When my generation of women walked away from the kitchen we were escorted down that path by a profiteering industry that knew a tired, vulnerable marketing target when they saw it. ‘Hey, ladies,’ it said to us, ‘go ahead, get liberated. We’ll take care of dinner.’ They threw open the door and we walked into a nutritional crisis and genuinely toxic food supply. . . . But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families’ tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.

Now I don’t make my own bread (yet) and I have honestly embraced the minivan, but I heartily agree that women made a destructive choice to punt the kitchen duties in favor of convenience and “progressiveness.”

Lest anyone think this is some sort of ultra-conservative, repressed, homemaking drivel, the quote above is actually from author Barbara Kingsolver who happens to be a liberal, feminist atheist.

In the past few years, we developed a personal family food plan based on our priorities, and when I started clicking around to blogs, I found others that shared this foodstyle, and they called it “Real Food.” Basically, this means “whole foods” – foods that grow and occur naturally and can be bought in their original form or as close as possible. This eliminates most processed foods, things with artificial sweeteners, most preservatives, and ingredients that were created in a laboratory.

Real foods take a little more preparation time since you are starting with the actual ingredients instead of a processed head-start from a box. Homemade macaroni and cheese takes about 45 minutes for me to make, the stuff in the blue box takes around 15. But I can tell you exactly what’s in mine, and I can’t pronounce a lot of things on the box (though I can pronounce Yellow 6). Oh yeah, and mine tastes better.

I certainly do not proclaim myself any kind of food expert or nutritionist, but in some following posts I’ll outline several of our intentional food goals and what that looks like on a practical level. I’m also going to have some guest posts by my awesome mom who shaped the way I look at food.

In July, Brett and I will be attending a conference in San Antonio entitled “The Reformation of Food and the Family.” We are excited to learn more about food choices and hospitality in the context of a Christian family. So I’ve got food on the brain! Stay tuned for more of Why We Eat What We Eat (WWEWWE) and more food topics in the next month.