I wasn’t even sure I was going to answer the questions when this whole thing got started, and here I am facing off against Nina Planck, author of Real Food and one of the inspirations for many of us self-titled “Real Food Bloggers.” I feel very unworthy, both to be facing Nina Planck and to have featured so many wonderful foodies already here at Kitchen Stewardship.
This series has introduced me to some new people and given me a chance to go more in depth with some of my favorites, as well as interview Sally Fallon Morell.
We have learned from those of us who, like me, have rather recently jumped into the Real Food movement with both feet, those who have been fully immersed for a number of years, and others just testing the waters and making changes one baby step at a time.
Thank you to the Real Food Face-Off participants, the men and women, parents and grandparents, human beings trying to do their best with their food…for being willing to share your thoughts with the world.
It’s truly been an honor to host, and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.
Visit the Real Food Face-Off Introduction page for a full list of all the participants and links to their face-offs.
The Final Face-Off: Nina vs. Katie
| Nina Planck grew up on a farm eating nothing but local, real food, then left all that behind to become a vegetarian world traveler writing speeches for government officials and reporting for TIME Magazine. She finally came back to butter, cream and eggs and opened the first farmers’ markets in London, launching her next career as a Real Food icon. She married Rob Kaufelt and happily drinks raw milk and nibbles artisan cheeses in Greenwich Village together with their son, Julian, and still rather new twins, Jacob and Rose, born August 2009. Her second book, Real Food for Mother and Baby, tries to debunk some of the longstanding nutritional myths surrounding fertility, pregnancy, and feeding babies. | I really should have had someone else write this for me. Who wants to talk about themselves? (Bloggers, some might say. Touché.) Here’s how I ended up here, in brief: I wanted to write a book called Kitchen Stewardship. Easier said than done. I started blogging to have some accountability to keep writing and see if my idea would hold water, and I discovered books like Real Food, Nourishing Traditions, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I began applying my own philosophy to my ever-widening cache of food information and took baby steps, one at a time, until I started hosting the Real Food Face-Off, which has made me feel guilty for not doing more.  |
How do you describe the way you eat when someone asks you to define your food?
| We eat real food. If humans have been eating it for a long time (hundreds, thousands, or millions of years), we call it real. If it’s been produced and processed pretty much the same way since then, we call it real. Wild salmon, grass-fed beef, raw milk, proper cheese. With a few fun things, like dark chocolate, and raw honey and real maple syrup. | I eat traditional foods, which means in a nutshell that if we as humans haven’t been eating a food for hundreds, or better yet, thousands, of years, it shouldn’t be passing my lips. Margarine and Crisco are great examples of “foods” of this century that don’t count! Mostly, I try to include basic foods that pack a nutritional punch, rather than to focus too much on avoiding. |
What was/is your major incentive for living a real food lifestyle? (How did you come to eat the way you do?)
| I was raised on real food. Then I went astray with vegan, vegetarian, and low-fat diets. My health faltered. I came back to real food bit by bit. Started with eggs for breakfast. A huge improvement. Dropped non-foods like non-fat frozen yogurt – the lowest form of milk. | I believe God gave me the gift of my human body and the earth we live on. I am called to be a good steward of those gifts and care for both well. As a mother, He has blessed me with the immense responsibility of feeding and growing two children, and that impacts my food choices even more than concern for my own health. I’m also a bit of a rebel inside, so I have to admit I’m drawn to traditional foods because they’re countercultural, and that makes me happy in its own right. |
If you only had energy for ONE make-from-scratch food, what would it be? Is your preference for taste or health?
| I love to make meatloaf (half beef, half pork) and I love chilli (no beans). But is roast chicken my all-time favorite food? Perhaps. We eat for taste and health. I don’t eat anything solely because it’s healthy – hmmm, except, perhaps, cod liver oil. | It’s a tie between chicken stock and homemade yogurt. Yogurt is just so easy and saves so much money; our health benefits because we eat it more when it’s always available. However, you simply cannot buy bone broth in a store with the same calcium, collagen, gelatin, and other health benefits of homemade chicken stock, so because it’s so elusive, I would have to make it myself. If I got too tired I could coach my husband how to do these tasks, too! |
What food was your favorite that you no longer eat (or shouldn’t eat)?
