5 Habits To Becoming A Healthier Eater

We all want to eat healthier, be healthier and most of all feel healthier as soon as humanly possible. This is a fantastic goal to have, however there are so many things to do to get there that sometimes it seems impossible to figure out where to begin. What I am learning more than anything is that this is a process, so beginning anywhere is a step in the right direction!

Here are five things that I have learned are truly important habits to cultivate on my path to supreme health and wellness:

1. Hydrate Properly 

According to WaterInfo.org, "The human body is more than 60 percent water. Blood is 92 percent water, the brain and muscles are 75 percent water, and bones are about 22 percent water."If we don't do our part to keep up these water levels, our body simply will not operate correctly. The best way to do this? Consume WATER.

You can consume water by drinking it or eating it. Fruits, vegetables and even meats (just like us!) contain water. Keep in mind the more you cook something, the greater the chance you are cooking the water out, but for the most part, if what you are eating was actually alive at some point in its existence, you will be getting some water out of it.

There is plenty advice all over the Internet concerning how much water one should drink in a day, but I learned of one approach that made sense to me because it was not a one-size-fits-all approach. It was based on weight - you should consume half of your body weight in ounces. In other words, I weigh about 150lbs right now, so, dividing that by 2 gives me 75. Therefore, I should consume about 75 ounces of water per day (that's drinking + eating!!).

Here is the bad news: caffeine is a diuretic. According to the WellnessBreakRadio.com podcast for every cup of a caffeinated beverage you drink, you must drink TWO cups of water, just to make up for the lost water. I thought this was a very good rule of thumb as I am always left thirsty after drinking caffeinated beverages.
(Beginning to see how vital water is? You don't even know the half of it! Here's another post about how precious water really is.)

2. Eat Your Veggies

Forget Skittles - this is where you can really "taste the rainbow"! As soon as I stopped thinking of vegetables as an afterthought, and, instead, started thinking about vegetables first I felt a complete shift in the types of meals I was preparing and eating. I wanted to try different things, different colors, different textures in my meals.

Of course, having a weekly Farmer's Market helps with creativity - you cook what is available, even if you never tried it before - but even if that is not a possibility, try experimenting on your own. If you don't know where to start, maybe just go for colors - pick a color palate for your dinner plate. Once you've selected your color and then your vegetable, there are a number of resources on the Internet to help you with finding recipes

• Food.com is one of my favorites, with recipes being shared from people just like you and me from all over the Internet
• Foodista is also quite expansive, aiming to be the largest food encyclopedia on the Internet, or 
• if you want a virtual recipe search engine, try SuperCook  where you type in the ingredients you have and it will spit back recipes from all over the Internet that can be made with them. 

If, on the other hand, you prefer a cookbook, then I highly recommend the one that showed me the path to yummy vegetable preparation and consumption, my veggie bible,  Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day.(Here are two posts filled with my über-joy after finding Jack Bishop's book: Searching for Sustenance: Jack Bishop is my New Hero! and Searching for Sustenance: From Pod to Plate).

3. Watch Out for Bad Oil!

This is another tip I picked up from WellnessBreakRadio.com from one of their guests: buy oil in dark glass bottles or containers that do not allow the light to permeate them. Essentially, Olive Oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oils are touted as having multiple health benefits because they are live oils. They are not supposed to be exposed to light. While you may know this, and you may keep your oil stored in a cupboard like I do, what about all those hours, days, weeks on the grocery store shelves under the fluorescent lighting? It is a simple enough fix, the next time you need oil, just look for a different package - they are there (oil in a tin, for example).

4. Think Raw

Hopefully, since my first tip,  this idea has already started to creep into your mind. The Raw Diet movement is gaining momentum all of the time and while I think it is unlikely that I will convert to a completely raw diet, the benefits of eating raw can not be denied. The fruits and vegetables of this earth are packed with the vitamins and minerals our bodies crave. Left alone and eaten raw we can consume these benefits in their purest and most potent state.

