For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Health Issues page and our Appetite For a Change page.

This Thanksgiving, I want you to stay healthy while enjoying the celebration of abundance the holiday represents. That means knowing which Thanksgiving foods to enjoy vs. avoid, and that’s what this article is all about.

To eat in a healthy way on Thanksgiving, you don’t have to be a food snob and show up to a turkey dinner with a bowl full of sprouts, but there are decisions you can make to enjoy your Thanksgiving eating while avoiding toxic food ingredients like MSG, GMOs, aspartame, chemical food colorings and chemical preservatives.

Farm-fresh Thanksgiving vs. processed food “factory Thanksgiving”

In my history as a food advocate, I’ve been a meat eater, a vegetarian, a vegan and a Mediterranean Diet follower. I’ve done fasting, juicing, cleansing and low-carb. But the most important wisdom I’ve learned from all this that’s really worth mentioning for Thanksgiving is that
nearly ALL food that’s organically raised on a farm and eaten fresh is GOOD for you. This includes fresh dairy, fresh eggs, fresh meats and homemade sweets made with unprocessed ingredients like honey (not sugar!) and stone-ground whole wheat flour.

At the same time,
nearly every food made in a factory is BAD for you. Anything that’s overly refined, processed, modified, homogenized, pasteurized or fattened up with genetically modified feed is going to promote disease and obesity.

Turkey gravy from a gravy mix packet, in other words, is toxic because it’s almost always made with MSG and thickened with corn starch derived from genetically modified corn. But turkey gravy made from actual turkey juices and thickened with home-ground flours and organic starches is a completely different story. This is especially true if it’s from a turkey that one of your family members harvested in the wild — that’s by far the most healthful turkey meat you’ll ever eat, and it’s far less cruel to kill a turkey with one shot than to condemn a turkey to a lifetime of being imprisoned in a turkey factory cage and fattened with hormones, chemicals and GMOs.