chapter 1
HONEST
food
FRESH, WHOLE, FLAVORFUL—AND MADE WITH LOVE
HERE’S A FACT ABOUT ME THAT MIGHT SURPRISE YOU (unless you’ve seen my Twitter or Instagram feeds): I’m crazy about food. Nothing makes me happier than cooking an amazing meal for my family or good friends. Even if it’s a hectic Tuesday night and I’ve had back-to-back meetings at The Honest Company offices and then came home to deal with end-of-day meltdowns—you know, one of those days—I’ll still spend 2 hours making a homemade dinner of Cornish game hens and roasted butternut squash and invite over six friends. I swear it’s how I unwind. (For me, a bit of vino and a nice playlist while cooking are pure bliss.)
Okay, yes, it’s a ridiculous amount of work and I can be a mental case, finding recipes on my laptop, and racing outside to grab another handful of rosemary from my wall garden. But when everyone sits down to the table, I’m so happy. There is no better way to spend an evening than with great food, great wine, and great conversation.
Growing up, I loved hanging out in my grandmother’s kitchen. There was always something delicious simmering on the stove—homemade chicken soup was a mainstay.
When I was growing up, dinner was the time of day when, no matter what, my family came together. My grandmother always had carnitas (that’s a Mexican braised pork dish, and it is the bomb) simmering all day in the slow cooker for tacos or snacks. And my mom made everything from fried chicken, biscuits, and gravy to pork chops, lasagna, and steak dinners. I’m not sure she even knows how to cook for, say, four people because we always had enough to feed 10 or 20. I loved helping them out in the kitchen from a pretty young age, and what I remember best was the sense of connection and comfort. We were the kind of family who prayed before meals, and whatever your religious beliefs, I love taking that moment to be grateful for what you have and who you get to share it with. There’s something about the love and time you put into making food for your family—I think people are nourished by that energy as much as by the meal itself.
So that’s the foundation of my love for food. Honor is already an awesome sous chef, so I encourage her to participate in food prep whenever possible—it’s such a cool way to talk to her about where food comes from and to develop her taste for fresh ingredients. Yes, kids make a mess in the kitchen and slow you down, but they also make the whole process way more fun! I want my girls to love food and respect how much effort goes into growing and preparing it.
Some Honest Challenges
UNFORTUNATELY, WE’RE ALL so busy today that it’s easy to lose that connection to our food. We’re eating in our cars, at our desks, out of our handbags . . . no judgment, I’m right there with you. On any given week, I might be in the Honest office, on location for a film, or traveling. Believe me, you have to fight hard to create any kind of stability, let alone a regular meal schedule for yourself, when life is that erratic. Even at home in LA, some days are so hectic I’m lucky if lunch is one of my coworkers’ half-eaten sandwiches left in the fridge.
Whether you’re eating on the go or shopping to cook at home, it’s often an ordeal to find fresh, healthy food, because frankly, a lot of what ends up on restaurant menus and grocery store shelves can’t even be called food in the first place. As we’ve seen in the past year alone, with the outrage over pink slime additives in ground beef and the use of antibiotics in chicken, the quality of our food has declined now that most of it is raised on enormous factory farms. Many of these chemicals and additives weren’t used in food production 30 years ago, so we’re just beginning to understand what they can do to our health. But science is showing links between the industrialization of our food and the rise in obesity and the earlier onset of puberty in girls, as well as medical conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. I can’t say that I’m surprised. How could we have thought these chemical exposures weren’t going to affect our health? We are what we eat.
It can be so overwhelming to sift through the claims on food packaging and try to figure out what will nourish your family and what’s a “health halo” designed to trick you into thinking some processed, additive-laden food is a smart choice. My personal strategy is to avoid foods that come in packages as much as possible. I call my food philosophy Honest Eating, and it means feeding my family whole, fresh foods that look as close as possible to the way they did on the farm. But it’s also about a lot more than that—and I don’t mean a diet. Honest Eating is an attitude, not a prescription. And it’s darn tasty. Let me explain.