One of the reasons we cook things is so that we can ensure that all bacteria is killed. We know that works, however, the cooking also kills off some of the benefits as well. I am no fan of bacteria, and I do like the richness of flavor that cooking often brings, but one habit I have begun to cultivate is thinking  more about where I can fit raw into my daily eating schedule - more fruits, salads, snacks, et. cetera. Once you make something a focus of thought, action isn't too far behind. So start thinking about it -  

• How can you eat raw? Full time, one meal, snacks and sides only?
• What are you willing to eat raw? Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.  
• Where will you fit it into your eating? I try to get three fruits a day (I keep forgetting this one, so I am lucky if I get two). I make my own trail mix as a snack. Also, I am trying to make salads with every dinner.

5. Read Labels

Food shopping is filled with reading. You are reading your circular, you are reading the price tags, you are reading your coupons... well, I am here to add to your reading list, if you haven't started doing this already: start reading your labels. If you are a beginner, I recommend you just start taking a mental inventory of certain ingredients and nutritional facts:

• high fructose corn syrup (Princeton University study on HFCS)
• soy (article on GM soy plus an article from VeganHealth.org "Is it safe to eat soy?")
• sugar or ingredients that end with "-ose" (article "Is Eating Sugar Really That Bad For Us?")
• aspartame (Wikipedia article on the Aspartame Controversy, so you can make your own call)
• sodium content (Mayo Clinic on sodium)
• monosodium glutamate or MSG (article from Natural News)

Once you see how much of this you are consuming, you can decide, for your own health, which foods need to go and which you can keep (in moderation).

If you have passed this beginning level of label reading, then perhaps it is time you start looking for organic and certified humane products. I recently wrote a post about my own experience with these labels and how even they, too, need to be read carefully in Searching for Sustenance: Greenwashing - Am I a Victim?.


Pick one of these five habits to start to cultivate today. Some are easier than others, but over the next couple of weeks you should at least have tried out all five. Good luck, welcome to the journey, I hope your search for sustenance brings you to a healthier tomorrow!

Why is Organic so Expensive?

After reading a number of blogs and online discussions tonight on buying organic food for the family, buying organic feed for animals on the farm and many questioning the merits of doing such a thing when there would be such a financial burden attached to it, I began to really wonder to myself, "WHY is organic SO EXPENSIVE??" As I read post on top of post of people saying, I'd really like to, but we can't really afford it, I was coming undone. I wanted to write back: IT IS WORTH IT, but I steadied my hand realizing that these are easy words coming from someone who has only to buy food for her husband and herself... Will the same sacrifices be possible when we have a family? Will the sacrifices be enough to cover the cost of organic living?

As I thought about it more and more it seemed increasingly unfair that organic was not a viable choice for all. It also didn't make a lot of sense to me - didn't organic food have less stuff in it? Shouldn't less cost less? Alas, so it should seem, but we know business doesn't have to make sense, it only has to make cents!

I needed to get to the bottom of this, for my own complete understanding. I wanted to know what I was paying for really. I know that my intention is to pay for quality food, but I had a feeling that the real expense was coming from something unforeseen.

Manpower

One of the first things that our organic dollars go to is the manpower. Rather than rely on chemicals and pesticides to kill all of the weeds on a farm, when a farm is organic, they refrain from using these techniques. This does not mean, however, that they allow weeds to grow willy-nilly throughout their crops! In fact, people actually have to go pull out the weeds. This takes time and time = money.

...that seems reasonable to me.


It's Economics

Supply and demand rear their ugly heads into this discussion, driving our prices skyward. It seems that in organic farms have a smaller harvest than non-organic farms. They simply do not produce as much produce! Especially since the demand for certified organic foods is increasing, the prices are following suit.

...this is the unavoidable law of the capitalist world I live in, I guess.

They're On Their Own

Large, non-organic farms receive government subsidies to cover expenses such as pesticides, herbicides and corn. They also do not have to pay for the mess they make of the world around them. In both cases they are covered. If you are wondering where the government is getting that money to pay them, that would be from us, through our tax dollars. Organic farmers are paying for everything beginning to the end, out of pocket - so they put the cost in the product.

...this was the part I worried about.


