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It’s an excuse I hear from many who choose not to eat a healthy diet – “Healthy food tastes nasty!”

I actually used to believe this myself. I thought that healthy food didn’t taste good, but like a “good girl”, I suffered through it anyway. This is because I had a completely different idea about what healthy food was. I thought that if I was cutting as much fat and calories out of my diet as possible, I was eating healthy food. What were these foods that I thought of as healthy? Fat free mayonnaise, fat free cottage cheese, dry chicken, and for a real treat – baked pieces of cardboard (otherwise known as “fat-free chips”) with low-cal salsa.

With all due respect to fat-free anything – yuck. Just…yuck. Unless, of course, it is naturally fat free. Apples don’t have fat and they still taste good. But that’s because God made them that way. Real food always tastes better when you eat it the way God made it. (Don’t get me started.) But as soon as you start pulling the real stuff (fat, nutrients, etc.) out of a food and replacing it with chemicals to make it “healthy”, the taste of that food is forever altered and well…yuck.

Now, I don’t claim to be the best cook in the world. I have botched recipes, and scared my family and sometimes my guests with some doozies of dishes that just simply haven’t tasted good. But I’ve got to say, now that we’re eating a healthy, whole foods diet, using real food in its natural form – my food tastes so much better than it ever did compared to the days when we just ate whatever cheap, low fat, low calorie stuff I could find with coupons. (Have you ever put fat-free cheese in your enchiladas? I do not recommend it.)

Serve these Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls, and I bet no one would complain about eating healthier food.
Really? These are made with whole wheat and honey? Yep. :)

Now, sit back and close your eyes. Let the deliciousness of the following food list help you know how wonderful healthy food really does taste. (Oh wait. You may need to open your eyes to read. My bad.)

Compare a chewy chicken nugget from a box, to a juicy beef roast with gravy, roasted potatoes, and carrots – and tell me healthy food doesn’t taste good.
Pull some hearty, homemade honey whole wheat bread out of the oven and slather it with (real!) butter – and tell me healthy food doesn’t taste good.
Whip some cream and plop some on top of fresh strawberries – and tell me healthy food doesn’t taste good.
Grill a steak, serve it with tossed green salad, and corn on the cob – and tell me healthy food doesn’t taste good.
Scramble some farm fresh eggs with some chopped tomatoes, peppers, and grated cheddar cheese – and tell me healthy food doesn’t taste good.

You can open your eyes now. ;) I think I’m finished thinking of amazing, healthy food that tastes good, but I’m hungry right now, so no guarantees.

My point is – real food is healthy, and real food tastes incredibly good. In addition, it is satisfying, and makes your body feel good, since your body recognizes what you are feeding it when you are feeding it real food. It is delicious food and you feel great as a result. It’s a win-win situation.

Rich chicken broth with veggies and homemade noodles; fresh whole wheat biscuits right out of the oven dripping with honey; a peach right off the tree; garden fresh vegetables dipped in homemade ranch dip; whole grain pancakes with melted butter and real maple syrup….

Ahhhhh, real food. I love it. (And I should probably go eat some of it right now since I’m so hungry and delicious food is all I can think of…)

What are your favorite real foods?

Welcome guest poster Carrie Vitt, author of the cookbook Deliciously Organic and publisher of popular food blog, Deliciously Organic. Carrie focuses on recipes using unprocessed, organic ingredients with vibrant flavors and simple dishes everyone will love. She is the wife of an Air Force Test Pilot and mother of two daughters.

If you had two girls under the age of two, and your husband, a fighter pilot, was flying cover during a war in Iraq – would you be thinking about converting your diet to organic, whole foods? I wasn’t. My life had enough stress without another distraction. But that’s what happened in 2003.

Two years earlier, after the birth of my second daughter, I began having daily migraines. I was 25. As migraines often are, they were both baffling and debilitating. I often had to lie down in a quiet dark room, which was almost impossible with toddlers to care for.

I was taking several medications to manage the pain. After two years of struggle, my neurologist suggested adding yet another daily medication to my prescription regimen, a treatment that wasn’t working anyway. I kindly rejected her suggestion and drove home thinking: There must be another way.

That same day, a tiny newsletter article caught my eye. It was about the benefits of organic foods. I knew migraines could be related to diet, so I wondered if changing to organic foods might help. I was at the end of my rope and willing to try something different.

At the time, I was eating lots of vegetables to lose the last 10 pounds of baby weight. I replaced my lettuce with organic – my first step, since lettuce was a food I ate most. Within a week I noticed a significant difference. The frequency of my migraines decreased and it was now easier to take care of my kids. I didn’t need any more encouragement. I next switched all produce to organic with the intent of increasing the amount of pure and untreated food in my diet, while decreasing my pesticide intake. As I dug deeper and learned more, I continued making changes in my pantry and refrigerator.

Over the next year and a half, I converted my family’s diet to whole, unprocessed organic ingredients. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I had a hard time finding recipes that were equivalent in flavor to what we were accustomed to. Nevertheless, I avoided such ingredients as white sugar, white flour and partially hydrogenated anything. Recipes using whole grains were especially challenging. We weren’t ready to leave the world of paninis, pasta and pizza. As my husband likes to say, “We ate some terrible pancakes during the transition.” This was disheartening because I had grown up with a great love for cooking that I inherited from the women in my family.

I decided that if we were going to eat organic dishes, they were going to taste every bit as delicious as the ones I used before.

Over time, I shared with my friends and family how I overcame my health problems. Many were earnestly interested in learning more or in making changes to their own diets. I continued to tell my story, share my recipes and give encouragement through my blog, Deliciously Organic and my recently published cookbook, Deliciously Organic.

Through organic, unprocessed food our family of four was able to overcome severe asthma, eczema, IBS and migraines. No drugs – just good, natural real food.

If organic, whole foods are something you’ve thought about, I encourage you to give it a try. I hope you’ll discover, as I have, that eating food direct from the source is not only perfectly doable and beneficial but perfectly delicious! And don’t be surprised when your friends and the whole family (including the kids) say, “I can’t believe this is organic. It’s delicious!”

Healthy Food Doesn’t Taste Good {No More Excuses!}

Does Organic Food Make a Difference? (a guest post)