Am I a Food Snob?

Sometimes I find myself with oh-so-helpful words of real food wisdom on the tip of my tongue, ready to point a finger at some offending food and enlighten the poor souls that were about to consume it about its evil ingredients…

…. And then I stop myself just in time. Wait a minute, I can’t say those things or I’ll sound like a complete snob!

Have I Turned into a Food Snob?

For most of my life, I ate “normal” food – including plenty of processed junk. Now that I’ve learned more about real food, though, I think about food differently. When I see the same store-bought cakes and cookies and other pastries that used to seem so tempting, I think now about the bleached refined grains, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and artificial flavors that are listed on the ingredient list, along with about ten to fifteen other ingredients that I usually can’t pronounce.

Now that I know more about what’s actually in these junk foods, I think of them as fake, empty foods that won’t do anything to nourish my body. Of course, there are still some occasions when I compromise a little and eat something that wouldn’t be considered a truly healthy real food, (usually when I’m out to eat or over someone else’s house for dinner), but, for the most part, processed foods just don’t really appeal to me any more.

Sometimes, though, I feel like a food snob for avoiding these types of foods. I already do “weird” things like drink raw milk, cook with lard, buy organic foods when possible, grind my own grains, use Mason jars to avoid plastic, and heat my food on the stove to avoid using a microwave . . . among other things. I find myself sometimes trying to play down my level of real foodiness (if it isn’t already a word, it should be one!) Sometimes I’m almost tempted just to take a cookie so people think I’m “normal.” (If the fact that I take cod liver oil doesn’t already clue them in to the fact that I’m not normal, that is…)

But then I think, “Wait a minute. There’s nothing ‘normal’ about processed junk anyways. Truly normal food is the way people used to eat one hundred plus years ago. Normal food is whole, organic, natural, nutrient-dense, nourishing food.

Should We All Be Food Snobs?

Choosing organic, unprocessed, traditional, real foods shouldn’t have to be a snobby, elitist thing. It didn’t used to be.

If you go back a hundred, hundred-fifty years or so, just about all the food available was real food. The “snobby” way to eat is what should really be the “normal” way to eat! It’s only in recent decades that food has become so industrialized. It’s only in recent decades that toxic pesticides have become so wide spread and major food staples such as corn have been genetically modified. It’s only in recent decades that going through a fast food drive-thru or popping a TV dinner in the microwave has become the standard meal rather than hearty home-cooked meals prepared from scratch.

Proud to Be a Food Snob

I try not to come across as too much of a food snob. I try to refrain from enlightening other people about the hidden dangers lurking in even some of their “healthy” choices. I try not to talk about food in a way that might make me seem like a know-it-all, at least around other people who aren’t in my immediate family. (Sorry, Dad, but I’m not going to stop telling you why you should stop eating those packaged, store-bought honey buns or the bags of cheese curls and chips. And sorry, Mom, but I’m not going to stop reminding you that your “heart-healthy” buttery spread isn’t quite so heart-healthy as the package says it is.)

I try not to be an obnoxious food snob, but if eating real foods means that I’m a food snob, then I guess that’s just what I am. If eating the sort of traditional, natural, home-prepared foods that people have been eating for hundreds of years means that I’m a snob, then I’m proud to be one. If being “normal” means eating food that comes from a box or a plastic tray then I have no desire to be normal at all.

I’d rather be considered a snob than keep on eating food that I know isn’t healthy for me. Isn’t it about time that the idea of “normal” food returned back to the way that people used to eat? Isn’t it about time that we all became real food snobs?!

Are you a food snob?

This post is linked to Sunday School at Butter Believer, Make A Move Monday at Simply Made Home, Scratch Cookin’ Tuesday at Granny’s Vital Vittles, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways Wednesday at Frugally Sustainable, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade, and Natural Living Link Up at Jill’s Home Remedies.