I am sure there are a whole bunch of other reasons why organic is more expensive than non-organic, but it is this last issue that truly gives me pause. THIS is what we have to stop. We have to stop paying for harmful food. We have to stop paying for it with our money (through our taxes) and we have to stop paying for it with our health! One website that I used as a reference when getting to the bottom of this enigma brought up another very good point - if we truly calculate the dollars and cents spent on the two types of food, we may find that organic is not that expensive. Here is an excerpt from the site's answer to the question "Why is organic food so expensive?":

Some scientists have estimated that the use of just one agrochemical (methyl-bromide) contributes to more than 20% of the global ozone depletion. This in turn is estimated to double the incidence of skin cancer globally.

Our taxes are then used to pay for operations and the care of terminally ill patients. This money is currently not added to the cost of producing crops (such as strawberries) using methyl-bromide. If the environmental cost were accounted for, organic strawberries would be cheaper than conventional ones. (Read more: Why is organic food so expensive?: iVillage http://www.ivillage.co.uk/food/qas/0,,161170_179846,00.html#ixzz14HRcd027 )

I think this point is a salient one and one we should all consider. Food should be healthy, it should be life-supporting and it should not put families in a quandary of physical health versus financial stability every time they think about putting food on the table.

At this moment I can think of two things that we can do:

• Use your "capitalist vote" I have used this term before. In my eyes this is the most powerful thing we can do in a capitalist society - speak with your dollar. If you can't buy a whole meal in certified organic or local foods due to the expense, find one thing that you can buy this way and do it consistently. Ask your family members, neighbors and friends to make the same commitment and you will be surprised how simple it could be to make a noticeable change.
• Support the Farm Bill 2012 I haven't looked at this in a couple of months myself because I was getting pretty overwhelmed by the prospect of the entire thing, but I just found a blog post by Lee Zukor that gives me a bit of encouragement to revisit it with a guide he helped to create! Read Lee's post at Civil Eats and you may get an idea of how important this is for us to support.

We can't just hope for things to get better. 

Reference Links:

• http://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq5/en/
• http://www.ivillage.co.uk/food/qas/0,,161170_179846,00.html
• http://thestir.cafemom.com/food_party/106217/why_is_organic_food_so
• http://www.organicfoodee.com/sense/tooexpensive/    **not US**
• http://www.agobservatory.org/index.cfm
• http://civileats.com/2010/11/03/the-2012-farm-bill-it%E2%80%99s-not-too-late-to-think-big/

****JUST FOUND (on 11/4/2010) A LIST OF PLACES THAT GIVE YOU ORGANIC COUPONS!!
http://www.thethriftymama.com/2009/05/online-organic-coupon-resources.html
THANK YOU THRIFTY MAMA!!!****

Greenwashing - Am I a Victim?

I finally found out the name of thing I have been fearing in this search for sustenance: greenwashing.To put it in my terms, this is a company or organization pretending to be greener than it actually is (see Sourcewatch for a much more in depth and "official" definition). This has been something I have always worried about in my search, but as of late, I have to say, it was really starting to haunt me. I have had this nagging question in my mind about the labels I trust and whether or not I have become lax and allowed the label to mean everything to me.

I Am Beginning To Have Trust Issues

It began about a week or so ago when I went shopping and I was looking for my Certified Humane eggs in Stop N Shop. They weren't there. I guess they were sold out or something, but this was the second week in a row this had happened and I began to wonder... why can I find organic eggs, but not certified humane? Why is everyone always talking about "organic" but never talking about "humane"? AM I BEING SWINDLED HERE?

I wondered...

                       it festered...

An Ally Emerges

And then I found a blog last night entitled: Why I Am Not Enthralled By "Organic" I thought to myself, "Here is someone having the same issue I am, but with the Organic labeling of products!" The timing of this couldn't have been better. (This like-minded soul recommended the film Bananas! as an exemplar of some greenwashing caught in the act.) On my trip to my now unfamiliar King Kullen yesterday I became a bit inquisitive about the "certified organic" foods as well.

Issue 1: Plastic Produce?
 
First of all, I was in the produce section and I was confused because all of the organic produce was packaged. Maybe I have gotten too used to my weekly trips to the Farmer's Markets (I will miss them when they are gone!), but is this normal? I like to touch my produce before I buy it, it is part of my selection process.

