The Plan Z Diet Commitment to Whole Unprocessed Foods
By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet
You’ve probably noticed lately that I have been pretty regularly trying to convince you to eat whole, unprocessed foods even if you're not on the Plan Z Diet. Every recipe I write for the Plan Z Diet uses what I consider unprocessed foods (with minor exceptions).
To keep it simple, let’s start off with some definitions: Processed foods are anything you buy in a package in a grocery store. Anything that has chemicals and preservatives as additives would fall into the processed foods category. By my definition, any bread in a store that has a preservative put into it would be a processed food, so even if it doesn’t always come in a box, you can consider it processed. Processed foods encompass most of the grocery store.
Unprocessed foods are the things you find in the produce section, the fresh meat section and limited parts of the dairy section. I say limited parts of the dairy section because we can’t all have a cow or goat in our backyard. We need to allow for some processed foods that are in packages or cartons but the fewer the ingredients that are there to keep them fresh for transport to the grocery store, the better. The closer your food comes to you from the farm, the better.
The almost old adage is, “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” Just read labels and you’ll see what I mean.On the Plan Z Diet you will become a label reading maniac!
Another almost sage saying is “Shop the perimeter.” Buy your food from the sections that surround the outside of the store. That includes the produce department, the fresh meat (not that deli stuff that hangs in those plastic packages), fresh flowers if you want them to decorate your table and the freshest dairy you can find. With dairy, try to stick to the things that have that shorter ingredient list and which don’t have enough chemicals to keep them fresh in the case until 2012. Check the sell-by date.
Buy fresh. That pretty much covers it.
I bring up this subject because there’s a pretty good article in this month’s issue of Food and Wine Magazine written by a contributing chef named Dan Barber. Dan was awarded Best New Chef in 2002 by Food and Wine and is a partner in Blue Hill restaurant in NYC as well as a partner in Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, NY.
Dan’s article is called “Can Farms Save the World?” (Buy this month’s Food and Wine and read the whole article. It’s not in the on-line archive yet).
He contends that our old thought of keeping farming separated from “nature” is ludicrous. The idea of good environmentalism was always separated from farming. That’s where the concept of natural parks came from. You see a national park like Yellowstone in the distance as an environmental preserve while you stand in a pesticide-filled wheat field or a cornfield.
Things are changing though. I drive by community gardens in Chicago, built right under the elevated train tracks. That takes the separation away from city and farm. You see farmer’s markets becoming even more popular and prevalent; bringing the farm closer to the city too. People are flocking to these markets because they are starting to ‘get it’. They see now that fresh food; brought to them from as close to their location as possible is fresher and better for them. Chefs are buying food directly from the farmers. They feature the farms’ names on their menus. Depending on where you live that might be ‘old hat’. It might have been going on for decades now but for many the trip to the local grocery store is still the only option for buying food. For many a franchise restaurant is still the biggest game in town. That’s sad. We have to get back to restaurants owned by individuals. But the trend I’m talking about is growing. Thank goodness – literally!
I had this idea about 20 years ago that I never got to implement. I wanted a sheep farm. I wanted to locate my sheep farm on about 100 acres south of Madison, Wisconsin. I was actually pursuing the idea enough that I’d drive about 45 minutes south of Madison along the rolling hills that border the I-90 corridor, looking for an ideal location to put a sheep farm. I even read books on how to birth sheep. I visited two huge sheep farms, one in upstate New York and one in Washington State, working toward my dream of building a sheep farm.
It’s odd to have a sheep farm in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the land of cows and corn. So why sheep? Maybe it is my Irish heritage. I’m in love with sheep. I love the noises they make, the shape they are, the size and I love the cheese that comes from sheep’s milk. I was totally ready to do the sheep thing and learn how to make sheep’s milk cheese. That was going to be my sheep production involvement. And of course some butchering. (Well , maybe I’d hire that out.)
The sheep farm I planned doesn’t need the full 100 acres. My plan was to lease out the surrounding acres to organic farmers. Then I was going to be in charge of selling the produce to Chicago restaurants. That’s why I was looking where I was. I wanted the transportation of the produce to be simple. Go down I-90 and deliver all this fresh produce and my sheep/lamb products to Chicago.
That idea was in my head long ago when that form of restaurant supply was very new. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in California, and a few other cutting-edge chefs were growing their own produce and sourcing their meat and produce totally locally. I wanted to do my thing; only with sheep. Alas, I was always too busy running another company to get my sheep farm together. But now that I have developed Plan Z by Zola I am approaching the whole food trend from another perspective; that of teaching you how to make delicious whole food recipes and encouraging you to spend the majority of your grocery budget on fresh, whole, unprocessed food.
