5 Rules I Eat By.

Tuesday I uncovered my plan to start entering races, yesterday I gave you a tour of my daily meals, so today I thought I'd continue the theme this week and reveal what I've come to believe in terms of food: what drives my purchasing, cooking, and eating choices.

My 5 rules to Eat by: Principles I've come to trust in, live by, and rarely break.

1. Can't pronounce the ingredients?  Don't eat it.  Buy mostly whole foods that require no food labels because they are 1 single ingredient.  If there's no getting around it, stick to 5 or less ingredients on the label.  Bonus: the less packaged items you buy, the more eco-friendly your shopping habits will naturally be too.  I don't use those plastic produce bags, just throw my goods in the cart to save even more!

2. From scratch cooking: Make it if it can be made.  This allows me to control what goes into the food I eat.  It's also fresher & tastes better this way too.  We make all of our own bread & buns, jams, baked goods, ice cream, pizza dough, you name it!  This is the first year I plan to make & can enough pasta sauce to get us through the winter.  I've even made mayonnaise from time to time.

3. Eat a Rainbow:  Sometimes I get stuck in a rut eating the same foods over and over again.  I believe that the more diverse species of plants you can put into your body the more health benefits you'll reap.  Plus, colorful foods contain nutrients.  That's just plain science:)

4. Eat all meals and snacks save dinner vegetarian.  Additionally, 1 meal/ day should be vegan.  I believe in the power of plants.  So it's important for me to make sure that I'm making them the star of my day, and no way was better for me than to cut out all animal products whatever in an entire meal (usually lunch).

5. My Personal Meat Rules-  I love meat, I really do.  Sometimes biting into a steak is something I just drool over thinking about.  While I do still eat meat, and think there is value in humans eating it, I do not think we need it in as much quantity as Americans have come accustomed to.  And don't even get me started on industrial meat production.

That aside, here are my typical meat-eating habits:  I don't eat it at all (save smoked salmon or bacon on occasion) for breakfast or lunch.  Dinner- I eat vegetarian dinners about twice a week, we eat fish at least twice a week, so that leaves 3 dinners/ week where I'm eating chicken, pork, or beef.  I'd like to say I only eat farmer's market meat, but that's not always the case.  Room for improvement here.

Question: Do you have any rules that guide your eating habits?