Wednesday, January 16, 2008

We're going (partly) organic

I've long held the belief that Caden's food allergies are- in part- due to GMO's. While I don't think anything has been proven, the correlation (which of course doesn't equal causation as my old stats prof would tell us) is too great to ignore. Interestingly, I would bet some money, if I were a bettin' sort of gal, that bribery (excuse me, the pc term is lobbying) is stopping any formal studies from being done or released. But I like conspiracy theories. At any rate, I've decided that we are going to start the process of going organic. I intend to buy all the fruits and veggies that are in the Dirty Dozen organic, as well as eggs and dairy products. Eventually, I hope to make the jump over to organic meats. Financially, I'm just not ready to commit to that yet. It would be great if we had room for a large freezer, then I could buy my beef and pork by the animal (1/2 or 1/4 probably). Of course, if my homesteading dream ever comes true, I'll be able to raise the animals how I want, which will, of course be organic.

I've decided to start doing some baking on Saturdays or Sundays twice a month. I hope that it will make my life a little easier and reduce the risk of running out of stuff (like bread). This Saturday, I'll be making some healthy oatmeal raisin cookies (oats, molasses, and whole wheat flour) for snacks for Caden (okay and me too!), whole wheat bread, granola bars, and margarine. A wonderful poster at Kids with Food Allergies shared her recipe with me. The margarine will be so nice, until I can see if any of the local groceries will sell Mother's Margarine around Passover. I can't wait to make garlic break from scratch again. Okay, well except the french loaf. I haven't tried to make that from scratch yet.

I'm really striving to make the change from convenience foods to home made foods. I'm sure I won't succeed totally. We'll probably always buy things like cereal, chips, and crackers (I'm horrible at making crackers). Not to mention lunch meat.

And Caden's decided not to take a nap today, which means that I need to end this now.

2 comments:

Drea said...

We do an organic type diet. We have noticed a huge difference in our childrens attention span after changing them to a low sugar type diet.

Main rules

1. No High Fructose Corn syrup. Its in like everything! breads, a lot of soups, snacks, etc.. just got to read labels a lot. Syrup has it... maple syrup doesnt but its not as tasty, go figure.

2. No hydrogenated fats/oils (in many snacks... and breads)

3. Organic milk (although in our town its hard to buy at a reasonable cost so if we run out and cant run to the city we do buy regular milk.. but i prefer organic)

4. means w/ no perservatives or hormones.

5. Cereals without perservatives, lots of sugar..etc... target has some nice organic brands that fit this great.

6. Low sugar but no artificial junk. No artificial colors/falvors (this is in vitamins, check the labels www.beeutifulyou.com has a nice line for kids without this)

7. I limit their snacks a lot. We dont buy hardly any sweets these days except all natural ones.. crackers work nice.

Hope that helps! :-)
lots of fruit and water 2.
and only 4-6 oz of juice a day, watered down, all natural.

Heather said...

Thanks, drea! I appreciate the tips.