World-renowned food expert and farm-to-table leader Ariane Daguin offers a wealth of advice on the food ecosystem, why it’s better to eat sustainably-grown animals and plants, the importance of eating meals together as a family and the future of post-pandemic home cooking.
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homemade sourdough bread and vegan butter
“Making healthy decisions doesn’t mean you’re missing out on the so-called ‘good things in life’. Ironically, it means you’re gaining a better life.”
Since I was a child, I’ve always loved food. At every major family event, including my own bar mitzvah, I was always the last person to clear my plate. However, as it turned out, the food I was eating was not as healthy as I was led to believe. I suffered from debilitating sinus issues, food allergies and sensitivities for over 25 years. Whenever I would get a cold, it always evolved into a sinus infection.
In 2014, while experiencing brain fog, lack of energy and a host of issues brought on by work-related anxiety and stress, I also learned that I was suffering from advancing adrenal fatigue, which is certainly not helped by the Western diet.
On the advice of my doctor, I made a conscious decision to remove the refined breads, dairy, soy, processed and manufactured items, food additives and, for a time, all red meat and wheat products. With my wife’s help, I learned how to make almost all of my food from scratch.
Over several months, my sinuses largely cleared, many of my sensitivities disappeared, I lost 20 pounds, my mind became clearer and my energy began to return.
Eventually, this journey affected my entire household. My wife and I figured out how to make everything from nut milk to sourdough bread to school snacks for the kids.
I learned that the food that we eat can have a powerful effect on the human body. Do I miss eating a bagel and cream cheese, a pizza, a hot dog or a doughnut? To be honest, not really. But that’s just me. Like binge-drinking, eating the wrong foods always felt terrific in the moment. However, I always paid for it later.
I no longer struggle to breathe in the morning (the California wildfires notwithstanding). I have not gotten a sinus infection in nearly six years. And when I do react to something in my diet, it is very easy to identify it and make the appropriate substitutions.
According to a study reported on by Forbes, 58% of all calories and 90% of added sugars consumed in the United States are from ultra-processed foods. Needless to say, these are a major health concern. These ultra-processed foods are loaded with empty calories, unlike the calories in their nutrient-dense whole-foods counterparts.
By switching to a diet rich in predominantly whole, unprocessed foods, you’ll consume much less simple starch and sugar, experience less inflammation and reduce toxins in your body. You will almost certainly feel better that you were before. It need not be a sudden shift. A gradual evolution is the best way to proceed.
Starting this Thanksgiving, why not use the holiday season to experiment with healthier new recipes? I’ll be posting simple and efficient meal ideas from my own experience. These include foods that have become staples in our household and that our kids have learned to enjoy as well.
Eat as many colorful plant foods as possible. Eat animal foods that have been sustainably farmed, properly fed and given a good quality of life. Using these raw materials, pick a handful of recipes that you can learn to make from scratch.
Don’t think in terms of what you might be missing out on. Consider what you are gaining.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The farmers market is a family ritual for us, a weekly adventure of discovery. Every Sunday morning at 8am, we take a trip to the Larchmont Village Farmers Market in Los Angeles. My kids talk to familiar farmers; schmooze new vendors; sample fruits, kombucha and dairy-free yogurts; and assist one of the vegetable vendors in shucking corn and de-leafing broccoli.
It is one of the highlights of their week!
People constantly ask me how I have been able to convince my two primary school-aged boys to eat healthy, unprocessed whole foods.
It’s really quite simple.
As a parent, I’ve learned that it’s not enough to espouse a certain lifestyle. You must actively practice what you preach – or your kids call your bluff. When you are conscious about the food that you eat, when you discuss the sources of your food with your kids, when you establish new eating habits together and allow them to actively pick out their food each week – you and your kids grow together in your habits. They will crave what they experience and they will feel confident in their choices if you feel confident in yours.
After avoiding kale chips for several years, my younger son started eating them a year ago because my wife mentioned that kale makes nightmares disappear. Does it work? According to him, it is the only foolproof method!
It’s not perfect. There are occasional slip-ups at school and tense standoffs in our pantry.
You also learn to find substitutes for common conventional foods. For instance, my younger son loves starch. So we take him to Trader Joe’s to pick out pastas that are more nutrient-dense than traditional, refined flour pasta: brown rice & quinoa, lentil, black bean. And sometimes to Whole Foods for his current fave: Banza chickpea pasta.
