Jessie, meet peanut butter. Peanut butter, meet Jessie.

Wow. Where have I been? Have I been clogging my arteries with hydrogenated oils??? That's what my co-worker told me the other day when she brought me a gift of organic peanut butter. I am not one to look at labels. I don't like to know what I'm doing to my body or stress about calories. Now I feel like I'm dying slowly but surely from clogged arteries. Yuck. YUCK. I am happy though, knowing one of the main ingredients I depend on for strong running, is now something that's actually good for me. Here is a picture of what I did the moment my friend gave me the organic peanut butter...


This organic peanut butter was quite the experience for me at first. You know the old talk about peanut butter sticking to the top of your mouth and needing a full glass of milk to get through a pb&j?? Yeah, I never got it either. The peanut butter I was used to was never like that. Now I understand. Peanut butter, in its natural form, is totally sticky. Like I-can't-answer-the-phone-and-make-sense-sticky. I love it though. After I eat it I have like a peanut chunk here and peanut skin there. It's liker I'm eating real ground up peanuts. Strange, I know. So, the lesson to be learned from this post is to throw out your Jif, or anything else that has loads and loads of artery-clogging substances and switch to something natural or at least closer to natural. These days we think it's normal to eat corn that's been sitting in a tin can for 6 months. That is not normal. And not ok. Our fresh produce at the grocery store already has enough harmful chemicals in it without being stuffed in a can for a year.
Trust me, I'm no wiz when it comes to what is healthy and what is not but I do have pretty good common sense working for me. Here are some changes I have made in the past few years, food wise...
1. Margarine. So, I am not a fan of margarine but it is MUCH easier to deal with than cold butter when you're making a grilled cheese sandwich, garlic bread, etc. Now instead of using pure margarine when I do use it, I use Brummel and Brown made with yogurt.


2. Cheese. I figure with cheese, the more convenient it is, the more processed it is. I'm talking about pre-cut slices, grated cheese, etc. I always buy a big old block of cheese and when I need grated cheese, I do what we did back in the good old days.......I GRATE IT! Imagine that!

Vs.

3. Oatmeal. My oatmeal is very important to me. I have oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast. Instead of taking the cheater route with the quick oats, I always get the old-fashioned Quaker Oats. I should probably go with the steel cut oats, but at least I'm not getting the quick one-minute oats.

4. Wheat bread. White bread is of the devil. There aren't many nutrients in it at all. I don't even feel very good after I eat it because it's just yucky. With so many people on a 'health craze' and switching to wheat bread, there's a lot of fake wheat bread out there too. When you pick out bread, you should pick one that has the first ingredient listed as whole wheat. This should also be the only flour mentioned in the ingredients. Look for bread that says '100% whole wheat.' This is my favorite bread (but usually a little too expensive for me, unless it happens to be on sale)...5. Rice. This is not real rice...
This is real rice...That is all.

6. Low fat. Low fat can also mean 'more chemicals' or 'more processed' or 'more un-natural.' I don't go for things just because they say low fat. I actually try to steer away from these things. They usually only have less fat in them because they have chemically altered it just so they could claim there was less fat in it. So, itt is harming your body in other ways rather than fat. For example, ice cream. I love me some ice cream. When I pick it out though, I get regular. Then I don't have two bowls in one sitting. The rule is to control your portion size. Just because you got low-fat or fat-free ice cream doesn't mean you can eat as much as you want and not gain weight from it. Confusing, I know ;)

WTF? The low fat Fat Boy. Wow. If this doesn't show why American's are obese....I don't know what does. Ok, that's all for me now. I hope my non-expertise helps give someone some insight on smarter grocery shopping.