| Non-fat soft-serve frozen yogurt. And I used to consider the imitation crab meat at salad bars – the flaky white stuff with the orange edges – a delicious treat. But it’s truly the lowest form of reconstituted fish. I was also a juice addict. If you’re on a low-fat diet and drink a lot of juice, you’re wreaking havoc with your blood sugar and moods. Dumb. | Honestly, besides the fact that I need to cut down on refined sugar, I really miss easy chicken. So many of my good chicken recipes start with boneless, skinless breasts, which are just too pricey when you buy meat at the farm. I get tired of only having shredded chicken, but when I harvest some breast meat from our whole birds, it’s like a delicacy! |
What’s your favorite real/traditional food?
| I’m crazy about real chicken stock and beef stock but mine is never as good as it could be. I’d have to go with a fresh glass of raw milk, not too cold. | Plain homemade yogurt with raw honey and frozen fruit. |
What was the hardest transition to make to real food?
| Without a doubt, my toughest challenge in the change from low-fat, vegan, and vegetarian diets was adding real fats. My first steps toward conscientious omnivory were eggs, roast chicken, and yogurt. Good moves, all. But losing my fear of fat took some time. But oh boy, when I did - happiness. And better health. And no more struggles with my weight – the most amazing part. | Second guessing everything. Eating is no longer a question of “Does it taste good and won’t break the bank?” But now it’s “Is it sustainable? How to prepare? What are the origins? How did people used to eat this and why? Etc.” It’s also a realistic struggle to find the funds for pricier food. And the time to prepare it. There’s a reason KS seeks balance! |
What’s something you remain afraid to try?
| I’m not scared of anything, but I have learned there are foods I just don’t like very much, and I should stop trying them again and again. I dislike green and black tea, beer, and lamb. But who cares? If there are a few real foods you don’t like, just don’t eat them! | Kombucha. The darn mushroom is staring at me in my fridge, taunting me that I’ve already killed it! I even bought the tea; I just can’t seem to prioritize it enough to put it on my to-do list. (There’s plenty more for this list, by the way!) |
What’s next on your list of changes to make?
| I could drop a few bad habits: I eat standing up, when alone. I eat too fast, when alone. | Grind my own grain. |
List your top 3 baby steps to move from a Standard American Diet to Real Food.
| 1. Stop eating industrial corn in all its forms: corn oil (and all the other yellow oils); corn syrup (it’s everywhere); and corn-fed/industrial feed-lot beef. Of those, the beef is definitely the best for you. 2. Stop eating anything that’s been engineered to be in high in something or low in another. 3. Cut refined sugar and white flour to the bare minimum. |
This is tricky, because it really matters where you start. If I’m drinking 3 diet sodas per day, that needs to change before I worry about where my fish comes from. Here is an attempt at 3:
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What is the worst food (or “food”) a person could possibly put into their systems?
| Trans fats are bad. So is sugar in all its forms. Even honey and maple syrup should be treats. | A toss-up between trans fats and artificial sweeteners, along with all the junk and excess consumption that usually comes along with those. |
If you had only $20 to spend in a week on real food, what would you buy and what would you make?
| Some meat and some dairy and some affordable vegetables. Chocolate and wine would be sacrificed. | For starters, I would NOT buy lettuce for salad. It’s too easy to spend $5 on lettuce for the week even without going organic.
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What does “eating healthy” mean to you?
| Eat all kinds of real food in moderation and ignore all the diets out there. | Focusing on the foods we need to eat to have healthy bodies, rather than demonizing foods we’re afraid of. I think there are two paradigms of healthy eating in America. Ask not what you can take out of your food, but what your food can put into you. |
Name the top food scoring highest on both the nutritional and budget scale? (i.e., best health benefits for the lowest cost)
| For children I’m a big fan of whole dairy, beef, chicken, and eggs. Canned wild salmon is affordable and very good for you. So are canned small oily fish. | Chicken stock for sure. You take bones that would be garbage and a buck’s worth of vegetables (or garbage scraps, too) and come up with something totally nourishing. It’s like beyond free. |
Biggest drawback of real food lifestyle?
