Whole foods vs. tradtional foods

[simple life]

What is the difference? Is there a difference? Pros/cons of each? Thanks for any info/links/thoughts you have. We have dabbled in whole foods, but desire to eat a traditional foods, but I am not sure that I see a difference, of course, I have not done much looking at all. I had kind of thought they were the same thing, but not sure. Thanks again,
Julie

[applecider]

I think traditional foods is more meaning "traditionally prepared" foods. Like fermented things, soaking grains, eating more organ meats, more fermented veggies and dairy products. They both are staying away from processed stuff. HTH!

[chattyprincess]

in my mind (and im sure someone will explain this better!), traditional foods is whole foods hyped up. You are eating whole fresh foods, you are cutting out the processed foods (same wf/tf) but I feel with tf It takes us back "in the day" of how people traditionally ate, they ate whole fresh unadultered foods when availble (spring, summer, fall) that were locally availble and then they took those whole fresh foods and preserved them in some way to have them in the winter time. Such as fermenting, drying etc. This includes things like dairy. Cow gave a ton of milk and you couldn't use it all? well you can ferment it on the counter and have it to drink the next day still or use it to make pancakes/baked goods with....does this make sense???
I don't sprout grains (yet) so that is a big difference in tf/wf...

[Magelet]

I agree with pp that for the most part it's about preparation of foods.

More fermented veggies and cultured dairy, soaking grains, bone broths.

It's also about eating more animal (and a couple healthy and traditional plant) fats, eating grassfed/pastured animal products if you can afford it, and such.

(honestly I think THE biggest difference lies with grains. soaked vs unsoaked whole grains is a huge nutrition difference)

[mbravebird]

Traditional foods is whole foods prepared in a way that makes the nutrients more available. Soaking grains, fermenting vegetables, and culturing dairy are examples.

Traditional foods also incorporate more fat than most modern whole-foods diets.

Traditional foods also focuses on nutrient-dense foods, like organ meats and bone broths.

Traditional foods also focuses on the source of the foods -- so, raw dairy rather than pasteurized, from grass-fed cows rather than grain-fed. Meat from grass-fed animals, as well.

All of this benefits the health more than just whole foods; diets and foods of traditional peoples evolved that way for a reason, and tend to serve our bodies and our environment pretty well.

And the underpinning ethos of traditional foods is relationship. Relationship with our food, our bodies, the animals, the environment we live in, the rhythm of the seasons. Not in a blithe way, but in a very practical way, the way it's always been until very recently in human history.

[simple life]

thanks!

A few more questions. What does the soaking do to help the nurtrition? How do you ground a sprouted grain (like in a grinder)? Wouldn't the green part not really get ground?

What are the good plant fats. We have been using coconut oil as I had thought it was a good one, and olive oil. Are those good ones?

Thanks again.

[mbravebird]

Originally Posted by simple life

A few more questions. What does the soaking do to help the nurtrition? How do you ground a sprouted grain (like in a grinder)? Wouldn't the green part not really get ground?

What are the good plant fats. We have been using coconut oil as I had thought it was a good one, and olive oil. Are those good ones?

Thanks again.

All grains and beans are essentially seeds, and they all have a seed coating that prevents them from sprouting until the right conditions happen (moisture, warmth, acidity). Until that seed coating is neutralized by the right conditions, the seed coating remains, and when ingested, inhibits the absorption of all the nutrients in the seed. Further, ingestion of the seed coating inhibits nutrient absorption from other food you eat, too. The seed coating is called phytic acid.

Soaking grains and beans in an acidic medium (water with lemon juice, vinegar, whey, or yogurt added) neutralizes the phytic acid, and makes your body more able to digest and absorb not only the nutrients from the grains and legumes, but all the other food you're eating with it, too. Our ancestors didn't know the science of it, but they knew the digestion of it, and you'd be hard pressed to find a culture who didn't soak/sprout their grains or beans.

I've never ground sprouted grains; I just soak regular flour before using it in a recipe, or use an extra-long rise when baking (like a traditional sourdough rise).

The soaking part is the hardest, imo, because it means you have to be organized and plan!! There is a great menu mailer available, though, that does all the planning for you of when to set things to soak, etc. For myself, I end up doing things like soaking and cooking a huge amount of beans, freezing them, and then using them as I need them in dishes, so that I can avoid the planning part.

Coconut oil and olive oil are both great plant-based fats, as long as you get extra-virgin of both. The processed coconut oil is awful for you, but the extra virgin is wonderful for your health. Coconut oil is what you'll want for high-heat things, if you're not using animal-based products.

