Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
Photo taken at 16 months old
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
What foods do you always buy organic?
I don't want to break the bank but am trying to buy more organic foods when I shop. What do you always buy organic?
Photo taken at 16 months old
Re: What foods do you always buy organic?
We buy most of our dairy and fresh produce organic. Organic dairy is probably most important to me, because growth hormones and antibiotics in our meat/dairy supply really freak me out. (I don't eat meat.) We've been buying exclusively organic milk as long as it's been readily available--even when we had very little money... but, of course, it helps that we don't drink a lot of milk, so we don't go through it very fast.
Now we have an organic CSA, so we get most of our produce that way, and I buy organic produce at the grocery store unless it's not available when I need it.
We buy a fair amount of organic (or partially organic) processed foods too, but it seems to me that it matters more and makes a bigger difference with fresh whole foods than with higly processed foods.
um, more or less everything. i also abide by the "if i can't pronounce it, i don't buy it" rule.
we buy:
organic valley milk, cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, some regular cheeses
veggies & fruits, unless i need something that's not in season which i REALLY try to limit.
only wild caught fish and we try to know about the company that is selling it. some companies have better practices than others.
pasta: i look for "whole durum or semolina wheat" as the only ingredient.
breads: i usually bake my own but when i don't have time, i'll buy bakery breads but you have to read the labels. even bakery breads are often made with "enriched" flour which is not what you want. you want whole wheat.
don't buy anything with the following words:
high fructose corn syrup, saccrin, aspertame
"enriched" anything
"hydrogenated" oils
colors like "blue #1" etc
anything you cannot pronounce or that sounds like a chemical
also, be aware that the corn people are trying to get approval to call HFCS "Corn Sugar" because HFCS has such a stigma attached to it. don't be fooled. http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/14/high-fructose-corn-syrup-might-get-a-makeover/
i HIGHLY recommend reading In Defense of Food so that you understand what things like enriched flours do to your body (or rather, what they AREN'T doing). you'll make MUCH smarter food choices if you inform yourself. it was an eye opening book!
The only thing I consistently buy organic is ketchup. But that's because I really don't like the taste of ketchup made with high fructose corn syrup. I also buy a lot of organic fresh herbs, but that's more a matter of availability than anything else.
For most other things, we try to buy local as much as possible, so we go to the farmer's market and stores that buy from local family farms (for the most part). I also have a garden and grow a lot of our veggies & herbs. Eating organic isn't particularly important to me.
ETA: I also won't buy anything that includes high fructose corn syrup, but that's because I'm very anti-corn subsidies.
We buy organic meat and veggies. Frankly we just go through too much dairy to buy organic. We got through 2 gallons of milk per week and the expense is so high. We would like to start TTC soon so we will probably switch then and continue once we have our furture child.
Meat we get from my family in MT, g-pa was a beef grower, therefore, all of our beef is organic, corn fed . . . yummy.
We try to buy all organic for the "healthy" stuff. If we purchase chips or cookies (rarely, anyway) I don't care too much because the ingrients aren't healthy anyway.
I really would like to start reading the labels more often and eat more like Strength . . . that is our goal as a couple, just because of awareness
Nicole and Sam 10/3/09
Thanks everyone! Lily, I'll have to read this book. I think I need something to just "shock me" into making the leap to purchasing more organic.
Photo taken at 16 months old