Our changing food choices

As we get older, doesn't it seem like we need to work harder to maintain good health?

This has been a process for my family, taking place over several years. All of the fruits and vegetables that we eat are not only to save money or crowd out other foods. We've made a deliberate move to obtain our vitamins and minerals primarily through the foods we eat.

Years ago, we took once per day type vitamins to ensure we were covering our bases with nutrients. At that time, we typically had 3 to 4 servings of produce each day. That's how my family ate as I was growing up. And we all took a vitamin pill each day.

The problem I see with relying on a vitamin pill is there may be other nutrients that the pill lacks but that would be found in whole foods. In addition, some experts believe that food sources of nutrients may be better absorbed by the body than those in supplement form.

I do take a couple of supplements, Vitamin D with K and B-Complex, plus a couple of supplements that target specific needs. However, in general, we try to maximize our consumption of nutrient-dense foods while minimizing the weaker foods. 

You may have noticed on last night's dinner plate I had 3 servings of vegetables/fruits, a kale and cranberry salad, roasted pumpkin cubes, and fresh tomato wedges. Earlier in the day I had a smoothie that had 2 servings of fruits/vegetables for breakfast and a garden salad plus fresh fruit with my lunch. That brought me up to 7 servings of fruits and vegetables for the day. That's about where we like to be with our produce consumption. To get there, I do rely on some fruit/vegetable powders in my smoothies, hence the purchase of greens powder on my shopping for the month.

There was a study published about a year ago by the NIH that found a decline in nutritional value for many foods over the past several decades, due to farming practices, selection of cultivars, and reduced nutritional and microbial content of soils. This is a global problem and not one solely in the US or the West.

This means today's populations should be eating more of the nutrient-dense foods than previously customary to maintain good health.

Variety and quality in meat and poultry cuts

It's not just fruits and vegetables, but my husband and I are also focusing on high quality protein, good fats, and whole grains or other complex carbohydrate foods. 

I've talked about our beef deliveries direct from a rancher. Not only does this financially help an individual and his family and keep a family-owned ranch in business, but I believe the meat may be more nutritious than what I might have bought at the supermarket. Factory-farmed animals often are solely grain-fed and confined on tightly packed lots. This type of farming reduces mineral and amino acid content of the meat and changes the ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s. 

In addition, when I would previously buy meat at the store, I would only buy what was least expensive, which tended to be either ground or specific cuts, over and over. By buying our beef as we do, we get a variety of cuts, some with bones and some with more fat than others. I used to only buy boneless beef. Now, with receiving beef with the bones, I use the bones to make broth, yielding even more nutrients for our consumption. I also render any fatty portions to use in cooking later. Years ago, I was particularly interested in the zinc and iron content of beef and was surprised to find that different cuts contained different amounts of those minerals.

I've also returned to buying whole chickens instead of parts or boneless/skinless. Like with the beef, different parts of the chicken contain different levels of some nutrients, so having a whole chicken forces us to eat both dark and light meat. I also use the bones from the whole bird to make chicken stock. You know what I never buy any more? Beef or chicken bouillon cubes or powder. 

While I miss the more convenient chicken parts or boneless/skinless pieces compared to whole, this trade off for nutrients is important for my family. I've mentioned that we found a grocery store chicken that we really like, Just Bare. For the time being, we feel this is a good compromise for quality vs price. The chickens are raised without use of antibiotics and are not kept in cages. We found the cooked texture and taste to be better for this brand compared to the cheaper brands in the store.

Diversifying fats and introducing new ones

As for changing the fats that we consume, the last couple of Christmases I've requested bottles of olive oil or avocado oil as gifts. We are trying to use more of those oils for salads and some cooking. We have significantly reduced our use of all-purpose vegetable oils, which are heavily processed. We used to go through a gallon of the cheapest vegetable oil every two months. With our change in the fats that we use in cooking and baking, this last gallon of vegetable oil has lasted for 3 months so far, and is still going strong. I've mentioned many times that we use "rescued" meat fat, saved from the meat that we buy. We also use coconut oil, butter, and the above mentioned avocado and olive oils. 

I'm old enough to remember when butter was considered bad and margarine was the "savior" spreadable fat. My parents tried for years to get my grandmother to give up her butter. And then in the 90s, it became known that trans fats were actually the bad ones. I also remember coconut oil being a villain in the fat world. And now that thinking has been reversed. So my family's decision has been to use a wide variety of natural oils and fats in our diet and diversify our risks, so to speak. 

This fall I plan on clarifying some of the beef fat I've saved in the freezer. I'll try baking with this in pie pastry. I've clarified bacon fat for pie pastry with good results, so I'm hopeful that beef fat will also make a good pie crust. Clarifying animal fat is simply a process of boiling fat in water, chilling, then removing the fat. This reduces the meaty flavor of the fat and makes it suitable, flavor wise, for baking. It also removes any browned herb or meat bits from the fat. I'll let you know what we think of using clarified beef fat in baking.

So, when you see my family making purchasing choices for more expensive groceries than we used to (and driving our grocery spending up), it's a deliberate attempt to maintain good health through improved nutrition as we get older. 

Have you made any nutrition-based food changes over the years? Do you think better nutrition can lead to healthier aging?