Could You Eat Real Food for 100 Days?

It’s a legitimate question.

I came across this through Civil Eats the other day. This family of two adults and two young children ate only “real food” for 100 days, and there website encourages others to do it for 10 days. They are omnivores, so of course animal products are on the list, though the mom says they don’t eat meat often.

I’m pretty sure that I could do 10 days standing on my head- the hardest part would be going without Diet Coke for 10 days, but I’ve done that many times before. In fact, the 11 days I lasted on Eat to Live would qualify me for the 10 days already. So that I know I can do.

Since then, I’ve had some trouble eating well. Some weeks I do awesome, others are a pretty poor example of a vegan diet. I want to change that, and I’ve been thinking that whole foods are the way to go.

Most of the 100 Days of Real Food rules can be easily applied to a vegan diet, with the obvious exception of the animal products. But there are a few other foods that I wonder about.

• Tofu
• Tempeh
• Seitan
• Agave
• Brown Rice Syrup

I don’t mean to go all out on the sweeteners, and clearly agave and brown rice syrup are processed from plants, but on that same token, so are the whole grain flours that are “allowed” on the 100 Days of Real Food. I’m thinking they’re okay.

I’m also thinking that fermented foods, while processed, are processed in a good way. I’m guessing that her family doesn’t eat their meat raw, so some degree of processing must be okay. So I think tempeh should be in.

Tofu is also processed. It’s not in the rules per se, but that appears more to be because she doesn’t like it, not an actual issue with tofu itself. I say leave tofu in!

Seitan. This one is a little tougher. You can make seitan from a whole grain flour, but you’re stripping away part of the whole grain, so it would not count under her rules. On the other hand, you’re left with an awesome protein source, and it’s not full of unpronounceable chemicals, either. With the dairy that is on the list, even from a local dairy farm, neither the milk nor the cheese they eat are exactly the same by the time one eats/drinks it as how it comes out of the cow. I’m going to reserve judgment on seitan.

This of course leaves out things like vegan mayo, fake meats and cheeses, microwavable meals, and store-bought vegan ice creams, cookies and other assorted things. That would be the plus side to this. 🙂 I also just bought an ice cream maker to use with homemade almond milk (sweetened with dates), so that would be an awesome addition.

There are some other hidden things that would be problematic, however.

Can you tell what’s not real food about this?

That’s actually a homemade eggplant and seitan burger. Now, while the jury is out on the seitan being a real food, it’s otherwise perfectly healthy. Except for the non-whole wheat bread crumbs, but that could be easily remedied.

The roll is advertised as “whole wheat” but has way more than 5 ingredients. I think that too could be easily fixed. I’m no stranger to making my own bread!

It’s covered in Daiya cheese, but that was because I had it. I could definitely do without, and there are plenty of homemade nut cheeses that would work well.

I could leave off the vegan mayo, and use a slice of avocado if I really want something creamy…

But I don’t know how I would do without the ketchup!

I hate raw tomatoes, so that wouldn’t be a good substitute. I could use tomato paste, which might be okay, but I want real ketchup. It just doesn’t feel like a burger without that to me! The ketchup on there happens to be agave -sweetened, so maybe it’ s okay. I think I may have a recipe or two for homemade ketchup in some of the cookbooks I have. Then again, the ketchup I use isn’t so bad, if you don’t count spices individually in the ingredient count.

I’m contemplating seeing if I can really do 100 days of real food. I wouldn’t start for another month or so, as I have a few things I’d like to use up first (plus I may want to do some freezing of meals ahead of time).

What additions or subtractions would you make in terms of “real food?”

Could you eat real food for 100 days?