Cheers,
You’ve probably noticed lately that I have been pretty regularly trying to convince you to eat whole, unprocessed foods even if you're not on the Plan Z Diet. Every recipe I write for the Plan Z Diet uses what I consider unprocessed foods (with minor exceptions).
To keep it simple, let’s start off with some definitions: Processed foods are anything you buy in a package in a grocery store. Anything that has chemicals and preservatives as additives would fall into the processed foods category. By my definition, any bread in a store that has a preservative put into it would be a processed food, so even if it doesn’t always come in a box, you can consider it processed. Processed foods encompass most of the grocery store.
Unprocessed foods are the things you find in the produce section, the fresh meat section and limited parts of the dairy section. I say limited parts of the dairy section because we can’t all have a cow or goat in our backyard. We need to allow for some processed foods that are in packages or cartons but the fewer the ingredients that are there to keep them fresh for transport to the grocery store, the better. The closer your food comes to you from the farm, the better.
The almost old adage is, “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” Just read labels and you’ll see what I mean.On the Plan Z Diet you will become a label reading maniac!
Another almost sage saying is “Shop the perimeter.” Buy your food from the sections that surround the outside of the store. That includes the produce department, the fresh meat (not that deli stuff that hangs in those plastic packages), fresh flowers if you want them to decorate your table and the freshest dairy you can find. With dairy, try to stick to the things that have that shorter ingredient list and which don’t have enough chemicals to keep them fresh in the case until 2012. Check the sell-by date.
Buy fresh. That pretty much covers it.
I bring up this subject because there’s a pretty good article in this month’s issue of Food and Wine Magazine written by a contributing chef named Dan Barber. Dan was awarded Best New Chef in 2002 by Food and Wine and is a partner in Blue Hill restaurant in NYC as well as a partner in Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, NY.
Dan’s article is called “Can Farms Save the World?” (Buy this month’s Food and Wine and read the whole article. It’s not in the on-line archive yet).
He contends that our old thought of keeping farming separated from “nature” is ludicrous. The idea of good environmentalism was always separated from farming. That’s where the concept of natural parks came from. You see a national park like Yellowstone in the distance as an environmental preserve while you stand in a pesticide-filled wheat field or a cornfield.
Things are changing though. I drive by community gardens in Chicago, built right under the elevated train tracks. That takes the separation away from city and farm. You see farmer’s markets becoming even more popular and prevalent; bringing the farm closer to the city too. People are flocking to these markets because they are starting to ‘get it’. They see now that fresh food; brought to them from as close to their location as possible is fresher and better for them. Chefs are buying food directly from the farmers. They feature the farms’ names on their menus. Depending on where you live that might be ‘old hat’. It might have been going on for decades now but for many the trip to the local grocery store is still the only option for buying food. For many a franchise restaurant is still the biggest game in town. That’s sad. We have to get back to restaurants owned by individuals. But the trend I’m talking about is growing. Thank goodness – literally!
I had this idea about 20 years ago that I never got to implement. I wanted a sheep farm. I wanted to locate my sheep farm on about 100 acres south of Madison, Wisconsin. I was actually pursuing the idea enough that I’d drive about 45 minutes south of Madison along the rolling hills that border the I-90 corridor, looking for an ideal location to put a sheep farm. I even read books on how to birth sheep. I visited two huge sheep farms, one in upstate New York and one in Washington State, working toward my dream of building a sheep farm.
It’s odd to have a sheep farm in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the land of cows and corn. So why sheep? Maybe it is my Irish heritage. I’m in love with sheep. I love the noises they make, the shape they are, the size and I love the cheese that comes from sheep’s milk. I was totally ready to do the sheep thing and learn how to make sheep’s milk cheese. That was going to be my sheep production involvement. And of course some butchering. (Well , maybe I’d hire that out.)
The sheep farm I planned doesn’t need the full 100 acres. My plan was to lease out the surrounding acres to organic farmers. Then I was going to be in charge of selling the produce to Chicago restaurants. That’s why I was looking where I was. I wanted the transportation of the produce to be simple. Go down I-90 and deliver all this fresh produce and my sheep/lamb products to Chicago.
That idea was in my head long ago when that form of restaurant supply was very new. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in California, and a few other cutting-edge chefs were growing their own produce and sourcing their meat and produce totally locally. I wanted to do my thing; only with sheep. Alas, I was always too busy running another company to get my sheep farm together. But now that I have developed Plan Z by Zola I am approaching the whole food trend from another perspective; that of teaching you how to make delicious whole food recipes and encouraging you to spend the majority of your grocery budget on fresh, whole, unprocessed food.
Cheers,
To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/
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