How often do you read food labels? Aside from checking for high fructose corn syrup or calories from fat, how often do you take a look at the label to see how many ingredients are ultra-processed and could never be created in your own home from a whole food? There’s a challenge going on in the month of October to encourage you to pay more attention to what goes into your body and reap the benefits. Check out the details from eatingRULES.com and consider integrating this idea into your days. While eating no processed foods for a month might not be an achievable goal for you and your family, simple changes in your diet could really open your eyes to a new way of preparing and enjoying food. Check it out.

So, what’s an unprocessed food? According to Andrew, the blogger of eatingRules, it is “any food that could be made by a person with reasonable skill in a home kitchen with whole-food ingredients.” Sounds simple enough, right? We’re not suggesting you make everything from scratch! On the contrary there are plenty of companies out there making great headway in the unprocessed food industry and a simple skim of a label will reveal all you need to know, based on the definition from Andrew. Eating unprocessed foods for an entire month doesn’t mean you have to prepare every morsel that enters your mouth, it just means you could. This ability to purchase or make something using only whole ingredients is called the “kitchen test.”

Interested in taking part in October Unprocessed 2012? Head over to eatingRules for the details and encouragement as well as a bounty of recipes and tips from readers and Andrew on how to use the kitchen test to your benefit. Can you eat chocolate? Which beverages are included? It’s all on the site.

If you’re going to take part in October Unprocessed, we’d love to hear about it but if you’re unable to commit to 31 days of unprocessed foods (it’s Halloween soon, after all!) then try to keep these 3 healthy tips in mind:

1. When you eat grains, eat only 100% whole grains.
2. Don’t eat high fructose corn syrup.
3. Don’t eat hydrogenated oils, trans fats, or anything that’s been deep-fried.

If you can follow these 3 rules, you’re on your way to beating the basics of the typical American Diet and onto a healthier you.