails, puppy dog tails, etc. We make as much as possible homemade, and use whole grains. We do not consume anything made with or use any artifical sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, or transfats. We also do not consume unfermented soy.

For fun, I asked my hubby this question and his answer was short & simple: healthy, delicious and experimental. HA! I usually tell people that we try to avoid processed foods and eat real food given to us from its natural source. We avoid pork and seafood. We prefer grass-fed meat from local sources and clean fruits & veggies. We don’t drink pasteurized milk (lactose-intolerant) and stay far away from soy products as much as possible. We also don’t eat refined sugar and prefer using raw honey, coconut sugar or rapadura.

What was/is your major incentive for living a real food lifestyle? (How did you come to eat the way you do?)

The short answer is that we observe this diet as a form of worship by which we show reverence to our Provider, by whose hand all things were made and all things are handed down to us. We believe that God created us and God, not man, created the food that He ordained for us in this world. Our diet is an expression of both respect and gratitude for His bounty and a tool He has entrusted to us to use in His ministry in feeding His sheep and bringing glory and honor to Him. Our diet is a ministry. (More on this topic.)

When I first became pregnant I really started to care about what I ate and what it can do to my growing baby. After reading The Maker’s Diet, it made total sense to me to eat only what God created and follow the biblical dietary guidelines as much as possible. You can read more here.

If you only had energy for ONE make-from-scratch food, what would it be? Is your preference for taste or health?

I think that if I could only do one make-from-scratch food, it would have to be bread because the nutritional value of wheat disintegrates over time. So, my family would get the full benefit of fresh ground wheat used to make homemade bread three meals a day. Our initial incentive to changing our diet was for health, but we have since discovered the amazing quality of how much better real food tastes than what we had been eating before.

A gallon of lacto-fermented Cortido: Homemade Latin American Sauerkraut. Chopping up all those veggies, letting it ferment and taking in the first bite is all worth it! Your gut will holler with delight when all those live enzymes, probiotics and vitamins do their healing work. Both taste and health… sometimes we might not like something right away or find it bland, but we have to allow our taste buds and brain time to adjust to eating different things that are excellent for your health but not common in the American diet. Basically, we have to retrain our taste buds to enjoy real food that we should’ve been brought up on.

What food was your favorite that you no longer eat (or shouldn’t eat)?

Pepperoni pizza. When I make pizza at home, I use turkey pepperoni. Not exactly the best substitute, but it works. Rarely, when we eat pizza out, it’s the only time I eat pork and one of the only times I eat white flour.

I had so many! Twix candy bars, frozen pizza, TGI Friday’s Brownie Obsession… Thankfully I don’t miss them. All I remember now of those days was how yucky I would feel after eating that stuff and learned to ignore it. Not anymore!

What’s your favorite real/traditional food?

It’s hard to say. I make everything I can homemade and we enjoy just about everything I make. I will say that Sue Gregg’s oatmeal blender waffles are by far the best waffles I’ve ever made – and I used to make pretty good waffles. Even if we started tomorrow eating white bread drenched in pork fat topped with high fructose corn syrup whipped topping, I’d still make these waffles.

My fermented Cortido topped over raw cheese quesadillas with sliced avocados and a squeeze of lime juice.

AND

My kefir smoothie made with strawberries & mango. It’s like having ice cream but only better!

What was the hardest transition to make to real food?

Discovering all of the premade items in grocery stores that contain high fructose corn syrup, soy, or transfatty acids. I became an avid label reader, and found so many things – including some “100% whole wheat!” breads that we just couldn’t eat anymore.

Learning how to live without convenience foods like frozen pizza, chips, ice cream, cereal and crackers.

What’s next on your list of changes to make?

We just recently purchased a grain mill and several kinds of wheat berries. I will start grinding my own flour as soon as I use up my supply of store bought flour.

Grow a garden when we move to our new place. I also want to learn how to make the traditional corn tortillas… the lime soaking process is still being used today in Honduras (where we are moving)! Also, I would love to enjoy more organs and do a challenge on how to eat an entire cow someday

)

What is the worst food (or “food”) a person could possibly put into their systems?

Transfatty acids would be the “worst” as far as damaging to your health. I think that artificial sweeteners would pull a close second.

