30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 13- Gluten Free For Good

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 13- Gluten Free For Good Day 13 of 30 Days to a Food Revolution.  Today’s guest blogger is Melissa from Gluten Free For Good.  Holistic nutritionist and fresh food advocate, Melissa McLean Jory, was diagnosed with celiac disease several years ago. She specializes in nutrition therapy and exercise science in her private practice, blah-blah-blogs about it regularly at Gluten Free For Good and believes true health and healing takes a mind-body approach. As an avid backcountry enthusiast, she finds no limit to nutritious gluten-free cooking, whether in the comfort of her kitchen or the wonder of the wilderness.

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 13- Gluten Free For Good

Melissa’s Recipe: Leek and Potato (and maybe beet green) Soup

Melissa’s Tips: 8 steps to “revolutionary” transformation (and maybe enlightenment)

“Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.”  Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle is a German-born spiritual leader, philosopher, writer and public speaker. Although I doubt he was thinking of bok choy, beet greens or cauliflower when he expressed the above sentiments, I’m taking this literally and applying it to Jamie’s Food Revolution. I also doubt Jamie was thinking spiritual transformation and enlightenment when he temporarily banned French fries at Huntington High or took those nasty pseudo-nuggets off the menu at the local elementary school.

But you know what?

I can’t separate one from the other and even if Eckhart and Jamie have never even heard of each other, they’re both on a revolutionary journey of transformation.

Body, mind and spirit. One infuses, influences and inspires the other. Without a healthy body, without an interest in what goes on inside, the outside won’t fall into place.

All together now…

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world (The Beatles, 1968)

So, let’s do it! Can you hear us, Jamie? We’re on board and ready to flash dance, sing, cook, twirl, eat fresh food and make a change from the inside out.

Here are my food tips for revolutionary and enlightened transformation.

  1. Eat whole, fresh food. Preferably organic. Check here for the EWG’s shopper’s guide to pesticides (the dirty dozen and the clean 15).
  2. Make whole plant sources, especially vegetables, fruit and legumes your foundation.
  3. Choose foods (for the most part) that you can hold in your hands and wash. Can you wash a box of Kraft mac and cheese or a package of Twinkies? You can wash tomatoes, cabbage and leeks and you can rinse brown rice. See how easy that is?
  4. Don’t eat food that never spoils. If it doesn’t rot, it’s not real food.
  5. If animals, insects and bacteria won’t eat it, maybe we shouldn’t either. Food that has been sprayed with chemicals to repel critters is not a good choice for people. Here we are at the top of the food chain and the lowly creepy-crawly things are more aware of what they eat than we are.
  6. Make it yourself. Learn from your grandmother. Be creative, experiment and have fun in the kitchen. Enjoy and benefit by the wisdom of real food.
  7. Eat less, eat slower, use smaller plates, join a CSA, frequent farmer’s markets, choose fresh ingredients, eat more vegetables, choose humanely treated and pastured animal sources and skip the junk food. Nutritious food comes from good ingredients.
  8. Part of healthy eating is enjoying what you eat, how you prepare it, the cultural variations and sharing it with others. Don’t make it complicated. As Alice Waters (hers is a Delicious Revolution) says, “be inspired by recipes, rather than ruled by them.” Have fun and remember – wholesome food is a gift to appreciate.

Leek and Potato Soup from Jamie’s Food Revolution Cookbook

I was inspired by the recipe, rather than ruled by it, so I added beet greens.

30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 13- Gluten Free For Good

serves 6-8
what you need

2 carrots / 2 celery stalks / 2 small onions / 1 pound leeks / 2 cloves garlic / 1¾  quarts chicken or vegetable broth, preferably organic / 1 pound potatoes / olive oil / sea salt and freshly ground pepper / maybe some greens (my addition)

what you do
Peel and roughly chop the carrots. Slice the celery. Peel anc roughly chop the onions. Cut the ends off the leeks, quarter them lengthways, wash them under running water, and cut them into ¼ inch slices. Peel and mince garlic. Put the broth in a sauce pan and heat until boiling. Place a large saucepan on medium/high heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add all your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon. Cook for around 10 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened, but are still holding their shape, and the onion and leeks are lightly golden. Peel the potatoes and cut them into ¼ inch dice. Add the boiling broth to the vegetables. Add your potatoes. Give the soup a good stir and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer with the lid.

to serve your soup
Remove the pan from the heat. Season with salt and pepper. Serve like this or pulse until smooth using an immersion blender. Top with some crumbled cheese or roasted sunflower seeds if you’d like.

* I added washed and chopped beet greens at the end and simmered the soup for another few minutes to cook the greens.

For more information on ingredients in this recipe, visit Melissa and read Far Out Revolution.

Don’t forget:

In order to be entered to win one of 7 cookbooks, here’s what you need to do to gather entries into the drawing.  The more you do, the more chances you have to win!

  1. Leave a comment on this blog on as many of the 30 guest food bloggers as you like.  Each comment is an entry.
  2. Sign up for The W.H.O.L.E. Gang newsletter.
  3. Visit that guest blogger’s site and leave a comment there too.
  4. Tweet about this project using both of these in your tweet so I’ll find you  #30days2 #foodrevolution

When the initial 30 days of guest posts are over on June 4th, we’ll pick the winners.

22 Responses to 30 Days to a Food Revolution Day 13- Gluten Free For Good

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