| I can’t think of any but one: if I had a real food luxury, it would be a Raw Milk Butler. He’d bring me fresh raw milk round the clock. No orders, no collections: just a steady delivery. | Trying to explain why you do what you do to other people, especially in-law type people. The fight to keep candy at something less than a mountain for the kids. |
What’s the most creative thing you do to make life easier in the kitchen?
| Creative I’m not, particularly. I love to mix spices with butter and olive oil thoroughly, and then schmeer it on and inside a chicken to roast. Favorites are cumin, cayenne, and chili powder. I love fresh herbs under chicken skin, and I love throwing herbs, garlic, oil, and nuts – whatever I’ve got – into the food processor. I love a sharp fresh green sauce, and the sky’s the limit, for combinations. The other day we had salsa verde (the Italian classic) but without the basil or mint: just parsley, anchovy, garlic, capers, and oil. It was very nice on beef and I was grateful for the green flavor in deepest February. | Cheat on dishes! If I measure salt or something dry, the spoon goes right back in the drawer without apologies. I let a lot of things get rinsed and air-dried so the dirty dishes pile looks more tolerable. |
How important is organic food?
| Ecological is important. But most important: real. The real thing. Real chicken, not ‘tofurkey.’ No imitation foods. I grew up poor on real food. It wasn’t organic (though our home-grown vegetables were ecological). | For the earth, I think it’s super important, as long as it’s sustainable organic and not just “certified” on-paper organic. For our family, it’s hit or miss. We’ve increased our organic intake a ton in the past year; I used to get zero organic animal products. Cost is a major factor, as is quality. |
What do you refuse to buy at a grocery store that you do eat from its source?
| I would never buy farmed salmon but I do end up eating it, despite myself, at weddings and in other desperate situations. | Nothing. I’m getting there on meat, especially beef. But I’ll still compromise in a pinch. |
When eating out, how do make your menu decision (fav “out” food, anything you avoid)?
| In good restaurants I treat myself to the good white bread they serve. We are blessed with super bakers in NYC. And restaurant butter – while probably French and pasteurized – is usually terrific. We eat a lot of French and Irish butter at home, too. There are too few good American butters. But I digress. Otherwise it’s meat and veg for me at restaurants, and things I don’t do well, like marrow gellee or something similarly traditional and peasantry but labor-intensive. | If there’s wild caught salmon, I go for it because I don’t get that at home. I might lean toward beef over chicken after reading Sally Fallon Morell say that no one should ever buy conventional chickens, period. I try really hard to avoid trans fats at all cost, but I like to let my hair down sometimes too and just enjoy a meal without fretting. |
Best book recommendations?
| My favorite books on what to eat are my own. My favorite cookbook is Nigel Slater’s Appetite. | The Omnivore’s Dilemma to open your eyes, Real Food for accessibility, and Crunchy Cons for the philosophical. |
Number one tip you tell your blog readers about eating healthy foods:
| Everyone wants to know how much to eat of one thing or another. You’ve gotta figure that out for your own body and mind. No one can tell you. Not your mother, not the USDA, and not me. | Eat more healthy today than you did yesterday, and accept that you can’t do it all at once. |
Follow Nina on Twitter @ninaplanck. Follow Katie @kitchenstew .
This has been the last Real Food Face-Off! Don’t despair; there’s always more to do at KS. We’re talking sourdough recipes all this week and learning to sprout things, and Thursday I have an announcement of the next li’l ol’ series around here.
You can win THREE TINWARE BREAD PANS, my sourdough success gadget, here at KS through Sunday.
Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed to make sure you don’t miss a thing. 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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Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Any links to Amazon are affiliate links, which means I get a small kickback if you purchase by starting here. I appreciate you doing so if you’re buying online anyway, but I’d also recommend trying your local library first! Of course, if you’re going to shop at Amazon, you may as well try Swagbucks. I’m liking the gift cards to Amazon that are rolling in!
The image is from Nina Planck’s website.
See Real Food Wednesday for more real food inspiration!
Katie:
It was a pleasure to participate in this with you and everyone else. I have looked forward to every Face-Off. I learned a lot, was enlightened a lot, and feel a lot less alone in the world.
Thank you again for including me!
Hallee
.-= Hallee the Homemaker´s last blog ..Critical Thinking: Fallacies from Relevance IX =-.
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I put measuring spoons back in the drawer, too.