Enjoy learning about it all! This journey has really transformed my family's health.

[Magelet]

Originally Posted by simple life

thanks!

A few more questions. What does the soaking do to help the nurtrition? How do you ground a sprouted grain (like in a grinder)? Wouldn't the green part not really get ground?

What are the good plant fats. We have been using coconut oil as I had thought it was a good one, and olive oil. Are those good ones?

Thanks again.

I haven't made sprouted flour, but I know that you don't sprout it that much. (not to the point of a long green tail, somewhere closer to the moment that little tail starts to peak out), and then you dehydrate it, and then grind it in a grain grinder. It works pretty much life whole wheat flour.

The soaking reduces the phytic acid as a pp said, and if you soak it for a longer time, it starts to ferment which pre-digests the food a bit (and makes it sour.)

for fats, extra virgin coconut oil, and extra virgin olive oil are the "best" plant fats. some people use walnut, sunflower and a couple other oils occasionally (like for salad dressings or mayo), but you have to be quite careful to get cold pressed and they might go rancid quickly. I don't know that much about their nutrition, I just know some people here use them. Red palm oil (different from palm oil which is palm kernel oil, and is not at all sustainable, since people are tearing down rainforest to grow it) is also a healthy plant fat. I think that much of it is grown on plantations in south east asia, and then there are some companies selling organic or "beyond organic" from small farms in west africa.

Animal fats are also really important (butter, ghee, lard, tallow, chicken fat, fatty meat). I personally don't feel that people can do well long term without at least ONE source of animal fat. they are so packed with fat soluble minerals that can't really be absorbed well from plants.

[simple life]

Thanks for all that info! It makes so much sense! We LOVE animal fats here! We usually get cuts of meat or chicken that has a lot of fat to use to make gravy and such. I was mostly meaning for things like making a cake when it calls for veggie oil, I have been using the coconut oil, never notice a difference. I need to go look to see if it's extra virgin. It's what ever our Walmart has (we are kind of in the middle of no where, not many choices for food shopping), so I'm guessing it's not the good stuff! On that note, would the overly processed coconut oil still be better for you than say, veggie or canola oil?

Julie

eta: the coconut oil doesn't say it's extra virgin, so I'm guessing it's not. It's LouAna coconut oil. Guess we need to find someplace to get some better oil!

[Magelet]

I think unrefined is the same as extra virgin, it's what I use.

personally I think that overly refined coconut oil probably is better than veggie oils, because at least it won't be rancid, and you'll be starting from a healthy base fat. (unlike veggie oils, which are crazy high omega 6 next to no omega 3, and nothing good at all in in em.)

[WuWei]

Have you tried Sue Gregg's blender batter recipes? You can do whole grain baking with the blender batter method. You still soak the grains overnight with an acid medium.
http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/brea...erwafflesA.htm


Pat

[mbravebird]

Originally Posted by WuWei

Have you tried Sue Gregg's blender batter recipes? You can do whole grain baking with the blender batter method. You still soak the grains overnight with an acid medium.
http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/brea...erwafflesA.htm


Pat

Oh, yeah, that's a great recommendation! Love that recipe.

[StrongBeliever]

I'm in the Show-Me state too!

All of the previous posters have done a pretty good job of summing it up. In my household we hover between WF and TF... The big difference being with the grains. We are actually trying to minimize grain consumption(I have sensitivities and suspect them in the kiddos) so I am not doing the soaking and sprouting and all that jazz as much as I was. So lately if we get in a time crunch, or the family gets super bored with what we are having we'll get some marginally healthy(read: whole grain no preservatives) sandwich bread or some whole wheat noodles or something along those lines. And I always feel bad when I do, like they are junk food.
The traditional grain thing has always been kind of hard for us... Going from a whole food style to TF and finding out that many of the things you thought you were doing healthier than average aren't healthy at all. I was a whole grain aficionado... Which, honestly, should be written whole grain junkie. *haha* Cookies, cakes, bread, rolls, biscuits... All of my hard earned baking skills went down the drain(I know that is cup-half-empty talk, personal pity party*ha*) with the very different preparation and outcome of traditionally prepared grain products. Just when I was getting really good at whole grain, I switched the game up on myself. And I did learn a lot of really cool ways to prepare stuff and came up with some good recipes. But in essence there isn't a lot of room for the pastry fan in the TF lifestyle... It's just not the same.
All in all it was a really good lesson, and a challenge, for me to naturally cut back on the amount of grain foods our family was eating by learning to do things TF style(longer prep time, less sweet items cut out a lot). It allowed me to examine just how important to me grains really were.
Long story short... I LOVE Traditional Foods. It has made a big difference in our health. And it is NOT hard to pull off. Quality meat, dairy and veggies I grew up with so it was a no brainer. But a word of wisdom from a would-be grain junkie... In my experience it was EASY to fall in and (lots of times) out of preparing grains properly. Like baking a whole grain cake with no soaking involved... Many times. So we don't do grains much at all anymore, weaning off, I suppose. And when we do eat them, we choose to fall off the TF wagon for a couple days on some store bought WF stuff rather than fall off the wagon every other day for a month with a bag of whole wheat flour to tempt me into baking cookies and muffins and the like. Best of luck!