 Issue 2: The Non-Committal Berries

Secondly, and I am just remembering this now, I was a little bit confused by the strawberry situation: both the organic and non-organic strawberries were distributed by Driscoll farms - why not just do all organic? How did they suddenly decide what part of their farm would be dedicated to organic berries? Is Driscoll a company that practices greenwashing? I could go on here, but I hope to do some research to find out these answers.

Issue 3: Unseasonal Fruit

Thirdly, I can still see where the traps lie if you don't shop smart. One package caught my eye and, at first, I did not know what it was until I looked closer. It was a package of kiwis, in October (nearly November), in New York! So I looked even closer to answer the question: where did these come from? The answer: New Zealand. Now I don't know much about shipping fresh fruit, but can these kiwis from New Zealand still be considered fresh? And a scarier question - were these kiwis exposed to some sort of preservative to help them make the trip? Is that allowed?


My Great Question

It is clear to me that no label is going to be exactly what I want it to be. So I can not afford to become lax in my shopping routine. I must always remember to ask myself, Is this what I value in my food?

And to be able to answer that I have to continue to answer my greatest question of all:

What do I value in my food?

This is my great question, because it is still developing, and maybe always will be (which is why I always have to ask it!). 

Some Of My Answers

So after reading the Organic blog, I recognized that my lack in faith in my labels was well-founded, because I forgot something I knew innately at the beginning of this search: trust nothing at face-value because I always feared big-business, or agribusiness getting their clutches in the labeling process. I also feared something that I now know is called greenwashing. Either way, the lesson is the same stay knowledgeable - educate yourself. Get down and dirty with ins and outs of the labels; what do they really mean.  

I didn't want to feel disenchanted anymore about things I have chosen to trust, so I decided to re-educate myself as to why I selected to trust these labels and see if I still agree. Here's what I found:

• I trust Certified Humane products.  After reviewing their standards and even read an article fighting for and against certified humane product labels, I remembered why this label became so important to me. Temple Grandin. I was at an education conference a couple of years ago when I saw this book for sale called, Animals Make Us Human it had nothing to do with my teaching, but everything to do with my life - I had three dogs at the time and had just given up my cat due to my husband's allergy. When I bought the book the seller pointed to a room behind me and said, "The author is giving a talk right in there now. You can have her sign it." It had been a long day, I was on my way out so I said, "No thanks," confused as to why she would be giving a talk at an education conference. Oh! If I could turn back time! The book was amazing, Dr. Grandin is even more amazing (I can't believe I haven't blogged about her before), and I learned about humane slaughter of cattle. Oxymoron, you say? Well, meat is still a reality in my house - I am working hard on my husband, but he has forgotten the horrors of Food, Inc. So if I am buying meat and animal products, they will be certified humane.
• I need Organic Certification to guard against GMOs. While there still may be loop holes in the organic certification process, it still guards against this one giant nightmare. Another blog I read last night, Natural Corn? made a very good argument for organics as well as avoiding high fructose corn syrup (which we Riveras are on the bandwagon for also!). This "Natural Mom" had a very informative blog with a recommended viewing of Fresh, a movie I have yet to see - so it is on my to-watch list!
• I like to buy local produce. I am still not sure how I would prioritize this in a supermarket given the option of locally grown or organic, but I do know that I do prefer to get my produce from the farmer's market than the grocery store. I need opinions/information on this one - am I being greenwashed at the farmer's market if I am buying produce that is not necessarily certified organic? Is this just as bad as going straight to the supermarket and buying non-organic? Let me know what you think or know about this topic!

So, in the end, it is basically an old lesson learned a-new for me here: be vigilant, read your labels carefully and then research what those labels mean.

Screen Time

Last night I found a couple of videos that I simply had to share. I wasn't planning on posting today, but I figured a short post to accompany two must-sees would be worth the time (watching both videos will take less than 10 minutes!).

Even the Kids Know Something is Very Wrong

First, I begin with our message out of the mouth of babes, because sometimes when we hear children speak about the world we have created for them, we tend to listen a little bit more closely. Birke Baehr, at the age of 11 gave a TEDx talk this past Spring in Asheville, TN about sustainable food. If you have not yet had the opportunity to view any TED talks, I highly recommend that you do (check out the TED site and if you have any questions about it, please feel free to ask me, but I think you'll find your way around). For now, you can whet your appetite for TED talks with Master Baehr's presentation:



Ecocentric, a fantastic blog I found last night, has an interview with Birke Baehr if you simply must know more about this 11 year old, soon to be organic farming advocate. I highly recommend checking this blog out and I anticipate that there will probably be many future links to this site as I continue to post.