I would love to know what to DO with small, oily canned fish. We’ve never eaten them, and I’m not sure if I’d even like them (I don’t tend to like “fishy” fish), but I’m not even sure how to try them to find out. What does one DO with anchovies (besides pizza) or sardines?
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Wow; Crazy! =-.
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Emma in Oz Reply:
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Hi Rachel,
I only just came across this post so sorry for the late response
I had the same dilemma with the oily canned fish but have discovered a delicious way to eat Sardines.
I buy tinned sardines in olive oil rather than the sunflower or ‘vegetable’ oil variety and I toast a slice of wholewheat sourdough, butter it and spread it generously with a wholegrain mustard, top it with the sardines and then sprinkle liberally with chopped fresh parsley, freshly-ground black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. It is absolutely delicious for breakfast, lunch or a light supper.
Hope you give it a try
Emma.
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Rachel R. Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Thank you, Emma! I will try that.
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..How Do You Manage Online Time? =-.
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Fantastic post! Nina Planck is one of my absolutely favorite real food authors, because she is so accessible and less focused on “rules” and more focused on merely being aware and excited about eating real foods!
Thank you for hosting such a fun carnival, Katie! I’ve so enjoyed reading and being a part of it!
Best,
Sarah
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..The Walk of Shame . . . =-.
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I would love to get Nina’s meatloaf recipe
Sounds like one my husband might like!
Katie – I am curious, with 1/2 a pastured chicken, once you de-bone it and NOT counting what you would throw into a broth (bones, etc) – how much meat do you get? One meal, two meal worth? One meal and a casserole? I know you have 4 meals listed above with your chicken, but that seems like alot – unless the chickens I get are just smaller then they grow up there
But seriously, not to be critical, but because I am one that is very guilty of buying boneless because of the ease and I am wondering if I really need to re-think my chicken. What would you consider a “serving size” when serving chicken? We have similar size families so I feel like I can kinda compare with you 
For me, a large chicken breast (whole, both sides) – would easily feed us for 2 meals worth of any kind of casserole or soup dish or 1 meal of just a chicken breast and sides. And it would cost around $6 for me here.
And I do know there is an added benefit of buying with bones for broth, and I do buy whole chickens, bake them and use the meat and then save the bones BUT if I am not buying a whole chicken I tend to buy boneless breast or drumsticks.
Thanks for your thoughts – loved the face-off with Nina -she’s one of my favorite authors!
.-= Jen´s last blog ..Pampered Chef =-.
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Katie Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 2:13 am
Jen,
It’s been a while since I measured a whole chicken, but I think I get 4-8 cups of shredded meat, depending on size. I use 2 cups for soup, and the lentil casserole can be meatless or w/ 2 cups chicken. The wraps may have been ambitious to add – but you can stuff them with veggies and just a smidge of chicken. Chicken rice-a-roni only uses broth, so I had two, maybe 3 chicken meals. Could that realistically happen with HALF a chicken? Not sure, but it was fun to guess!
Lately I’ve been roasting my chickens first, so that knocks out a lot of meat as a “main” part of a meal. The shredded that remains all gets packaged in 2-cup portions in the freezer, so that stretches it pretty far for lots of meals.
Katie
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Thanks so much for doing the real food face-off. It has been so fun to read every week. I hate to admit, but I haven’t read any of Nina Planck, but that’s my next book at the library.
I have a question about meat. We are anxiously awaiting our side of beef to be delivered. I can also buy whole chickens at the farmers market, but they are $4.00 a pound. So, my question is, is it better to just not eat very much chicken, or is it OK to occasionally eat regular store bought chicken. We hope to soon start raising our own broilers, but just aren’t to that point yet.
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Michael Reply:
March 10th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I wouldn’t eat a lot of chicken because of the PUFA content although in moderation in an overall good diet it certainly will work.
I would never buy CAFO chicken for my family. I would do CAFO beef before chicken.
.-= Michael´s last blog ..Pemmican Is Not Jerky: Jerky Is Not Pemmican =-.
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Katie Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 2:08 am
Lanise,
If you know me at all, you know I’m all about balance. So for me? I’d just say a prayer and buy a store chicken every so often. You might be interested in the incredible links left by Tonya at this post: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/05/mary-and-martha-moment-just-food/ There area lot of conventional farmers who do a good job growing a lot of food, as best as they can. It makes me feel better about compromise, yet more confused about who and how to believe.
