You might be a real foodie if…
- You leave milk out on the counter overnight… on purpose
- You know what CLO stands for
- You have a giant container of vinegar in your bathroom
- Mason jars are your drinking glasses
- Your blood pressure raises when you hear public service announcements about anything health related
- You’re more likely to recommend an elimination diet than a medication
- You get excited talking about mushrooms
- You have a ‘milk pool’ rather than a car pool
- You’ve taken pictures of your children with the cows that make the milk they drink.
- You ferment.
- You buy your fats in gallon (or 5 gallon!) buckets
- You can smell the ammonia in conventional beef
- You shop for clothes at Good Will in order to be able to afford grassfed beef
You just might be a real foodie if…
- You have jars of homemade whey in your refrigerator…and you use them. (Mira)
- You know the best place to purchase bulk herbs to make your own pregnancy tea. (April)
- You have actual conversations with the people who provide you with eggs, milk, pastured chickens, vegetables, etc. (Laurie)
- You lie awake at night brainstorming where you could construct housing for dairy goats. (Julia)
- You have more concoctions brewing on the kitchen counter than the average high school science lab. (Julia)
- You can’t enjoy a good meal at a restaurant because you’re assessing the pesticide load of the veggies, stressing over how the meat and dairy animals were raised, and bemoaning which ingredients would be soooo much better if only they were lacto-fermented. (Julia)
- You think of a shot as having your daily dose of beet kvass (Patricia)
- You actually cry over *raw* spilled milk. (Kat)
- You can never keep up with all the egg whites accumulating in your fridge. (Kat) I use them for this cake! We make it at least once a week now
Smoothie To Be
- Skim milk is what you feed to your pets or garden after you make butter for yourself. (Kat)
- You personally know the farmer who raises the meat/fowl and grows the produce you feed your family. (Linda)
- People ask why you make everything from scratch and “Why can’t you just buy it??” (Audrey)
- Your friends and family wonder why you’re not fat with all the butter, lard, and bacon grease you use. (Audrey)
- The farmers market is the highlight of your week during the summer. (Audrey)
- You get asked frequently “Why don’t you just take medication for it?” (Audrey)
- You’re always trying to find a way to sneak in more butter, cream, cultured dairy, or, really, anything that’s been fermented. (Audrey)
- Your friends are afraid to eat the food you prepare because you tell them of the benefits of all the ‘live’ food and how proud you are of all the ‘bugs’ in it! (Nadine)
- You’re on the hunt for “vintage” cookbooks where all they HAD to cook with was REAL food! (Cindy)
- Your child sees farm animals and instead of saying, “Aw, how cute!” he says, “Yum!” and licks his lips. (Jenny)
- Your child makes up little songs about ferments- “komubucha, komucha, COOOOOMMMMMMMEandgititBUCHA!” (Barb)
- Your first question when you go to a restaurant is, “Do you have real butter? Are you SURE it’s real?” (Kelly)
- You design your house/remodel/look for a house with fermenting in mind! I have decided I must had a culturing / fermentation center either in the kitchen or the walk in pantry. (Pam)
- You get excited about raw butter and you leave it to warm on the counter. (Alex)
- You comment on how lovely your mother is and you mean your Kombucha scoby! (Alex)
- You have a love affair with your cast iron skillet and treat it like a child! (Alex)
- You will go to (almost) any lengths to procur raw dairy for your family (Alex)
- You own at least one chest freezer. (Ann Marie)
- All you want for your birthday is a grain mill. (Ann Marie)
- You have a bucket of coconut oil the size of Montana. (Ann Marie)
- You consider the fermenting capabilities of just about any cylindrical container you come across. (Barb)
- Other people look in your fridge and can’t find anything to eat… because they don’t recognize anything (Meike)
- Friends and family ask you if they’re gonna get sick if they eat our food because they see so much sitting out on the counter(Meike)
- Your kids know how each veggie came to be and that eggs come from the “CHICKEN BUTT” in the backyard
(Diana) - You have chicken feet simmering in a crock pot on your counter, along with necks and bones and other social discards! (Tina)
- You are brainstorming how to create a root cellar! (Tina)
- You realize you’ve completely flipped your budget, that most goes to the farmer’s market and only a small share to the actual grocery. (Tina)
- Your grocery store receipt has zero tax on it. That’s because you didn’t buy anything processed, there’s no tax on real food. (Mira)
- you try to convince your friends and family to eat more good fat! (Jen Marie)
- you wish you had two crock pots, two blenders, two BOSCH mixers, and a never ending supply of widemouth mason jars. (Jen Marie)
This is all in fun, my friends! Please don’t be offended. And I’d love you to join in in the comments section! How do you know someone might be a real foodie? Which ones can you identify with?