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

Back in 2003 the following video went viral before YouTube was even invented. I think I will allow the Meatrix website's description of the movie serve as your intro.

The Meatrix:

Watch the movie that started it all! The Meatrix spoofs The Matrix and highlights the problems with factory farming. Join our heroes Moopehus, Leo, and Chickity as they help save family farms!
Winner of the 2005 Webby Award and viewed by over 15 million people, The Meatrix will change the way you look at meat!



So there you have it. You've taken the red pill, you know the truth and there is no turning back. There is a lot of other stuff on The Meatrix website, so if you are looking for more, please click away and SPREAD THE WORD!

My Well-Fed Life

A number of years ago I came across a book that changed the way I looked at and felt about reading forever. It was Steve Leveen's "The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life." This book instantly caught my eye in my local Barnes and Noble because, as a voracious reader I have always sought after that esteemed title of "well-read." Over the years, however, it seemed that this was becoming more and more an insurmountable task - between the countless classics I had yet to read and the litany of best sellers and new classics being published week after week I felt stymied. Leveen's book, a guide, was exactly what I needed, I thought, to finally win the battle against my "to-read" list. What I found inside was not a step-by-step guide to getting to the end of the "well-read" rainbow, but, instead it was a fabulous book about letting that nightmare go and, instead embracing a well-read life in my own style - deciding for myself what my classics would be, what I thought should be on the best seller's list, reading at my own pace, in my own medium (he agreed that audio books were an acceptable form of "reading") and my relationships with my books should be personal. This may all seem obvious to you, but for me, at the time, it was a lesson I had not yet learned.

As of late I have found myself in nearly the same state of quandary about my eating as I once did about reading. I would like to eat "right" as they say, and I am beginning to finally think that the best way to do that is to live My Well-Fed Life. I have to decide what foods I want to bring to my table, and because this is my well-fed life, I need to think about what things are important to me in that quest. Here are five broad criteria that I have currently been using in building MY well-fed life:

Impact

Over the last couple of years, as reflected in this blog, a major factor in my personal food decisions has been based on their impact on the environment, on animals, on the industry and on the global and local community. This is the most difficult part of my eating since I am learning new things every single day that cause me to have to search for a new product or company to endorse.

Health

Due to my medical conditions, I have to be very careful of the foods that I eat. I know now of two food "groups" to avoid all together (gluten and dairy) that were evidently aggravating my system more than I realized. Knowing about these "illegal" foods has been a great help to my health, but dramatically changed what I thought my well-fed life was. In addition to the subtractions of these two food-types, I also like to pay attention to GMOs, organic foods and buying fresh whenever possible for the sake of my health and my husband's health.

Taste

I am being quite deceitful by putting this criteria third, because in my well-fed life (as I am sure in most everyone's), if a food does not satiate my taste buds it is off my shopping list. Let's be honest, no matter how good it is for me or my planet, if I don't like the way it tastes, I am not going to eat it - EVER.

Convenience

Sad, but true, for the most part I am not one who likes to spend hours upon hours constructing a meal that will take a fraction of that time to consume. I need to be realistic in my searches for foods that fit my life - can I get them with a quick trip here or there? Can I prepare these foods with the tools I have in my kitchen? If not, is it worth the investment to get those tools, or am I, realistically only going to cook this once? Do I have foods planned that are easy enough to cook that I can do so even if I am having a sick day?

Financial

Especially now, while I am on medical leave from my full-time job, I can not afford to overspend on food. However, it should not be overlooked that in my ranking of priority, this criteria squeaked onto the list in last place.


I think it is really important for everyone, especially those who do the food purchasing for the home, to develop their own personal well-fed guidelines. Of course, I believe health should be on everyone's list, and in this climate I think you would be remiss to exclude "impact" (no one will do this one for you!), but in the end, the point of this posting is that this is something you must determine for yourself.

