I know it is quite presumptuous to assume that a person has the time to go to work, keep the house clean, take care of children, have any sort of social life, keep up some kind of exercise regimen AND make all of their food from scratch. I know it seems daunting and I know that rolling the shopping cart over to the frozen foods isle of the grocery store…or the blue box Mac N’ Cheese section is extremely tempting, but I feel like before those processed and packages decisions are made, it is only fair that one knows the truth about those foods.

So, here goes…my argument for home made…for REAL food than can actually be found in nature…food that has not been pumped full of hormones, pesticides, hydrogenation and genetic modification. I will start my argument with some very compelling and eye opening statistics from a book that I have been reading: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

…[Since 1980] 70 percent of our midwestern agricultural land shifted gradually into single crop corn or soybean farms, each one of them, now on average, the size of Manhattan…US farmers now produce 3,900 calories per US citizen, per day. That is twice what we need, and 700 calories more per day than they grew in 1980. Commodity farmers can only survive by producing their maximum yields, so they do. And here is the shocking plot twist: as the farmers produce those calories, the food industry figured out how to get them into the bodies of people who didn’t really want to eat 700 more calories a day…

[This next section is a little obvious but I thought a good point to reiterate]…plenty of studies show that regularly eating cheaply processed fast foods and snack foods slap on extra pounds that increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular harm, joint problems and many cancers. As a country we are officially over the top: the majority of our food dollars buy those cheap calories, and most of our citizens are medically compromised by weight and inactivity. The incidence of obesity-associated diabetes has more than doubled since 1990, with children the fastest-growing class of victims. One out of every three dollars we spend on health care, by some recent estimates, is paying for the damage of bad eating habits. One out of every seven specifically pays to assuage (but not cure) the multiple heartbreaks of diabetes-kidney failure strokes, blindness, amputated limbs.

I am not trying to play Debbie Downer here, but I think that the argument for home made, pretty much makes itself. No one wants to pump themselves, or their families full of completely fake things that are essentially slowly killing them…so, I think it is important to take a stand…stay out of the freezer section (except for straight up, frozen veggies (cheese sauces not included), avoid the aisles, and stick to the things that God created. Fruits, vegetables, WHOLE grains, rice, oats, beans, GRASS FED meats, honey, milk, (SOME) cheeses (many grocery store varieties are actually known to contain large amounts of saw dust and other products that don’t really draw up lovely images).

My passion for home made was just ignited a little further the other night when we had dinner at one of our friend’s homes. We were about to eat when he said, “Do you want to hear something completely disgusting?” Of course, when you hear something like that, your curiosity is piqued and you have to answer, “yes”!

So, he proceeded to tell us about how he lent his house to some friends when he was out of town one weekend. He came home to find a cake in his refrigerator…a decent looking, rectangular chocolate cake, topped with a cherry, from a very well known grocery store bakery. One slice was taken off of the end. Our friend had recently heard a story that one could leave a McDonald’s burger sitting on the counter for an entire month and it would look exactly the same as the day you bought it (and probably be safe enough to eat without getting sick because of all of the preservatives). So, he decided to test this with the cake.

After one month, the cake was unchanged. The CHERRY was unchanged. After month two and three, same thing. We arrived at his home at the end of MONTH SIX. This is what the cake looked like: good enough to eat, right?

BUT, would you WANT to eat this…SIX MONTH OLD cake and cherry?? I didn’t think so! ONE 2 inch slice of this cake has 510 calories and 25 grams of fat. So, in the spirit of offering solutions for problems…here is a wonderful chocolate cake recipe…completely natural…it probably wont last 3 days without starting to wither…but hopefully it tastes so good, it wont last three days either way…and it has about 110 calories and 2 grams of fat per piece (no soy beans or corn added.)

*I will add pictures later, the internet connection in Africa is VERY slow!

Chocolate Cake
2 cups oat flour (or really any other flour you like)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup 0% Greek yogurt
1/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

Chocolate sauce
1/2 Cup oat flour
1/4 Cup Cocoa powder
1/4 Cup agave nectar
1/4 t salt
1/4 Cup skim milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×9 inch baking pan. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt and stir well. In a separate bowl.mix together the eggs, yogurt, milk, agave, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until lumpless. Pour and spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

When you are ready to serve, make the sauce (inspired by my love for raw batters!) In a small bowl, mix together all of the ingredients and then drizzle over each individual piece.