Unprocessed -- how I gave up processed foods (and why it matters) | Megan Kimble | TEDxTucsonSalon

Transcriber: Nika Kotnik Reviewer: Denise RQ Thank you. What do you eat? No, what do you really eat? It's Wednesday night, when you leave here, it could be eight o'clock. You stop at the store on the way home to see if they have kale. But is it organic? Is it local? Is it in season? Do you even like kale? (Laughs) I understand. It is overwhelming all the options we face today. All the things we are asked to consider about our food. A little over two years ago I set myself a challenge: a year without

processed

foods

. The first questions you might ask are: "Why would you do that?" and "What makes a food

processed

?" And I'll get to that.

But tonight I want to focus on that choice on a Wednesday night, when you're wondering what to eat. I'm a food writer, so on some level I'm paid to think about that choice (I'm the editor of Edible Baja Arizona, a local food magazine based here in Tucson), but I also think these choices matter. , which impact the food system and we have the power to deprocess the food we eat. So what makes a food processed? Of course, all

foods

are processed. Farming is a type of process, as is cooking, fermenting, dicing, and preserving. All foods are processed and are often better for it.

But increasingly they are not. Study after study has shown that what we eat is less important than how we eat it. Think about the difference between corn on the cob, corn chips, and high fructose corn syrup. Same source, three very different foods due to their level of processing. I spent a lot of time arguing about the details, about the many things we find on our ingredient labels today. But for me, what is processed comes down to a quote from Mr. Rogers, who says, "There is a difference between the things that people do and the things that get done." There is a difference between foods that people make with their hands or can bake and foods that are made with machines.

People can turn corn into corn tortillas. People really can't make high fructose corn syrup without access to a lab and an advanced degree in chemistry. I spent a year thinking about processed foods, wrote a book about it, but tonight I want to focus on just three processes. The first is the process of how a food gets from its origin to your table. How vegetables get from the ground, in Mexico, for example, to a grocery store in Arizona. The second process is what happens to you when you actually eat that food. How your body responds when you drink a glass of apple juice instead of eating an apple.

The third process is a little more complicated, it is the process of how the food we buy impacts the communities in which we live. Often this process revolves around money; It is the economy of food. And it is this last one, that of consumer spending, that I find with the greatest potential for deprocessing. How does food get from its origin to your table? This is Mariposa's port of entry into Nogales. It is the largest inland port of entry in the US. In winter, 70% of the products in supermarkets come from Mexico, and most of it passes through here.

I like to say that it is the Ellis Island of Mexican products. A watermelon. How does a watermelon get from the ground in Hermosillo to the Safeway in Tucson? It starts on a farm, a really big farm, 1000 acres of watermelon. A migrant field crew gets there and harvests them in one day, packs them up, puts them on a truck, 40,000 pounds of vegetables, and sends them north to the border. There's a flurry of paperwork, border patrol, FDA, USDA, and finally it arrives here, at a 35-degree warehouse in Nogales. There are about 100 there and I spent a few days wandering around these warehouses.

And let me tell you, the scale is amazing. In this particular warehouse, during its peak season, 150,000 melons could come and go every day. I remember being in a warehouse full of mangoes and it was inconceivable to me how this mass of fruit could become a single mango in a single person's kitchen. The system is vast. And their survival depends on pesticides, refrigeration and trucks. Compare that to this. This is what I eat. This is a shared week of Tucson CSA, the community supported agriculture program of which I am a member. This product comes from a farm owned by a guy named Frank.

Yes, we call him Farmer Frank. Farmer Frank sends his two employees to the field, they harvest enough produce for about 150 shares, wash it, put it on a truck, and ship it to Tucson. There is not much storage and there are no pesticides. According to a USDA study, nearly 60% of conventionally grown produce is still contaminated with pesticides, even after it has been washed. If that is not processed, what is it? You have these two watermelons, one from Hermosillo and another near Tucson. What makes one more processed than the other? Well, the first difference is how they are grown.

Conventional versus organic, in monoculture or in a diversified field. And the second is the process of how that food gets to you. On average, 91 cents of every dollar we spend on food goes to the middleman. It doesn't go to the people who grow our food. So when you buy food that has gone through this vast system, you are supporting those 91 cents. On the other hand, when you buy food from a CSA or farmers market, you are helping to ensure that people who grow their own food get more than 9 cents on the dollar. Let's go to the second process.

Once that food has reached you, what happens to your body when you actually eat it? Sugar is a good example of how the what of a particular food is less important than the how. Many people ask me, "Is it hard to eat

unprocessed

foods?" And the answer to that question is sugar. Sugar is in everything. Before I go there, I will say that I love sugar. I have such a sweet tooth that when I was a kid my mom instituted a rule called "One candy a day," where I was allowed one candy every day instead of all the candy, every day.

But sugar is in everything, apart from that. It is found, for example, in cranberry-flavored flax seeds. Sweet spinach for breakfast. High in sugar. This particular brand of mustard is evidently a mix of sugar, honey, and a little high fructose corn syrup for good measure. Grape-Nuts, a seemingly sensible breakfast solution, has four different types of sugar hidden on the ingredients label. And that's what makes sugar so complicated. It comes in so many different forms that it really had to be avoided. But what's important to know is that to your body, sugar is sugar. All sugar molecules, regardless of type, are eventually digested into glucose and fructose.