The combination of soda & candy. Those two things are the most consumed “foods” in the market and responsible for almost every disease we see today. They are also two of the few common processed foods that contain 100% man-made ingredients.

If you had only $20 to spend in a week on real food, what would you buy and what would you make?

I would buy bone-in, skin-on meat, whole wheat flour, and then look at what was left for vegetables. If there was enough left to get fresh, then I’d get fresh. Second choice would be frozen, followed by canned.

Raw milk & cheese, eggs, brown rice and beans. I’ve been learning how simple most people’s diets are here in Central America and yet have beautiful teeth & wonderful health.

Name the top food scoring highest on both the nutritional and budget scale? (i.e., best health benefits for the lowest cost)

Fresh fruit and vegetables, especially home grown – that’s the healthiest, best for the budget which is the perfect model for stewardship of the land and monetary resources.

Well, I was going to say eggs… but after living in a tropical country for almost 2 years now, I have to say coconuts. The water provides a rich source of minerals, vitamins & electrolytes. The meat is low carb with a rich source of saturated fats along with anti-viral, anti-fungal & anti-bacterial properties. Coconuts are known to promote energy, strength and health among the people who eat them regularly. Eggs come in at a close second though

)

What’s the most creative thing you do to make life easier in the kitchen?

Good equipment and utensils make my life easier, but aren’t so creative. The most creative thing I do is to make sure that my toddlers (ages 3 and 1) are able to help me as much as possible when I’m in the kitchen. Because I make everything homemade, and because I cook or prepare three meals a day, I spend a great deal of time in the kitchen. As such, my children are in there with me. They have become masters at adding this and that to the mixer or turning the handle on the sifter or even cracking an egg or two.

When I make my lacto-fermented Cortido I don’t pound the cabbage mixture like it says to in the Nourishing Traditions book. I simply mix in the sea salt and whey then let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour. The sea salt naturally draws out all the juices and saves you all that pounding time that can put a knot in your neck! Simply scoop everything into a jar and pound down firmly (with your hand or wood masher) till the juices covers the mixture.

How important is organic food?

Organic food isn’t as high on our radar as it is to some people. We buy organic when the price is right. Our rule of thumb is we will pay up to 10% more for apples to apples and we will always choose organic for the same price or less than non-organic.

Well, for my situation… organic is important because chemicals and pesticides are not regulated here in Central America. We aren’t always able to find everything organic, but we have developed relationships with farmers who use no pesticides and do their best to care for their lands naturally.

Number one tip you tell your blog readers about eating healthy foods:

In accordance with Romans 14:2-17, we explain the dietary choices we have made but are always careful not to judge or condemn any dietary choices that differ. Our explanations are meant to educate and illuminate so that they are part of the answer for the hope that lives in us. We constantly reinforce that we avoid unhealthy foods such as transfats, artificial sweeteners, and HFCS and all of the recipes on my blog prefer the use of whole grains, real butter, raw honey, extra virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, and other healthy alternatives to shortening and margarine.

Try one new thing at a time, make one change at a time and don’t be afraid of the process.

For those wondering what they should get right away while changing over to real food… find a good source of raw milk. It doesn’t have to be labeled “organic” and remember to know your source. You can go to WAPF’s raw milk page and locate a source near you. For those who might have to travel a distance (so worth it!) to get their raw milk, goat’s milk freezes wonderfully and you can buy a month’s worth to save traveling time.

Follow Hallee on Twitter @halleeb. Follow Mare @marebeard.

See the rest of Hallee’s answers here and Mare’s here.

Now it’s your turn! I’d highly recommend honoring my real food guests with a visit over to their blogs, Hallee at Hallee the Homemaker and Mare at Just Making Noise. If you have any questions or thoughts about their answers here, get a little discussion going by leaving a comment.

Notes: Check out Modern Alternative Mama for an Eat More Fat! Challenge Announcement. Link up your meatless meals at Mama Says today. And be sure to visit my other post, God and Grains.

Be sure to come back on Thursday for the next installment of the Real Food Face-Off, Jenny at The Nourished Kitchen vs. Michelle at Find Your Balance. Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed to make sure you catch them all. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Special thanks to Jo-Lynne from DCR Design for the fabulous Face-Off logos. Please visit her if you are a blogger looking for design improvements!

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