About Me

Hi, I'm Claire. I'm 15, and I love to cook, eat and grow food. I love vegetables; unfortunately, I also have and unhealthy obsession with fruit and nuts. All recipes on this blog will be REAL FOOD, many of them paleo, vegan, and WAPF.

NOT Real Food

• Processed junk (think KD, doritoes, any kind of soda). This stuff is disgusting. I think we all know that, it doesn't need much of an explanation. No one needs to eat this kind of "food", so don't!
• Soy, corn, canola, or anything made with or having even a trace of these products. If they're not organic, you can be sure that they're GMOs. Even if you do buy organic, they still have problems.
• Proccessed grains, or even whole grains if they haven't been properly soaked, sprouted, or fermented. Even then, grain consumption is less than optimal
• Processed or artificial sweeteners, meaning white, and brown sugar, "sugar in the raw", and every kind of artificial sweeteners, from corn syrup to aspartame to highly processed agave nectar.
• Factory farmed animals and animal products (eggs, milk, etc.). While I'm not a vegetarian in any sense of the word, sometimes I tell people I am just so I can avoid this kind of meat. I mean, it's disgusting!

Real Food

• Vegetables! There will be tons of vegetables on this blog. Vegetables are always great for everyone, not matter what you think about food! They're delicious, fast to prepare, and they're super healthy!
• Meat, fish and eggs from happy animals roaming free, eating grass, bugs, seaweed (for the fish), or whatever else they would naturally eat in the wild, and being raised without any chemicals, hormones or antibiotics. I buy all my meat from harbor side farms, because I trust the quality of their meat and I can order what I want online and pick it up at a nearby location on a certain meat pick-up day. Find a farmer in your area who you can trust!
• Bone broth, fish, and organ meats are superfoods. Try to eat them as often as possibly, but make sure you get happy, naturally fed animals.
•  Dairy can be really healthy, if you can get raw milk products from previously mentioned happy animals. Unfortunately, raw milk is illegal in Canada, so this blog will be dairy-free. 
• Fruit has lots of vitamins, and are a pretty healthy thing to eat. Just make sure you don't go overboard, as they do contain quite a bit of fructose. 3-4 pieces of fruit a day is generally a safe amount of fructose to consume. Berries are low in sugar, things like dates, figs, and pineapple are really high in sugar.
• Legumes can okay if they're properly prepared. Like grains, they're not an outstanding source of nutrition, but I eat then because they're cheap, filling, provide some protein, and they taste good. Peanuts are a legume, and apparently they're toxic, but I think peanuts are just too darn delicious to give up completely. Just make sure to always buy organic peanuts. Organic soy can be eaten in moderation in the form of soy sauce, miso, or natto. Just be ABSOLUTELY SURE that it's organic, because nothing organic can contain GMOs.
• Nuts and seeds, once they're soaked, are healthy, but should be enjoyed in moderation. I have a real problem with this, but do your best.
• Natural sweeteners, like honey, maple syrup, or coconut crystals are better than their artificial  and/or processed counterparts, but should still be used sparingly. Sugar is sugar and sugar is bad, but use natural sweeteners if you need to eat something sweet. But if you grow your own stevia, I don't see anything wrong with using that, except if it keeps you addicted to sweets.
• Fat is healthy!, especially saturated fat. Don't be afraid to use lots of lard (non-hydrogenated), butter, and tallow, as long as it comes from properly raised animals. Coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, and avocadoes are also great! Sesame oil's also fine for the odd stir-fry, just avoid canola, soy, corn, sunflower, safflower (yellow seed) oils, because they all undergo icky, chemical-laden, high-heat processes that make them rancid and disgusting 

Healthy food is delicious, especially if you know that healthy food means real food, cooked with plenty of delicious pork fat and coconut oil and seasoned with lots of salt!

My other interests

No, I don't spend my entire day growing, cooking, and eating food (although that would be nice). Obviously,  I go to school, where I learn math, science, E.L.A, German, and geography in German. I also take art, gym, and power mechanics (not because I like cars, but because I don't want to waste money on things like getting my oil changed when I could just do it myself. Although I have to admit, the part where we where we were told to take random parts off of junk cars with no further instruction was a lot of fun). I want to be a farmer someday (Joel Salatin-type), so I don't think AP pre-calculus math will help much with that, but I think math is fun (yes, I'm a nerd). I also play badminton, basketball, and I do a bit of running. I LOVE books, so don't be surprised if I post about amazing books that I've read (I'm not all that judgmental of books, so pretty much anything I read I consider good). And I have to admit, a bit too much of my time is spent browsing other food blogs.

Well, that's me in a nutshell! Hope you enjoy my humble little blog!