These days so much of what we know and learn comes through facebook channels. We can ‘like’ pages that are of interest to us, or that motivate us to be who we want to be.
It was through my facebook connections that I fortunately stumbled across a page called ‘Primal Life’, which now has a ‘daughter’ page aptly titled ‘Wholefood Families’. Primal Life is a local Whangarei company (primal-life.co.nz) selling a completely natural ‘superfood’ protein powder, but who also writes, educates, and blogs about whole foods, bringing food back to basics, and enabling ourselves to truly nourish, not just satisfy, our hunger cravings. The Wholefood Families facebook page is an enlightening page of nutritional information, recipe sharing, and helpful kitchen hints that help families, and Mums in particular, provide their families with the most nutrient-rich food possible for them and their own personal budgets. I have gained so much from both of these pages already that I thought I would dig a little behind the scenes and find out who was behind them, and why they do what they do…
Behind the scenes of Primal Life is a lovely and truly genuine character by the name of Emma Farrier. Emma has a background in Physical Education, and co-runs the business with her husband Rob. Between them they have four beautiful girls – aged 7, 6, 3 1/2 and 16months. About 18 months ago they decided to clean up their nutritional habits – and she says the impact it has had on all of their health has been astounding. Emma declares that she is by no means a qualified nutritionist, but she calls herself a passionate expert when it comes to eating whole foods, and real food. And she has done a significant amount of research, reading, and analysis in various food and nutrition related topics to gain the information that she has today.
What is your philosophy and/or approach to Food?
Basically to eat as clean and natural as possible. We do our best to avoid processed food, refined sugar, vegetable oils and wheat. If it grows naturally in nature – eat it; if it is produced in a factory – don’t.
What are the three biggest mistakes people make with regards to their nutrition and food choices?
– Following every new ‘fad diet’ that comes out in the latest magazine. If it isn’t sustainable over the long term then it will fail; if you are always hungry then it will fail; if you feel like you are depriving yourself then it will fail. Diet change needs to be a sustainable lifestyle change – not a means to an end, but the end itself.
– Believing the advertised health claims on packaged supermarket products and putting convenience before nutrition.
– Buying low fat products – when fat is removed from food it becomes tasteless so they add sugar, salt and all sorts of other stuff to make it tasty again. Low fat products will fill you briefly then leave you hungry.
What is your number one rule/guideline to healthy living?
Eat GOOD food that will nourish your body, cook from scratch, chew and breathe.
What food should we be having more of and what foods should we be having less of?
More – Leafy green vegetables and just more vegetables in general, seasonal fruit, quality protein, full-fat products, quality fats (olive oil, butter, animal fats, coconut oil etc).
Less – Refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar (i.e. lollies, soft drinks, muesli bars) and highly processed wheat. Vegetable oils and products that contain them (they’re in more foods than you’d think!), processed and pre-packaged meats and meals (they contain a lot of nasty additives).
What is the ultimate result you are seeking from your business and your facebook pages?
To help educate and empower people to make GOOD food choices. To offer recipes, advice, support and practical ways to make eating well a reality. I would love to see more parents feeding their kids well. Our children are our future and the food we feed them now is going to impact on their future health and the food choices they make as adults. We need to stop the increase in lifestyle illnesses. There is so much preventable disease in our society – obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cancer to name just a few. And a lot of it comes down to the food we are eating and it won’t change unless people start making good food choices instead of just reaching for convenience. As a population we have become apathetic and this needs to change, the food manufactures aren’t going to do it for you, they just want your money regardless of what their food is doing to your health. We want to be able to empower people to make choices that will ultimately improve their health and quality of life now and in the generations to come.
Your final words…
‘All social change comes from the passion of individuals’ – Margaret Mead. And we need more passionate individuals to create the change we need to see, that’ll enable our future generations to have less illness and disease than we are currently confronted with.