The thing is, I'm pretty sure that I could never do it. The woman in question is single, has no children and (I'm assuming here) has an income adequate to afford the increased cost of clean eating. My kids really seem to enjoy preservatives and refined sugar and all that "unclean" food. (Full disclosure.....so do I). I'm pretty sure if the fruit snacks, Cheetos and cocoa pebbles suddenly disappeared from our pantry my children would either stage a coup or just move in with their grandparents.
So here is the question....Do you think that "clean eating" is possible for those of us with kids and husbands (and taste buds...haha...kidding...). If you manage to eat clean at your house how do you do it? Did you start when your kids were little so that they just don't know what they are missing? How much more expensive is it for you to feed your family exclusively from the organic section? How do you avoid the pitfalls of birthday parties and playdate snacks?
Please .... fill me in!!
I don't have children yet, but plan to in the next year or so, so I can only speak for my husband and myself- we try to eat as "cleanly" as possible. Mostly we started when I began getting really bad migraines/stomach problems from MSG (monosodium glutamate) and artificial sweeteners (sorbitol and aspartame). We started to research these chemicals and have learned a lot since then and did not find overly processed foods appetizing anymore once we weren't "blissfully ignorant". Preservatives, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics/growth hormones in our meat and endocrine disruptors are all things we try to avoid. We also avoid using plastic and we never heat plastic in the microwave. We can't afford to eat completely organically so we prioritize. I read an article on WebMD about things you should definitely buy organic (milk, for example, is important to buy without the added growth hormones and antibiotics) and soy (especially soy formula) would be very important to avoid completely- both of these things contain hormones/estrogen and scientists are looking at them as endocrine disruptors that may be the cause of early puberty in girls and later in boys as well as breast cancer and infertility. Makes sense to avoid these, you would't want to give your child the equivelant of 5 birth control pills a day. You should be able to find the articles if you're interested.
ReplyDeleteBasically what we do is we prioritize what's important to eat organic and we budget. We make a two week meal plan, then a shopping list and we stick to it. We go to Stop and Shop which has their own store brand organice line: "Nature's Promise". If we have to we choose quality over quantity. If buying organic means we have to portion our food carefully instead of being able to stuff ourselves on it- then the trade off is worth it to us- we'd rather have quality food.
I tried to eat locally for a while, but it just proved to be too expensive. I'd love to be able to eat clean and local, but it's just not something that I can afford.
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