[Gingercat]

Originally Posted by Magelet

for fats, extra virgin coconut oil, and extra virgin olive oil are the "best" plant fats.

Just a clarification, extra virgin olive oil is not the same as cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, so one should be careful with this. At least here in Greece you can get extra-virgin olive oil nearly everywhere but only a few of them are cold-pressed.

I guess that if you're using olive oil for cooking it doesn't have to be cold-pressed, but if you're using it raw then cold-pressed is the oil to choose.

Personally I never use olive oil for cooking, only CO and usually I add the olive oil to the dishes just before serving. I find it wasteful to heat my expensive organic cold-pressed olive oil, but I always keep some regular extra virgin one as my mom and MIL can never imagine cooking without it!

[Magelet]

Originally Posted by Gingercat

Just a clarification, extra virgin olive oil is not the same as cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, so one should be careful with this. At least here in Greece you can get extra-virgin olive oil nearly everywhere but only a few of them are cold-pressed.

I thought that was what extra virgin meant!

[Gingercat]

Originally Posted by Magelet

I thought that was what extra virgin meant!

In past I imagine that these two definitions (extra virgin and cold-pressed) used to be synonymous, but unfortunately nowdays this is not the case.

The term extra-virgin has to do with the oil's acidity, I believe that the oleic acid shouldn't exceed 0.8 grams per 100 grams.
Extra virgin olive oil is mostly produce in modern processing plants that make use of some heat (and I heard of some other outrageous refinements to extra-virgin olive oil, such as the addition of coloring agents for the oil to retain its natural green colour for a longer time-only fresh olive oil has a green colour, as it ages it turns yellow).

The facilities to produce cold-pressed olive oil are very limited, even here in Greece where olive oil production is huge; you can find either the very old and traditional stone mills or a handful of modern processing plants that are specifically designed for cold-extraction.

The best olive oil to buy, if you can find it, is "agourelaion". Agourelaion is by definition cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil that is extracted from unripe, green olives of certain superior varieties. It is though very expensive as it's production is very very limited and it has an early expiration date (only lasts a few months). But just a little bit of this goes a long way as it has a strong fruity and slightly bitter flavour.
This is one of my favourite brands, Elaion Agourelaion Finest

[mbravebird]

Originally Posted by Gingercat

In past I imagine that these two definitions (extra virgin and cold-pressed) used to be synonymous, but unfortunately nowdays this is not the case.

The term extra-virgin has to do with the oil's acidity, I believe that the oleic acid shouldn't exceed 0.8 grams per 100 grams.
Extra virgin olive oil is mostly produce in modern processing plants that make use of some heat (and I heard of some other outrageous refinements to extra-virgin olive oil, such as the addition of coloring agents for the oil to retain its natural green colour for a longer time-only fresh olive oil has a green colour, as it ages it turns yellow).

The facilities to produce cold-pressed olive oil are very limited, even here in Greece where olive oil production is huge; you can find either the very old and traditional stone mills or a handful of modern processing plants that are specifically designed for cold-extraction.

The best olive oil to buy, if you can find it, is "agourelaion". Agourelaion is by definition cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil that is extracted from unripe, green olives of certain superior varieties. It is though very expensive as it's production is very very limited and it has an early expiration date (only lasts a few months). But just a little bit of this goes a long way as it has a strong fruity and slightly bitter flavour.
This is one of my favourite brands, Elaion Agourelaion Finest

Thanks for this clarification -- I had no idea of the difference. I looked in my cupboard and one of my EVOO's was cold pressed, one was not. Fortunately the organic Philippe Berio stuff was cold-pressed -- a good thing, since Berio is easy to come by here.

Thanks for the tips! I'd love to try that brand you mentioned.