I have only one bit of advice:  

BE WILLING TO TRY NEW THINGS. 

My hand was pretty much forced into this one with my food restrictions and my own conscience about my impact on the planet - I suddenly found myself asking, "What can I eat?" and the list was filled with strange foods I had never eaten or prepared before... I was terrified. My husband was empathetic, but grateful that, if need be he could still sneak back into the world of dairy and gluten. However, we bravely stepped out and starting trying things (we know, for sure, my mother is doing cartwheels in heaven - all she EVER wanted us both to do was TRY NEW THINGS, but we always resisted!), and we found a bunch of new things that we really, really like. Of course, not everything was fantastic, but there were a heck of a lot more wins than losses.

Good luck, good eating and I hope you find as much joy in your well-fed life as we have been finding in ours!

Avoiding GMOs - There's a Guide!!

I don't know how I missed this before in all of my web-trolling about food, but, today, while researching phytoremediation research (the study of plants fighting toxins and bad things in the air, the soil and, basically anywhere in the environment - yes, yes - I am home SICK AGAIN!) I, somehow, fell upon The Center for Food Safety which is simply amazing! On the home page of the site is

• the latest news in the food safety fight, as well as 
• a link for you to join the "True Food Network" in order to stay connected with their doings - I, of course, signed up!

Along the top of the page are a number of tabs (all of which I have not yet explored), one of which I simply could not ignore: "Non-GMO's Shoppers' Guide". Here is a snippet of their description of the guide:

After a long wait, we are pleased to announce the arrival of our updated, portable pocket shoppers’ guide to help you find and avoid GE ingredients wherever you shop. Our guide gives you valuable information on common GE ingredients, brands to look for, and look out for, and common sense tips to keep you in the know.

[UPDATE (3/30/2011): There's an APP for that now! The guide has bee made into a mobile phone application for iPhone and Android phnes as well.]

The guide is well-organized and has a "Non-GMO" and a "May Contain GMO" listing for each category. It also has, at the end of the guide, a list of "Invisible GM Ingredients" - those ingredients that may have been created using some GM product. All-in-all, I think this is a handy reference for anyone that is concerned about genetically modified food (as I am!!!), but should, as it all should be, be taken with a grain of salt. The sad, true fact is that the GMOs are out there growing and, as all of us who saw (or read) Jurassic Park know, "Life finds a way." I say this in response to the sobering "special note" found at the end of the guide:

SPECIAL NOTE: This guide was compiled based on company statements, not genetic testing. Any product labeled as Non- GMO indicates that it’s manufacturing process is designed to avoid GMOs, but consumers should be aware that GM contamination is possible due to natural pollen movement, weather events, seed contamination, or human error. Hence there is no guarantee such products are 100% free of GMOs.

...and so I am left wondering: are there or will there ever be any products free of GMOs? Terrifying thought.

Tomato Trauma

I started off my work-week by bringing in some pasta with my homemade sauce to eat for lunch today. As I ate, I told my coworker of my Marinara Sauce mission on Saturday morning and how, for the sake of my husband, I had to make sure there were pre-made meals ready to go in case he got sick again! I began to discuss the recipe and how many cans of tomatoes I had used, when my coworker interjected with, "I know you are concerned with food and everything, have you heard about how the canned tomatoes are bad for you?"

I was so happy and horrified at the same time. On Saturday evening I actually said to my husband, " I don't even remember how to peel tomatoes. I think it is a pain in the butt." He asked why I mentioned it and I explain that I wasn't sure how I felt about the cans, even though that was how my family had always done it. I did, however, point out to him that the fresh tomatoes would probably make for a truly delectable sauce and, for that reason alone, I would someday undertake this mission of peeling.

So, when my friend at work, Chris, laid this bombshell on me about the canned tomatoes, I simply imagined myself in a big mess of tomato juice, peels and seeds, hopelessly trying to peel some tomatoes. Even so, I needed to know what was wrong with the canned tomatoes!! He said he couldn't remember it exactly, but it was something about the cans leeching some chemical into the tomatoes - gross! I decided to Google it and impressed Chris with my Googling skills, when I began to read, out loud, the same article he read. It was a wealth of information.

