Thanksgiving Prep. On Purpose.

They say you eat more if you eat in front of the TV because you're not thinking about eating...you're just eating on accident.

In a society where convenience is king, you can do just about anything on accident.  You can eat on accident, or even easier, cook on accident.  Social networking sites, while great for keeping up with friends spread far and wide, create lazy friendships.  Why should I call my best friend to chat when Facebook already told me she's doing fine today, but is slightly annoyed at the bad driver in front of her.

This awakening of purposeful, non-accidental living is timely with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.  Tis' the season for me to be on guard.  My body goes into a multi-front civil war if I ingest even the smallest amount of gluten (the protein in wheat, rye, barley and oats).  From now until News Year's Day, I'll be constantly surrounded by food, most of which I can't touch.  I will ask questions like "did you flour the outside of your turkey? " And I'll make pithy announcements on Thanksgiving Day to "please not commingle the serving spoons."  This is my third gluten-free Thanksgiving, so thankfully it's much more of a non-issue than it used to be.

There's a blessing to being gluten free.  After the shock of learning I was allergic to the base of the food pyramid wore off, my eyes were opened to the realities of the processed foods I'd blithely consumed for the previous 24 years.  Our food is so processed that I can't eat lunch meat, salad dressings, some ice creams, anything marinated, some canned beans, lowfat cheese, canned soup...all because the corporations who produce these foods rely on the binding properties of wheat to make their products plump, pretty and cheap to produce.

This leads me to my topic.  My very first blog post: Thanksgiving. On purpose.

I won't lie.  I almost cried at the grocery store yesterday when I was doing my Thanksgiving shopping.

I'm only responsible for a few sides at the Thanksgiving feasts the hubby and I are attending.  This year's Thanksgiving contributions are:  cranberry salad, a pumpkin custard trifle, pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust, pomegranate guacamole and the newest attempt, green bean casserole.

My cart was brimming full with the usual suspects - fresh cranberries, oranges waiting to be zested, nuts begging to chopped, fresh green beans ready to be headed and tailed and steamed, a bag of onions for homemade french fried onions, corn meal which will become corn bread which will become stuffing, a new bag of sugar and a few cans of pumpkin.

Sadly, the other carts did not look like this, nor did the store's holiday displays.  There was a man-made can mountain of condensed cream of mushroom soup, a small shrine to bags of cubed cardboard-like bread, miles of rolled out and boxed pie crust, and an entire endcap dedicated to french-fried onions for green bean casserole (which, I hate to tell you, is nothing but fried dough with onion flavoring).  This is how we cook?  This is the fuel we place in our bodies and then expect to feel healthy?  This is the red carpet we pull out for a holiday centered around a feast of Thanksgiving.

Too bad they don't have Thanksgiving-themed Twinkies.

Now, I've been accused of being a snob before.  And the hubby says I should work on keeping my opinions to myself.  So disclaimer:  I'm not trying to sound like a snob, and I know that all cooking takes work.  But here's the thing, I think people cook like this and eat like this because they simply know no other way. Three years ago, on my first g.f Thanksgiving, I just assumed that I'd never be able to eat green bean casserole again.  How could I without access to Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup and French's onions?  I even searched online for gluten-free stuffing mix.  I didn't know any better.

In her book Gluten Free Girl, Shauna James Ahern says this: "An entire generation was raised to believe that cooking meant opening a box, ripping off plastic wrap, or adding water.  The television told us what to eat, and we paid attention.  But after a lifetime of grabbing burgers from fast-food joints and eating in the backseat of our cars, we are a cooking-illiterate generation.  We're fascinated by food, and we know we should be healthier, but we don't know how.  We only know how to tear open a package and stick it in the microwave."

Here's my challenge to you.  Pull out your food processor, your trusty rolling pin or a good old fashioned sharp knife, and make one thing from scratch this Thanksgiving.  Use real food, avoid boxes, and go for it!

Oh and full disclosure: my cranberry salad uses a box of Jell-o and I use Midel brand g.f. ginger snaps.  I'm not a complete hippie...yet.