There is strong social pressure to conform, however. Friends and family constantly get on my case for not allowing my kids to eat processed foods, partake of cake and ice cream at birthday parties or eat pizza, dairy and packaged snacks. They hound me that my kids are somehow missing out on “the fun things in life.” I point out that I have trained my kids with the knowledge to decide what goes into their stomachs. They choose to eat what they like, not what the majority is having.
My older son had a schoolteacher a couple years ago who got angry at him for refusing to eat the matzo that they made in class for Passover. She sternly told him that "if you don't have Celiac disease, then you are missing out on valuable nutrients in your diet”. The teacher was caught off guard when he responded back, deadpan, that refined flour has no nutrition!
Whether it’s a farmers market, a trip to the local supermarket, a visit to a farm or even planning an Amazon Fresh order together, involving the kids in the process is very important. It will pay dividends throughout life.
“The average person is still under the aberrant delusion that food should be somebody else’s responsibility until I’m ready to eat it.”
Eating in the United States is a simple act, mostly performed by third parties until the food is on your plate.
Much of this blog is about sourcing and preparing your own food. Yet, with the exception of Friday night and Shabbat meals, few people take the time to be in charge of what goes on their plates.
I make it a point to have two meals a day with my family: breakfast that the boys and I prepare before they go to school; and dinner, which my wife always cooks fresh. We take full responsibility for the preparation and for what goes into the dishes we eat. Before the cooking even happens, the entire family goes with me to the farmer’s market every Sunday morning and picks out what they want for the week. And mealtime isn’t just about the food. The bonds that we forge by interacting together are irreplaceable.
But our household goes against the grain of the cultural norm.
In 21st century supermarkets, convenient packaged kosher items are very easy to find: According to market research firm Mintel, more than 40 percent of new foods launched in 2014 claimed to be certified kosher. And over one million ingredients that come from suppliers of raw materials are certified kosher, translating to over 135,000 packaged items being certified kosher. With this many prepared and packaged options, it is obvious that eating kosher in the United States is a simple choice.
On the flip side, there is a perception that making your own food is not easy, affordable or accessible. Often, it is perceived as a privilege.
This is unfortunate.. Unless you live in an inner city “food desert”, where there is truly – and tragically – a lack of fresh and healthy food, cooking should be a habit that is practiced regularly in the household.
Cooking your own food is amazing. And doing so results in numerous positive benefits. On the other hand, not doing so has negative ramifications:
According to author and journalist Michael Pollan, “the decline of everyday home cooking doesn’t only damage the health of our bodies and our land but also our families, our communities, and our sense of how our eating connects us to the world.”
Dr. Mark Hyman goes a step further: “We have abdicated one of the essential acts that makes us human – cooking – to the food industry. Making our own food is essentially a political act that allows us to take back our power.”
The benefits are many:
You save money. Going out to eat (or ordering takeout) is expensive! And it is hardly ever healthy.
You get to practice meal prepping. Once you discover the dishes that you and your family enjoy eating – and the ones that you don’t – you can build simple meal planning menus. For instance, why not schedule a Taco Tuesday meal every week? Or establish that Sunday nights are for finishing Shabbat lunch leftovers? Every night does not need to have a theme but setting up a recurring schedule with thematic elements simplifies shopping, speeds up preparation and relieves stress.
You eat healthier, more nutritious food.
You feel better by providing yourself and your family with the most valuable health insurance policy of all: real and nutritious whole foods that build health rather than foster disease.
You decide which ingredients go into your food. You get to choose where your ingredients come from, which markets sell the best produce and which vendors you trust.
You transform the process of preparing a meal from a solitary chore into a family collaboration. Kids love to help, from picking out ingredients at the market to mixing, baking and cooking.
You take the power to influence your kids away from the food industry, the advertising industry and society as a whole. Your kids will model themselves after your choices. If they see you eating nutritious food, then that is what they will crave. The younger you start them on this path, the easier the transition and the more resiliently they will stick to these habits.
Most importantly, you re-establish the connection between the food you eat and the origin of that food.
Writer Jo White has an excellent and thoughtful blog post on Medium, entitled “Is the Kitchen Dead?”, about how, despite the advances in technology and convenience, cooking in the kitchen will remain a fundamental human behavior and people will still cook.
Once you take responsibility for cooking fresh, homemade food, you will no longer want to rely on the vast majority of packaged and processed foods on the market.
Kosher food can be both tasty and nutritious. It need not be filled with cheap refined carbs, sugar, salt, preservatives or filler. The purpose of Consciously Kosher is to teach people how to eat a kosher diet rich in nutritious, predominantly unprocessed whole foods. The recipes and meal hacks are simple and quick, to accommodate parents juggling careers and multiple kids.
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