Food Day

Who doesn't love a day devoted entirely to food? This girl does, that's for sure. It's ironic, however, that I'll be starting my day by coming off a fast for Glucose Test #2. (Big, fat 'ol YUCK to that.) So after three hours of bliss (not), I'll be ready and willing to participate. It's Food Day! Which means that all day long, "thousands of events will inspire Americans to improve their diets and fix our food system." These events are all part of a grassroots campaign sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a "nonprofit watchdog group that has led successful fights for food labeling, better nutrition, and safer food since 1971."

Let's face it, we're a hot mess (for the most part) when it comes to food. From our diets to our supply, we need help on a variety of different levels. Devoting one day out of the entire year to promoting ways to actually help, well...that just makes sense. But it doesn't stop there. The campaign itself is ongoing and evermore, constantly striving to embrace a very specific list of principles.

6 Food Day Principles
1) Reduce diet-related diseases by promoting safe, healthy foods.
2) Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness.
3) Expand access to food and alleviate hunger.
4) Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms.
5) Promote healthy by curbing junk-food marketing to kids.
6) Support fair conditions for food and farm workers.

You can get behind all of that, right? See if there's a Food Day event in your area and do so physically. If there isn't an event, or if you simply cannot attend it, at least do your part by eating real today. Why eat real? Because real food is the only true source of that which maintains and sustains you. Real food starts at the source and ends in a nice, homemade, clean meal on your dinner table.

Need help with that? You can download the 32-page electronic cookbook at left from the Food Day website. It's full of awesome recipes from chefs you already know and love (Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse, Mark Bittman, etc). I'm seriously drooling over all the recipes inside it.

There's nothing, at least in my opinion, quite like a real (translation = clean) meal. Not only does it taste better, it brings such good things into your body that really make a huge difference in the way you feel. Particularly if you're a fitness freak. (I mean "freak" in the most loving sense possible, obvi.)

So anyways, get behind today. And if you walk away with anything, at least walk away understanding the ten best and worst aspects of America's food scene: