The 5 Components of Radical Eating

Guest Article by Lou Tamposi from Cow We Doin'

Hello all! Sebastian and Maddie here. This week, we are doing something a little different and having a friend of the newsletter,

Lou Tamposi

, contribute an article.

Enjoy some thoughts on eating radically- a message we believe in deeply and are always conveying throughout our content.

Look out next week for an article highlighting one of Maddie’s favorite seasonal flowers, Calendula.

I’m humbled that Madison and Sebastian offered to let me contribute a piece to Back to Our Roots. Mostly because I love the content that they produce, the ethos they exude, and the life they live, but also, because — as someone who only recently started “getting back” to my own proverbial “roots” — I feel like I’m still trying to get my bearings. It’s been a fun journey — an eye-opening journey — and one that, once you start down the path, is much easier than you might think.

The idea of getting back to my roots sprouted through my love of cooking. I started writing a newsletter, Cow We Doin', a little over three years ago because I thought my friends might get a kick out of me sending them something I cooked every week. I wrote — fairly mundanely, but with regularity — for about a year, but really felt a shift when my daughter first started eating solid foods.

Going into the grocery store and seeing food for kids made with a laundry list of ingredients and additives — I thought to myself, there’s something off here. Then, I read a study that suggested that a majority of kindergarteners polled thought that bacon grew on trees and I realized that if I were going to change this pattern for my own kids, it needed to start with me.

With this charge, I started writing more about our relationship with food. We built raised beds in our backyard and planted a garden — kiddos helping fill the soil and planted the seeds. We bought a half bison from my friend Matt at North Bridger Bison and looked at photos of the field harvest, talked about how that bison lived and died so that we could eat.

I bought a bow, practiced in the backyard with the kids watching, and killed a doe deer last fall — the meat from which sustained us through the winter. We made our own bread, pasta, and countless other recipes as a family, so we would truly understand what went in to bringing food to our tables. We made it a point to talk, at every opportunity, about the need to eat with “eyes wide open.”

Eventually, I realized I needed to put a name to this idea — what Madison and Sebastian call coming “back to our roots”, I called it “radical eating” — the idea that we should hold nothing back in what it takes to nourish us. Radical eating is the multitudes of eating locally, seasonally, with an eye towards the health of the environment, and a focus on nourishment — in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

It is a shift in the way you think about food from the Standard American Diet — and is even a shift from the diets du jour like keto, paleo, carnivore, vegan, or anything. Radical eating is a holistic way of eating that, once you start practicing it, shifts to encompass your entire life — it becomes radical living.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d outline some steps you can take to make the shift yourself. Whether you call it coming back to your roots, call it radical eating, or anything else, I hope that you give it a shot, that you begin to make it part of your life. Start small — but you’ll find once you take that first step, it only gets easier.

Take Action: Radical Eating

1. Think about locality. Where was this food produced? Could I drive there? Could I make a connection with the people responsible for bringing it to my table? This could mean a local farm or rancher, your neighbor who raises chickens, or even just planting some tomato and pepper plants in your backyard. The closer you come to your food sources, the more connected you become to them. You are meant to be nourished by the environment you spend the most time in — avoid eating food grown or raised far away.

2. Think about seasonality. Am I eating this when it is meant to be eaten? With minimal interventions, could I find this outside, right now? Seasonality is so often overlooked. In an era where we can walk into the grocery store and find any fruit and any vegetable, ripe as can be, any time of year, it’s so easy to forget that there are seasons to our food. This goes hand in hand with locality and can be different depending on where you are in the world. Here, where I live in New England, we take advantage of the late spring and summer for a bounty of fresh produce, but in the fall and winter, rely more on stored root vegetables, on high quality canned ingredients. In other climates, it may be reversed, where a mild winter leads to better production, and the hot, dry summer is when you fall back on your pantry. Either way, taste the difference between a vine-ripened late summer tomato and a generic one from the grocery store, and you’ll convince yourself of the importance of this principle.

3. Think about impact. Was this raised or grown in such a way as to minimize impact to the soil? What did it take, beyond just growing, to get to your plate? It’s easy to get caught up in hysterics about what’s going on in the world, especially as it relates to a changing climate. Regardless your thoughts on the macro picture, it’s important to realize the effects of your choices on soil health. Whenever possible, choose organic — or even better, regenerative — producers who have a connection to the land on which they work. This loops back to the first two points, of course: food that is local and seasonal typically doesn’t require synthetic fertilizers and hormones to augment the health of the soil; it doesn’t require shipping great distances to get the product to your plate; the dollars you spend go directly back to the local economy and support the growth of your direct community.

4. Think about the process. What is actually in this “product” I’m putting in my body. Do I understand the ingredients? Could I make it myself? Whenever possible, choose to eat whole foods. Real fruits, real vegetables, real meat. There’s no need to augment if it’s not necessary. That being said, there is a real convenience with processed foods. But before you buy them, try to make them yourself. Understand what it takes to make your breads, your pastas, your snack foods². Then, once you appreciate it, you can find it made by someone else. For example, we choose to make our own sourdough bread each week, but with a little patience, you can find high quality bakeries that don’t add a bunch of filler to their bread.

5. Think about the prep. Does how you prepare the ingredients do justice for the quality? Does your recipe nourish your overall vitality? Are you eating in a way that allows you a full experience? You’ve now invested a lot into whatever your are about to eat — it would be a disgrace to just haphazardly cook and consume it without thought. Take the time to understand the basics of cooking, what techniques make sense for what you’re eating. It would be a shame to just throw fresh vegetables and local meat in the microwave and eat it quickly in front of the TV — instead, figure out what preparation nourishes your mind, your body, and your soul, honoring the ingredients. This is especially true for animal proteins; things that died — either by your hand or some one you might know — so you could eat them. To do anything less would be a waste.

So there you go — a primer to eating radically. I hope this resonates with you — and please, chime in in the comments sections with any thoughts you may have on how to lead a more radical life. I’m always trying to get a little bit better each day. And if you enjoyed this, I write often on this topic on my own newsletter, Cow We Doin’ — would love to see you over there as well.

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Lou Tamposi writes Cow We Doin’, a weekly newsletter about living and eating radically. Essays range from the importance of eating with “eyes wide open,” parenting, fatherhood, hunting, the outdoors, and leading a life well-lived. He lives in New England with his wife, two rambunctious kids, and a mischievous dog.