Enjoy that beef!
Katie
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And are conventional turkeys as bad as conventional chickens? Should we just go for the turkey over the chicken?
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Wow; Crazy! =-.
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Katie Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Rachel,
I have no idea! My guess is that it’s all the same, but…. ?? Katie
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This was fabulous. Thanks so much for all the work putting these face offs together, Katie. And I loved hearing more from Nina Planck, as her Real Food book was the second I read when I discovered the real food movement, and I found it to be utterly fascinating and informative. I think it’s one of the best for people starting down this road.
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wow, this is where the real food rock stars hang! love nina, her books, her advice.
.-= emily´s last blog ..Not-Quite Spring Meals =-.
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Don’t be afraid of kombucha! It was one of my first projects in my “real food” journey and is easy and delicious. I can’t make it fast enough for my 2 year old and I
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Thanks for all your real food face-offs, Katie! It has been nice reading about all the people here who have made the change to real food. I love all the similarities amongst people and the unique-ness of each individual on the list as well. Nina is a great inspiration, I have her book and haven’t read it cover to cover, but read parts of it during my few moments of solitude on a regular basis. I’m so grateful for this wonderful network of people to go to when I need ideas, advice, or just to escape for a bit from real life. It’s nice to know also that the big leaders in real food are also real people, just like us!
.-= Raine Saunders´s last blog ..Alcohol and The Sugar Connection =-.
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Woo-hoo, Katie! Good work on this great, ongoing face-off. You and Nina took the cake.
.-= Elizabeth´s last blog ..Two Months Old =-.
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This has been such a great series. It must be my nosy nature but I have loved getting to know all the different people a little better. Thanks!!!
.-= Christy´s last blog ..Pi Beta Phi Cooking Tips Part 1 =-.
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I absolutely loved your Real Food Face-Off series! What fun to learn more about so many of the people I admire. The stories of how everyone came to eat a real foods diet were so interesting; the one thing that struck me is that once someone “arrives” at this way of eating, it’s probably going to be for good!
.-= Ellen´s last blog ..Acupuncture and Change of Seasons =-.
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I put spoons back too!
I enjoyed this series because sometimes I feel like a lot of the big bloggers are so far ahead of me. It’s refreshing to see that they have strong and weak areas, too. It’s not just me! No one’s perfect, no matter how strongly they are into real food.
Don’t be afraid of kombucha! I tried it 6 months or so ago and really didn’t like it. Then we started playing with kefir and I learned to like it with grape juice (water kefir, obviously), and tried kombuncha again recently with a little grape juice (G.T. Dave’s) and now I love it! DO IT!!
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Katie~
Awesome series!! Thanks so much for putting it all together. I loved reading everyone’s answers and getting some great ideas.
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This has been such a great series, Katie. It is so incredible to see such a collection of informed and informing folks all sharing the same blogosphere. Honestly, such a blessing and very inspiring. Please check your spam folder for my email.
God Bless. Gregg
.-= Gregg´s last blog ..Helping Hearts Helping Hands =-.
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I loved reading your responses to the Real Food Face Off, Katie.
I especially like the fact that apparently in your world butter is always on sale!!
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Katie Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Sarah,
Katie
When I freeze it and buy only on sale, it sure as heck is!
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Awesome! I loved the face-off series, Katie!
And I cheat on dishes, too, if they’re not really dirty. Spoons back in the drawer. Bowls given a quick swish then put away. I think all busy, real food mamas need to do it!
.-= Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home´s last blog ..Gardening Season Has Officially Begun! =-.
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This face off touches on many important points. I’m glad I found your blog. I’ve been making the transition to real food for the last couple of years (mainly since reading Omnivore’s Dilemma), but I find there is always more to learn.
I had fun cutting up my first whole chicken. It was like an education in bird anatomy!… and yes I did it because buying pre-cut free-range chicken is way too expensive
.-= Zibi´s last blog ..Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff & The New Design! =-.
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monday: best of last week | The Misadventures of Kelly and Kelly // Mar 21, 2011 at 9:05 am
[...] Nina Planck on Kitchen Stewardship. I have to say I agree with these ladies. this is how we have always eaten in the past, let’s [...]