The article is called The 7 Foods Experts Won't Eat and it, evidently made a lot of news when it first came out, but I must have been unwilling, or at least, not ready (it looks like it was published right around THANKSGIVING time!), to hear what it said. Well, I am more than ready now! I highly recommend that you read this article ASAP and in order to accommodate you with the appropriate time required to do so (and, in turn, share the news with your friends and family once you have finished reading), I will stop writing right now.

I Stopped and I Shopped and then... I Ate

Since my husband and I ate out most of our week off due to the deluge in our basement, this previous week was eventful in ways I thought my Easter/Passover break would have been. First, we finished the chicken breasts we had in the house, then we finished the Ahi Tuna steaks and we ran out of eggs and milk. I felt as though a weight was lifted. When I attempted to find something to eat Friday night, I was delighted by my struggle, but Saturday morning, though, I was frustrated. I feared I would not be able to find the replacement foods I needed due to my husband's recent infection from allergies gone wild - I was going to have to shop local and alone... was I just going to end up with the same stuff?

Well, before I even blogged yesterday, I decided we needed something to make it through these days of sparse food, in case I was less than successful, so I made a HUGE batch of marinara sauce (for my family's recipe, click here). I was inspired to do so when I saw what my husband had noshed on all day when I was at work on Friday: there was evidence of cereal, chips and salsa, yogurt and then he confessed to getting a Bacon egg and cheese sandwich in the morning. I was able to trace his eating pattern by the plates strewn all over the kitchen counter, in the sink and some, woefully, in the living room. However, this was all before his allergy medicine and he was therefore miserable and delirious, so all infractions are forgiven!

I then dilly-dallied for most of the day before buckling down to get to the store. Truth be told, I feared a repeat of my last shopping attempt... Finally, at around 6:15pm, my husband dropped me off at my local Stop n' Shop, a store I am not all too familiar with, but have always liked the organic foods aisle in. My goal for the trip: buy FRESH produce, organic when possible, check out the egg situation, see if this store carries Gardein and, finally, reacquaint myself with what is available in the organic foods aisle.

One day later and, after I have eaten, I can say that I feel satisfied with my first truly conscious food shopping (EVERY SINGLE ITEM was scrutinized before I placed it in my cart), but the process itself was quite a difficult one for me to take on alone. Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew (pun intended!) for a first go . Here were my major stumbling points:

1. Stop N' Shop is not "My" Grocery Store. I know "my" grocery store (a Waldbaums, recently turned King Kullen), like the back of my hand. I know their layout, I understand the flow of the store an intention of placement of items. I have been going there for so many years, I pretty much know where, in general to find all things, even if they are not things I normally buy because I know which aisle it would be in.

2. I still have pretty bad vision. Even though potassium has been helping me out in the energy department , it did not, miraculously return my vision to normal (unfortunately). For this reason, my extra careful scrutiny of items was an agonizing process of glasses on, glasses off, reading labels, reading ingredients, looking at prices, leaning over the mountains of potatoes, lemons, nectarines, bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc. and deciphering: are these Organic? Some of this issues would have been solved if Stop N' Shop were "my" store - after 45 minutes in the produce section I finally discovered that organic produce has a large orange, curve sign above it (I almost wanted to cry when I saw that - there should be a grocery store KEY somewhere that tells you these things! I would have been through that section in 15 minutes!). Some of the issues would have been solved with another set of eyes!

The result of these two minor issues: the shopping trip took me a little over two hours and my organic aisle did not get the attention I had plan to give it due to (of course) a pretty damning headache that lasted until I finally fell asleep.

And yet, I still feel as though this trip was a great success. Here's why:

