Too Much Fake Food? Twelve Tasty Ways to Eat Better

Eating healthy is not about depriving yourself of your favorite dishes; it's about replacing them with richer choices - foods abundant in minerals, vitamins, proteins, healthy fats and micronutrients! Science verifies that a majority of America's best-loved menu items only masquerade as food. In reality they are dangerous, even deadly as their toxins and inflammatory components accumulate inside the body.

So raise a fork to real food! Here's a dozen delightful ways that won't deprive you!

1. Butter your vegetables.I didn't say margarine your vegetables. Butter them... with golden butter made from the rich cream of grass-fed cows on verdant pastures. You will be adding healthy omega-3 fats and discarding harmful trans-fats. Besides, your brain needs more saturated fat than you think.
2. Saute in coconut oil. Why use liquid oils extracted with solvents at high temperatures that have been subjected to oxidation so that they create free-radicals in your body? You can enjoy medium chain triglycerides that are actually burned for energy instead of being stored in your fatty tissues.
3. Sneak avocado into your smoothie. Not only will your breakfast beverage be creamier, but the added omega-9 fats will provide energy at a steady rate, staving off the sugar "surge & plunge" that would normally leave you flat mid-morning.
4. Indulge in a Reuben sandwich. Skip the PB&J on white bread. It's high in refined carbohydrates and hydrogenated fats; plus it's skimpy on the protein. Try a traditionally-made whole-grain sourdough, with true corned (pickled) beef and authentic sauerkraut. This trio will give you a nice balance of carbs, protein, and fats. As a bonus, you will be eating millions of live probiotics to give your gut a boost!
5. Snatch colorful in-season produce at the farmer's market. Forget canned vegetables where the vitamins have been destroyed in processing. It's much more rewarding and fun to enjoy pesticide-free fresh food loaded with anti-oxidants. See if you can eat five different colors in one day!
6. Lavish your salad with a homemade yogurt dressing. You will be avoiding rancid oils. The live, active cultures will stimulate enzyme production to help digest your foods.
7. Spoil yourself with a cut of grass-finished beef. If you want meat, treat yourself to a cut that doesn't have growth hormones, antibiotics, excessive fat, or inflammatory properties from a high omega-6 content.
8. Pamper yourself with an exotic rice pilaf. Sure, you could have potato or white rice, but when you serve a pilaf made with various whole grains, it feels fancier. And it is, because it has more fiber and more minerals. In addition to brown rice, you can get pink, red, black, and wild. Then add baby lentils and finely chopped vegetables.
9. Satiate those snack cravings with plantain chips sprinkled with unrefined sea salt. The starch in a plantain will actually feed the good microbes in your intestines and the sea salt has co-factors that keep your body in balance and don't raise blood pressure.
10. Nourish yourself with a weekend omelet. Americans get 60-80% of their calories from carbohydrates - mostly refined. So ditch the bowl of cereal and enjoy some pastured protein from free-range chickens fed their natural diet. Your lethargy will diminish.
11. Delight in wild-caught, deep-sea fish. Farm-raised fish have the same inflammatory omega-6 fats that corn-fed cows and factory chickens have, and some are artificially colored. Not only do wild salmon have favorable fats, they have beneficial carotenoids, with cancer-fighting properties.
12. Gratify your sweet tooth with chocolate-covered fruit. If you must have dessert, don't cheapen the experience with inferior white sugar. Eat flavor-bursting ripe berries or succulant fruits with just a touch of melted dark (75% or more) cacao. You can even blend your own chocolate dip by combining hazelnuts with cacao, coconut milk, butter, and a little natural sweetener (such as pure maple syrup or honey).