(Part of Real Food Wednesday)
Love the post! How about ‘Your six-year old says he doesn’t want to eat the food at kids’ parties because it makes him feel sick’ or ‘Your two-year-old daughter’s favorite breakfast is cold grass-fed beef bolognese with chicken livers and stock straight from the pot!’
“Your grocery store receipt has zero tax on it. That’s because you didn’t buy anything processed, there’s no tax on real food.”
Oh, how I wish this were true! Can you believe it — in Oklahoma, there’s a sales tax on ALL food!
Oh how sad! I know it depends on the state- Montana has no tax at all (in most counties) and California only taxed hot prepared food, like fast food, but not Twinkies or Diet Coke…
What a fun post Cara! I’ll have to share this on facebook!
I love this post! I might add that “you eat the “weeds” out of the back yard right along with the cultivated plants (and plenty of butter).” You tell friends about how you lost weight on your “bacon fat, coconut oil and butter” diet.
Cara, I LOVE this post. I got quite a good laugh out of several of them. Here’s mine: You might be a REAL Foodie if your preferred moisturizer for your skin is the same thing that you use to fry your pancakes (Coconut Oil)!
DITTO!
Or even go a step futher: You might be a Real Foodie if you can also eat most of your beauty products. LOL. Loved this list, and I sat here nodding as I read them!
I had to chuckle while reading this, nodding my head yes to much of this. My DH jokes that my fridge looks like it’s filled with science experiments because of all the jars in it and he doesn’t know what everything is.
I checked out your recipe for the easy marshmallow cake and I can’t wait to try it.
I was surprised to see that my definition of foodie must be slightly different. I consider myself a foodie, because I make educated choices about my food and I don’t just buy what’s cheapest and easiest. I grow all a lot of our food and buy mostly from co-ops and farmers markets, but I don’t do any of the fermenting. I do have composting worms some how I don’t think that’s what your talking about. I guess it’s because we are interested in eating low on the food chain so we cut out pretty much all dairy and meat.
None the less I’m pretty excited when I see a bunch of people being proactive about their food and how they live. Good work guys!
Thanks! The “Real” I was talking about is in reference to Nina Planck’s book Real Food. We subscribe to the Nourishing Traditions/Weston Price way of eating on this blog
Worms are great, I have a place to do worm composting now, I should start!
Besides my comment above about planning a Culturing Center into my kitchen or walk in pantry…..You are definitely a Real Foodie if you need more than 2 refigerators and need another because of all the fermented foods, raw milks, kombucha taking up residence. I have 2 and really need a third, LOL!!
This is hilarious and made my day! Thanks! So true of our family!
How about…
“…if your 2-year-old points at Oreos and says ‘they make our tummies hurt.’”
“…if you are EXCITED to have weird-looking things growing in your kitchen.”
“…if, after you return from a trip to the grocery store, you have ‘nothing’ to eat because it’s all just ingredients, no meals yet!”
ha. Love it.
Kate, I love those!
“…if, after you return from a trip to the grocery store, you have ‘nothing’ to eat because it’s all just ingredients, no meals yet!”
My husband tells me this almost every time I get home from grocery shopping. “You’re the only person I know that can bring X amount of bags home and have NOTHING to eat!!” But, he has no complaints once it’s turned into meals!
Also, I can add, …if you’re buying 6+ lbs of butter in a month, and still run out!
You might be a foodie if you can start breakfast until the morning’s eggs have been collected.
…if instead of hanging baskets of flowers on your porch you have hanging baskets of pickling cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.
You Might Be A Real Foodie If… When packing for a trip or camping your must bring your own eggs, milk and cheese because the idea of buying it somewhere (at a store) is just a little scary..
*You chastise yourself for not using enough fat in a meal.
*You’re frustrated that you don’t have enough jars or room to ferment anything else.
*When co-workers ask how your weekend was, you spend 5 minutes excitedly describing your soaks and ferments.
*When friends or family members tell you about a new illness they have, your first response is to ask if they’re eating enough butter.
*You’re the only person that you know that knows that beef in the grocery store isn’t from the happy cows you see wandering around on farms.
*You spend the bulk of your time online reading Real Food blogs and scanning #realfood on Twitter.
*You drive 2 hours away on a Saturday just to buy ice cream from grass fed cows.
I feel so inspired now to take action on some of the items on the list! My husband can add to the list
*You stock up on Organic lemons to make the best limoncello from scratch
I am very greatful to you for this blog. I feel so much support and have been up built from every one of the posts. I truely thank you all.