Instead, what your body cares about is quantity and speed. How much sugar you consume and how quickly it reaches your system. Think about the difference between eating an apple and drinking a glass of apple juice. In the apple you have to work to get that sugar, you have to bite it, chew it, swallow it, everything is linked to fiber and cellulose. so it penetrates your body more slowly. Apple juice, on the other hand, is immediate. And that immediacy stresses your body. But the problem with sugar is that I'm not alone. We all like it a lot.

It pulls our triggers in ways that make us want to eat more. And food companies know it, that's why it's in everything. Unfortunately, in recent years there has been a lot of research claiming that sugar is simply not good for us. what do we do? What is the alternative? One alternative is to eat less sugar, the other alternative is to eat fake sugar. Diet desserts. The way food companies make desserts diet is by processing the sugar and fat and replacing them with chemicals so your body thinks you're still getting the good stuff. that you're still getting your dessert.

But anyone who has ever been on a diet knows that it just doesn't work. Eat a brownie made with Splenda and you'll want five more before you feel full. Compare that to the sweets I ate during my raw year. Homemade chocolate made with raw honey. Cookies made with whole wheat flour, molasses and butter. These sweets satisfy my sweet craving, they fill me up, and because they were all tied to foods with substance, that sugar dripped into my body more slowly. Many people ask me when I tell them about my year eating

unprocessed

foods: "How do you feel?

Do you feel different?" And the simplest answer to that question is simply: "I feel full." For me this is no small feat. I've dieted on and off my whole life: I've counted calories, I've done weight checks, I've actually been through some tough times. But the non-process is not a diet. When I eat unprocessed foods, I eat when I'm hungry and stop eating when I'm full. During my year, I didn't gain or lose weight, but I ate a lot of delicious food. If there is one thing we should take away from sugar, it is that if you are going to eat something sweet, make it worth it.

Savor it. Make it your only sweet of the day. Don't waste your sugar on mustard. (Laughs) Let's move on to the last process. How does the food we buy impact the communities we live in? Let's go back to tonight. On Wednesday night you wonder what to eat. Most of us assume that if we want to have healthy and sustainable food, we must spend more money and more time. When I started my raw year, I was a very busy graduate student earning a salary of around $18,000 a year. I lived in this small apartment without enough shade to grow a basil plant.

Throughout my year, I kept all the purchase receipts for every purchase that came in and out, and at the end of the year, I would sit down and count them. The grand total, the amount I spent to feed myself during my raw year, was about $4,900. What that means is that the amount I spent to feed myself three mostly organic, largely local, and entirely unprocessed meals for a year was about $4 and 50 cents per meal. I am aware that there are people for whom 4$50c per meal is simply unaffordable. It's out of your reach. That interests me a lot, I dedicated the last chapter of my book to the effort to eat unprocessed with the amount of money that food stamp recipients receive, which is about $20 a week.

But the fact of the matter is that most of us have a few dollars we could spend otherwise. This is the skin of a sheep that I spent two days helping to slaughter, butcher, and process using nothing more than an 8-inch craft knife. Before I go there, I will say that I was raised by two vegetarians. (laughs) I've been a vegetarian on and off all my life, the problem was always that I actually liked eating meat. But I read what we've read: how destructive industrial meat is to the environment, the water, our soils, how animals are treated.

How can I eat meat in a way that seems responsible? I spent two days very close to this sheep. And here's the surprise: it didn't take away my meat. Instead, it made me feel very grateful to be able to go to the farmers market and pay a local rancher who had gone through the same process with the same reverence and respect as me and give me meat in return. You could pay money for consciously produced meat. In fact, if there's anything to learn from my raw year it's simply that the money you spend

matters

. I'm not saying we should all slaughter our own meat, grind our own grains, or grow our own food.

What I mean is that when you do it yourself, you realize that it is worth paying someone in our community who is doing it well. According to a study by Local First Arizona, if everyone in a community the size of Tucson shifted 10% of their spending to a local business, together we would create $140 million and new revenue for the city. Spending money locally has all kinds of multiplier effects. Spend $100 at the Tucson Food Co-op and $73 of that will stay in Tucson. Spend $100 at Safeway and here you only keep $43. The importance of the money we keep here is also that we retain it from the balance sheets of those multinational corporations who then use it, our money, to influence politics, grow unsustainable food and waste energy.

In short, to process and sell us foods that are not good for us. But all that aside, the reason eating raw makes sense to me is that it's easier. I don't have to worry about where my food comes from because I know where it comes from. I don't have to worry about what it's doing to my body, because I feel good. I don't have to worry about where my money goes because I know who gets it. It's a rule and then I don't have to think about it. I can do what I always wanted to do with food, which is just enjoy it.

After all, the point of food is not to stress us out, but to unite us. We have the power to deprocess our food system. Of course, we don't do anything. You do things and I do things. You go home to prepare dinner, I go home to prepare dinner. Only when you and I decide to make small changes in our own lives, the bigchange begins to occur. Join the CSA, read ingredient labels, go to the farmers market, ask questions of the people and companies who sell you their food. What do you eat? That depends on you. But you have the power to leave it a little raw.

Thank you. (Applause)