Wholesome Home Cooking (giveaway)
January 19, 2010I firmly believe that eating whole foods is one of the primary ways we can stay healthy. There would be far fewer people questing for the “best diet pills,” the “best anti aging products,” the latest and greatest cellulite burner; far fewer people permanently on statins and hormone replacement, etc. if we would all just eat real food. (Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder to find real food, as the government systematically outlaws it. Check out this exposé of the war against real milk
A lot of you are visiting from Kitchen Stewardship, and you already know all this. 
But we still have to meet the challenge of preparing this real food, right? So today I’m giving away a cookbook to help us do just that.
Wholesome Home Cooking is a Lancaster County cookbook put together by Katie Stoltzfus. I believe the author is Amish, so it is not directly available online. The least expensive source I’ve found for it is Kauffman’s Fruit Farm, for those of you who don’t win this copy and want to purchase your own. Wholesome Home Cooking is assembled in the style of a church cookbook, with recipes submitted by a variety of women. But this one is designed to use whole foods, bone broth, sourdough, etc.
Now, Kauffman’s sells another one that I discovered I personally like better. It’s called Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking. Wholesome Home Cooking focuses more strongly on soaked grains and fermented foods, which are not such a large focus of my own dietary philosophy. It uses a lot more Sucanat/Rapadura (less processed, but still processed, cane sugars) than I would prefer. Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking does describe the process of soaking grains and does contain some fermented foods, but I felt the emphasis was more on whole foods than on fermented foods, which was a better fit for us. It also used almost no Sucanat/Rapadura, using whole sweeteners like honey instead. (Sucanat does show up in one or two recipes, where the consistency/texture of the sugar is important.) Most of the recipes were “normal,” just with whole ingredients. That’s how I prefer to cook.
Bottom line, it is my opinion that Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking would be the best introductory cookbook for someone new to whole foods. But Wholesome Home Cooking may be a better fit for someone very dedicated to the Nourishing Traditions philosophy. Unfortunately, I did not know anything about Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking until after I bought the book for this giveaway, so I don’t have a copy of that one to give away at this time. (Maybe eventually!) But I do have a copy of Wholesome Home Cooking to give away.
To enter, leave a comment on this post, with something about real food. I don’t care what, but it needs to be a real comment, not just “please enter me,” or “I want to win this ’cause I like real food.” You could tell me why you prefer real food, tell me something that makes it difficult to eat/prepare real food, share a favorite recipe – whatever. Just contribute to the discussion.
For extra entries, follow me via the Google Friend Connect box on the left, subscribe to my feed, and/or become a fan on Facebook. Leave me an extra comment telling me about each of these things that you’ve done, so I don’t have to figure out how many entries you should have.
For another extra entry, go visit Kitchen Stewardship’s Real Food Faceoff and leave a comment there. (Then come back here and tell me you did so I don’t have to go look you up to see if you did this.)
This giveaway will be open through January 31st.
[Comments (18)] [link] [TB]
(reading chronologically)
[...] Dreaming of a Green Christmas – Winner: Erin M. Wholesome Home Cooking – ends 1/31 [Comments (4)] [link] [...]
I’m just starting to learn more about real food though I have always considered myself to be ‘healthy’ in my food choices. I too am wanting to try making my own kefir, I am trying to first figure out the raw milk debate…so much information to digest!
I also left a comment on Kitchen Stewardship.
Started my familys journey to a healthier lifestyle last summer when we joined a CSA and put in our first (organic) garden. Been surfing the websites/blogs of Heavenly Homemakers, Keeper of The Home, today found Kitchen Stewardship and yours. Reading as much as I can and trying to incorporate little by little things I am learning. Would love to win this book and kick my familys healthier lifestyle up a notch so hubby and I can stop our quest for “the best diet pill”
THanks so much for the chance to win!
It’s funny, because in some ways I have always been cooking “real food”… I made sourdough bread before I knew it was healthier, but the more I read about real food the more interesting I find it.
I am so glad to find bloggers who are like-minded as far as food choices go. Sometimes, when I start telling people about the choices I want to make for my family, their eyes glass over and they look at me like I’m crazy. When I weigh the idea of serving junk to my family, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Real food for us!
I am on a journey to more real food in my life mainly due to the birth of my daughter nine months ago and making her baby food when I realized how much stuff that I didn’t care for was in her food and started looking at mine. I also have allergies and other health problems that when I started looking into diet for these issues was surprised at how many sites recommend a whole food diet (without calling it that), but doctors just want to medicate you. For me it is also about being a good steward of all that God has given us.