After reading this list, I know I am truly on my way! YAY! I totally need another refrigerator, meanwhile my pantry shelves are looking bare. Almost all of my grocery money goes to our dairy farm (eggs, milk, butter, chicken), the Oklahoma Food Co-Op, the farmers market, and our LHFS. I have LITERALLY cried over spilled (raw) milk and I have been hatching plans to talk people out of their canning jars.
WOOO HOOO! I’m feeling more “real” already!
Love the list and the commenter’s add ons. Thank you all!
“you receive a beautiful ‘Edible Arrangement’ and are just as excited to see the beautiful, fresh fruit arrangement is filled out with… KALE and wonder if there is enough to make kale chips.”
*You get teased about UFOs (unidentified food objects) in your fridge and on your counters.
*You’ve traveled thousands of collective miles hunting down sources of raw dairy and grass-fed meats and in so doing have met some of the kindest (and occasionally craziest) people around.
Ha! I love these – totally made my morning.
…your MIL asks if your kids will eat Kraft Dinner, and your response is “Dunno, they’ve never had it, and then she gives into the guilt of that response and makes them pancakes from scratch instead.
“…your SCOBY bites the dust after a year and your friends that have teased you about it suggest you give it a burial because it’s become a member of the family and just throwing it away seems cruel and impersonal!!”
I haven’t started fermenting anything just yet but I can relate to many of the others listed.
You might be a “real” foodie if….you get excited over finding grass fed beef fat so you can render it to use in cooking. Family/friends think your crazy until they can’t get enough of homemade biscuits made with both butter and beef fat instead of crisco.
You might be a “real” foodie if you take chicken fat (schmaltz) and spread it on bread like its butter. Yummy!
You might be a “real” foodie if discovering a new source of grass fed lard makes you deliriously happy.
You might be a “real” foodie if you time your trip to the milk supplier to arrive at the farm just when the milking is done, so you can drink your first quart warm right out of the animal.
I just started to become a “real foodie” and I am amazed at how many of these apply to me! My friend shared a link to your site and now I am sharing and link to this page in my “Friday Linky Love” Thanks for such a great post!
http://onecookandtwochefs.blogspot.com/2010/07/cookies-curry-and-zucchini.html
Love it!! Especially the part about coming home from grocery shopping and having nothing to eat… so true!!
Oh I love it! It’s been a lonely journey for me but now I don’t feel so strange or alone in my efforts to nourish my family
for sure a important site and glorious article.I am going to bookmark this page.
I just love this! Too fun
How about
“You plan your weekend trips by picking a co-op, farm or farm-to-table restaurant in a nearby state and plan the trip around it!”
At a party recently where I had friends from various locations in the state, they all laughed together because I always show up at their places with a cooler full of food so I can maintain my foodie style while away from home. My motto: Have cooler, will travel.
When your kids ferment their playdough when pretend baking it.
You want to dig up nettles from a friends yard to transplant in your own…for tea.
Love it!!!!
Yeah! I’m a foodie!
This post is great! Really enjoyed reading it the comments. I love being able to have all of these internet friends relate to the foods I eat and vice versa! Anyone near Medford, NJ? How about being able to make a salad from your yard, not including what you purposely grow?
Love being a foodie! You make salads from what is growing in your yard, not including what you purposely grow!
I love all of these – so fun to read
Awesome!! Love this post!
according to that list, I am a 95% foodie! No buckets of fat in my house… and I use that CLO!:) only the best for my family!!
If your kids come and say, Mom we’re out of junk food – please make some more crackers!
This was GREAT!!! I’m guilty of nearly everything listed in the article and of many listed in the comments.
Thanks for the good laugh, oh, so healthy
Blessings…
…when you eat processed food of any kind you notice that you nose begins to run.
I love this post!!!! My son in law, who is a high school science teacher, says my refrigerator looks like a giant science experiment!
1. You know your a “foodie” when your friends stop inviting you over to eat cuz they know you won’t eat what they make.
2. My Sunday School class always provides a week of meals for people who have surgeries, babies, etc. Well, I had a hysterectomy and they brought me a gift basket of candles, soaps, coffee mug, etc. instead. I am the ONLY one that they did that for.
Ha ha! Love this!! I’m new to the real food thing, well, a year into it and it’s been somewhat slow going due to some budget constraints and reluctant riders in the family on this real food train. I do the best I can with what I have. But oh, how I long to have more things fermenting and chicken butts delivering delicious eggs in my back yard some day! Thanks for the humor (;
oh, how about this one…
…you have a picture of one of the happy, organic, grass-fed cows from the farm a few miles away where you get your raw milk as the background on your cell phone…
yep, I sure do…she was such a pretty brown cow I couldn’t resist!
