Day 8: Good Table ... Better at Least

United States: The Dolbeare family of Virginia

Food expenditure for one week: $197.34 (so far ...)

Favorite foods: Homemade bread, salad, berries, coffee, red meat, cinnamon rolls

Here's our homage to the Hungry Planet book by photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Aluisio. The book examines how people eat around the world and the changes evolving in the global diet with photographs of 30 international families from Chad to China posing with the food they eat for a week:

"Today we are witnessing the greatest change in global diets since the invention of agriculture. Globalization, mass tourism, and giant agribusiness have filled American supermarket shelves with extraordinary new foods—and McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Kraft Cheese Singles are being exported to every corner of the planet." More ...

It's all out on the table - the food from our second week in changing our own diet. One down, three to go. Conventional wisdom says it takes three weeks to break a habit so we're really just getting started. The most stunning change? More fresh fruit and vegetables and far fewer cookies and goldfish crackers. Aidan was eating the "colors" version of goldfish crackers every day. Here's the ingredient list:

Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour , Flour , Niacin , Reduced Iron , Thiamin Mononitrate - Vitamin B1 , Riboflavin - Vitamin B2 , Folic Acid , Cheddar Cheese , Pasteurized Milk , Cheese Culture , Salt , Enzymes , Water , Salt , Vegetable Oils , Canola Oil , Sunflower Oil , Soybean Oil , Salt - 2% or Less , Yeast - 2% or Less , Sugar - 2% or Less , Yeast Extract - 2% or Less , Blue 2 - 2% or Less , Red 40 - 2% or Less , Spices - 2% or Less , Red 3 - 2% or Less , Leavening - 2% or Less , Monocalcium Phosphate - 2% or Less , Baking Soda - 2% or Less , Ammonium Bicarbonate - 2% or Less , Annatto - 2% or Less - Color , Yellow 6 - 2% or Less , Onion Powder - 2% or Less , Blue 1 - 2% or Less

A lot of useless oil and dye. We have a friend who calls food like this "fud." It just doesn't quite rally to the ranks of actual food. We're aiming to do one big weekly shop and supplement during the week as needed. We're flying through eggs, milk, butter and fruit with all the baking. We started our first week strong with everything from homemade pita and bread to granola and muffins. But mid-week we already hunted for a bakery for sandwich bread with "5 or less" ingredients. Is the craze for convenience already creeping in?

There are the average alternating bouts of happiness and misery in a family of five on Fresh Mouth as there were when our bodies were processing processed food. But honestly, I would say we all seem more even tempered. My Hungarian grandfather insisted that the recipe for happiness was good table and good bed. Cheers to that.

Menu
Breakfast: Spinach omelettes, homemade pancakes, apples, coffee and OJ with fish oil.

Lunch: Pita, hummus, grapes, carrots and organic milk.

Snack: Mandarin oranges and potato chips made with three ingredients (potatoes, oil, salt).

Dinner: Whole wheat spaghetti, ground sirloin meatballs, homemade wheat baguette, steamed broccoli with lemon, milk, red wine and Haagen-Daz vanilla ice cream (it just makes it with 5 ingredients!)

Nugget o' the Day: "Ah, come on, it's good for you." - the deli employee at the supermarket after he read the list of ingredients (more than 5) for me in the Boar's Head "Golden Classic Oven Roasted Chicken Breast," and I said no thanks. The Boar's Head nutritional guide on the counter had the nutrition info but no ingredients listed.