Hi, I’m Andrew, and I am not the woman who went a year without processed food. Her name is Megan Kimble, and she chose to eat unprocessed for 12 months not because she wanted a healthier diet, but because she wanted a healthier world.
Although, the healthy diet was a bonus.
Kimble Unprocessed
Megan Kimble is a writer who was writing and researching about the environmental impact our food has on the world. Initially she’d read Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules” – a book on how whole foods, mostly plants, are the best foods for us. She’d been mulling it over for a while, then jumped into action.
A year, she figured, would give her enough time to figure out what impact her new diet had on her body, and also help to control longings for the processed stuff: sodas, candies, and everything else Kimble gave up. But first, what did she give up?
Considering almost all packaged food is processed, Megan had to refine her definition of “processed”. For her purposes, she considered anything that she could theoretically make or grow at home to be “unprocessed.”
What Did She Learn?
First she learned that it’s tough. We’ve been conditioned to “eat easy” instead of eating healthily. She met difficulty – “All foods are processed foods so that’s silly” – so she learned to be patient, inquisitive, and dig her heels in to her project to really get the most benefit from her study.
Part of the entire project was for Megan to not put her life “on hold”. She wanted to show herself (and the world) that she could eat healthy and not miss out on life. She wanted to prove that eating natural, whole foods was difficult but very doable.
Megan learned to read ingredient labels on everything and, in doing so, learned that sugar is put in just about everything. She says, “Companies add so much sugar and layers of chemicals to make food last longer and taste better. I’m now an impulsive ingredient reader.”
She considered herself a “compulsive yo-yo dieter” before her unprocessed food diet. During the diet Megan says she always felt full.
“I felt really full all year…Eating unprocessed meant that I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full and didn’t think beyond that. I was really satiated — I was eating richer, whole foods like butter and yet I didn’t gain or lose weight, I just sort of equilibrated. It was really liberating. I didn’t start doing this as a diet, but it was a nice side effect to be able to eat whatever I wanted within the confines of unprocessed and feel full and satiated”
“Unprocessed Radar” Is On
After 12 months, Megan has an unprocessed foods radar. Her diet now is 90% unprocessed foods, and she has favorite go-to brands that she trusts. She makes big pots of beans or grains at the start of the week and uses them daily.
With holistic, unprocessed foods Megan had more energy, slept better, and adopted some really good habits. Her tips to eating more healthily?
• Check the label on everything you eat – you’ll stop eating the packaged foods that contain words you can’t pronounce. You’ll see how much added sugar and chemicals are in those foods, and you’ll stick to cleaner food.
• Buy foods without labels – soon you’ll be reaching for label-less foods: bananas, oatmeal, one-ingredient foods. Even if you’re not much of a cook, you can make pastas, salads, and grain dishes with combinations of one-ingredient foods.
• Prepare your own food – once you take the prep into your hands, you know exactly what’s going into what you’re eating and what you’re putting into your body.
A Year Later
The first things Megan Kimble at when her diet was done? “A Sonoran hot dog and a Diet Coke.” And how was it? “The Diet Coke tasted terrible after a year without soda. It tasted like straight chemicals.” Her 12-months of unprocessed foods has made her kick her soda habit entirely, and seriously cut down on packaged foods – cookies, chips, etc… – the foods that make her feel poorly and don’t keep her full.
“That was a nice sort of side effect of the year — a lot of these processed foods are still kind of invisible to me and my cravings.”
Thanks Megan!