These are GREAT! I literally was tearing-up reading some of these! What a fun idea for a post! I’m going link this on my FB page. Thanks for the good laugh and joy in reading all the wonderful things we all do to bring real food to the table at each meal. Blessings, kel
I guess I have arrived, almost all of these apply to me lol.
How about “…when it takes 3 days to make a simple batch of chicken chili-sprouting the beans, stewing the chicken for broth, etc., instead of 10 minutes to open a can and heat some up.”, “…when people think the dehydrator on your counter is a microwave and when you correct them they look confused, even after you explain”, “…when you have to schedule outings around kefir, tibicos, kombucha, kvass, soak and sprout harvesting”, “…when you holler at the kids for recycling a glass jar/bottle instead of washing it and adding it to the growing collection in the cupboard for storing ferments in.”
animal fat is a prized food and is saved from every roast or soup, such that there are 5-6 kinds of animal fat in the freezer/fridge
You have a scotel – scoby hotel from all the babies and can’t give them away fast enough
find yourself frequently explaining what kefir is
when you think of superheroes, organic farmers come to mind
you are the only one that knows what is in all the jars in the fridge
the freezer has bags of bones you are saving for stock
almost every illness you have heard of seems like a nutritional deficiency to you
homemade mayo is the only kind you really trust
LOL yep, love it! So many good ones on here I can totally identify with! LOVE the “scotel”!!
@Mary – I know what you mean about taking three days to make soup. I have people ask me what I do – and I say I am a homemaker….. so they assume I have lots of time on my hands….
It saddens me slightly to read this list. I love the amount of care and attention so many people are putting towards eating healthy, and it’s such a shame that in the end they aren’t freeing themselves from sickness because they are harming the food themselves. The “real foodie” community has become a kind of cult that gets obsessed over things like fermenting, but neglects to recognize the serious harm that comes from heating fats and other foods, particularly frying them. None of the posts on this list apply to me, because I’m not obsessed about anything. I just eat what’s healthy: Raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, beef, fish, eggs and milk. Practices like making Kombucha or fermenting dairy are all well and good, but they aren’t going to free you from disease in the long term if you’re frying eggs or cooking meat. Grass fed organic meat or not, if you don’t eat it raw, you’re introducing toxic byproducts, destroyed and mutilated enzymes and nutrients, and artery-clogging fat into your body. It’s very simple to be 100% healthy, and it doesn’t have to involve obsession of any kind. It can be as simple as going to the store, buying all organic raw food, and eating it as is.
I’m off to bed, but I wanted to quickly address the ‘cult’ issue- I in no way encourage people to make food into a religion, or obsess over it to the point that priorities are out of line. On this blog I encourage families to put God first, family second, and then see about cleaning up their diet somewhere after that according to their personal convictions.
Also, homemade versions of processed foods are still processed foods. They are healthier than store-bought versions, but they are still unhealthy, to varying degrees depending on what it is and what kind of processing you took the ingredients through. Just like a person is no longer a person if they are wounded so badly that their heart stops beating, raw organic food is no longer healthy if it is wounded too badly.
way to bring down a light hearted discussion
You have to do more convincing to get your husband to eat your “new creation” then your 7 year old. He throws questions at you like…”Where did this come from? How long has this set out? You are sure this is good for me?” He then holds his nose and starts drinking like the rest of the kids at the table.
This made me LAUGH!!! It’s soo true!! Awesome
Here’s another one: you rub the extra coconut/avacado/olive oil onto your face and hands as you’re cooking
And, you’re ‘chocolate’ cupcake for your toddler is actually filled with beet puree…and he loves it
AND, you’re often heard shouting, “DON’T THROW THAT OUT, I’m just sprouting/fermenting/soaking it!!!
When your kids eat the pork from your freezer they try to name which of their pigs they are eating. Your three year old says “we eat our pigs because they have yummy meat.”
When your in-laws leave you throw out the food they brought. And yes, you have told them a million times not to bring anything.
LOVE IT!!! Every one of the list items AND added comments applies to me! I feel so much better about myself seeing I’m not the only “crazy hippie” out there
Here’s another one:
You removed the built-in microwave that came with your house and replaced it with a dehydrator!
When you have permanent “butter making” muscles in your wrist b/c you turn your raw cream into butter weekly.
…you know what tibicos are, and find watching a gallon jar of them on your kitchen counter more entertaining and relaxing than a saltwater aquarium…
LOL…this one came to me as I was watching mine dance this afternoon!
If you use Your microwave oven for storage and not for heating foods, you might be a foodie.
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Oh I LOVE it!!!! yes it does make you feel as if you are not the only one out there doing this!
Oh, it’s SO good to not feel so alone!