I left a comment at Kitchen Stewardship
Our family has been working toward more and more whole foods lifestyle since our first daughter was born almost seven years ago. We took baby steps and have come a long way. We eat a lot of organic foods and I really like to buy as locally as possible. I have been a subscriber to a few CSAs in our area and have loved them! I still love our Chick-fil-A, but the most of our meals are made from scratch in my kitchen. I also find great joy in packing my children’s healthy lunches. This sounds like a great cookbook that I would love to try1 Thanks for the giveaway!
I am very slowly taking the “Real Food” plunge. I have found Michael Polland’s books to be VERY helpful in this regard. The cookbooks sound really interesting. I have joined SLOW FOOD and the WAPF, and have found a source for sprouted dried grains, so I can grind my own sprouted grain flour at will.
Someday, there may be a dehydrator in my future!
I’m trying to get us in the habit of eating more whole foods, but it isn’t easy! Making changes in the way one cooks, takes a lot of time to re-order thought processes. The thing that frustrates me the most is that I can’t get raw milk. In this state (Indiana) it is illegal to “buy, sell, barter, or trade for any particle of raw milk.” It’s ridiculous. Let me make my own health decisions, thanks so very much! If I could find someone with milking animals a reasonable distance from my house, I could lease a share of an animal. But the only person I know who has an animal she milks (goats, in this case) lives over an hour away. Too far to drive on a regular basis.
So that’s where I’m at with the “real” food thing. Working on it.
Healthy, real food has always been a priorty for me to serve to my family. I try to avoid packaged food. My challenge is that my sweet hubby loves the junk, and also likes to “treat” our kids. But I cook from scratch, and as healthy as possible. I am always seeking to learn more about improving our health and our diet. Blessings!
I’ve been into the whole foods movement for several years now (unfortunately, off and on). My doctor now has both my daughter and I off dairy (the way we know it), so I’m getting my first cowshare here in Kentucky for Raw Milk. We were introduced to Raw milk when we lived in California, where you could buy it at the store, but we thought our friends were a bit ‘kooky!’ I since changed my mind, and have believed what I have read, but financially it did not seem possible. I’ve found a farm locally, that some of our friends use, and we are going forward with it. I cut my grocery budget in half about 3 months ago, out of necessity- there were no other budget categories to take from (hubby is a pastor!). I’m still not sure how it will work, but I’m on the web alot lately, looking for recipes/encouragement/help. Also, my doctor has me eating low-carb right now (the NT way). So, it’s gonna be interesting until I can figure out how to eat this way on our new budget, but I’m so encouraged by blogs like this!
Thank you! (I found you through the Kitchen Stewardship blog). God bless.
Oh, and I’m also now following you via Google Friend connect!
Thanks.
I’ve always been into learning about nutrition, but I’ve also sadly struggled with food addiction. I am now very overweight and really don’t feel healthy and I’m only 28. I have two kids and I want to not only be able to keep up with them now, I want to live a long and healthy life and see my grandkids. I’ve been learning about real food through Katie’s blog and I also bought Nourishing Traditions. It was overwhelming at first, but I’m slowly trying to incorporate real food into our diets. Things like cheese, butter and dairy…no problem! But we love breads (have always eaten mostly whole wheat though) and we love chocolate (milk chocolate sadly). I also don’t have much experience cooking with meat besides chicken. When we save up enough money, we are going to join a local food buying club that gets almost all their food locally and sustainably grown. I would love to try this cookbook. Lancaster County is not too far from me and we visit often.
I’m following you via google friend connect
Looking forward to reading more of your blog!
I left a comment at Kitchen Stewardship complaining that I’m going to have all these blogs to read now
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On a side note, while in the midst of leaving this comment, my mom called and asked if I want to got to Lancaster on Saturday. I might have to check and see if I can find Wholesome Sugarfree Cooking.
The more I learn about Real Food, the more I realize I’ve misjudged a lot of “unhealthy” foods and left our a lot of great ones! I still have mental blocks up on some things that I know God provided to nourish us. I’ve come a long way and have a long way to go!
I have been on this real food journey for about three years now. My progress is very slow. We have switched to butter/coconut oil and olive oil for our fats. We also eat whole wheat and whole grain breads. Eggs and oatmeal are our staple breakfast around here. For awile we were drinking raw milk, but the expense got to be too much after DH lost his job earlier this year. Now we are learning to make our own fermented dairy products. Yogurt, cream cheese, kefir.. to make up for the lack of raw milk. Not the greatest choice but we do what we can.
Im loving checking our your blog. I came over here from Kitchen Stewardship. I am trying to make some more changes in our home and reading everything I can.
I haven’t heard of this book before. It sounds good. I’ve been forced into abandoning almost all convenience foods because of the health needs of my children. I’ve been learning a lot about cooking, but it takes a lot of time to cook everything from scratch. I can use all the help I can get.
Also, I commented at Kitchen Stewardship.