• I did it! If you have been following my blog, the fact that I actually made it out to the store, is a success in and of itself. In addition, the fact that I did it on my own is also pretty damn cool (even if it did suck me dry for the night!)
• I bought fresh (and mostly Organic). I always buy my fruit fresh, but I noticed over the years that I have been buying more and more of my vegetables frozen or canned. I don't know and/or remember what led to this transition, but so it goes. We actually have a second freezer in the basement and a full pantry. I was struck, at the end of this trip, when putting all of the items away, how I did not need to go downstairs with ONE item. The majority of my purchases went right in the refrigerator. I can't remember the last time that happened and it feels right. My freezer will still be used, of course, like tonight, when I put in all of the extra marinara sauce to be consumed at a later date.
• I found Gardein. I thought this would be a difficult item to find, but there, at the end of the produce section, is the refrigerated case, was the product Tal Ronnen wrote about in his cookbook The Conscious Cook, that I was so curious about. It is protein, made of soy (no GMOs), but not tofu and, he claimed had a texture so similar to meat that many people he had served it to did not even know the difference. I have toyed with tofu before, so I know how arduous it can be to get the texture "right." This Gardein piqued my curiosity (Gardein's website). There were three varieties in the store, I bought one of each!
• I learned my way around... a bit. If you spend two hours in a place, you get to know a little bit about it. I was no a complete stranger to Stop N' Shop before this trip, but I definitely feel a bit more comfortable about going back there again (and maybe next time STARTING off with the organics aisle, instead of ending off with it!).

Only time will tell if this was truly a success - can we eat the fresh food while it is still fresh? Did I buy too much for the week, or too little? What meals will come from these choices (although I had some in mind, I definitely have not planned them all out!)? Is this supermarket a viable option for healthy eating, or will I find something even better at the farmer's markets? And... the big question: Can we find the sustenance we need from these purchases considering I did not buy any meat?

Well, today was day 1, and while we did eat the chicken and the tuna steaks, there are still meat remnants in the house. Here's how our food day played out:

• Breakfast: We both ate our respective cereals. My husband also had a yogurt which he has been taking with his antibiotic.
• Lunch: My husband made a tuna fish sandwich and a salad. I could not resist - I had to try the Gardein (Sante Fe) with a salad. The Gardein was really, surprisingly good! I am still not completely sold on this product, as it is packaged and microwaved, but, it was delicious. I can absolutely understand how Tal Ronnen's dinner guests were fooled into thinking they were eating meat.
• Snack: We cracked open a box of organic, no wheat, gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate chunk cookies that were extra yummy!
• Dinner: Pasta with home-made marinara sauce and ricotta.

I don;t know if this is the healthiest day of food ever, but I can, at least say that some of yesterday's purchases have already gone to work!

BIG Questions... with MY Answer, so far

So while I am home sick (again!) today, I am thinking about lots of food conversations I had at work yesterday and over the remainder of my weekend (well, as much as one can think about things after waking up at 2pm!). Lots of information has been shared, lots of questions have been asked and in the process both my curiosity and skepticism have been piqued again... One thing keeps itching at me and clawing at me: being healthy and eating is becoming a pretty popular topic in this country as of late and because of that some "healthy" food options are becoming more readily available to the public as a whole. You may be asking, "Nicole, what is wrong with that?" and, at first, I would have said, "Nothing, that's great," but as I said, my inner skeptic has been wakened.

An example: bison meat/bison burgers. My husband LOVES burgers, I mean really, loves them and will order them anywhere. In fact, one of the signs to me that he was truly growing as a person was the first time the two of us went on a date, there was a burger on the menu, and he opted to order something else - it was a big deal for him. Anyway, while they are not always his first choice, they are still one of his comfort foods, so when he learned he had a high cholesterol, he was a little upset... until he read about bison burgers. He tried them, liked them, and has been happy with his substitution. Here is what, unprompted by any conversations of my recent skepticisms, my husband said to me last night, "You know bison burger? Well, I can get that just about anywhere now - health food restaurants, but also diners - all types of restaurants have it on their menus. Do you think that bison are getting treated like the other cattle because they are so popular?" And I thought... that's a really good damn question.

To piggyback this statement - what about soy? Not only has it always been a mainstay in the litany of ingredients on the sides of many of our packaged foods, but now it has been lauded as the key to the health and longevity of those in the Orient. We heard the stories, we wanted to try soy for ourselves, now it is everywhere - soy milks, soy ice creams, tofu, soy nuts, edamame I am sure the list goes on. Was it this level of demand that allowed/allows the GMO (Genetically Modified Organism http://www.ebfarm.com/WhyOrganic/library/Glossary.aspx#G_glossary) to continue to be processed?

So, the big questions these ideas (and others) keep swirling in my head:

• how do you know when your "healthy" food has taken an unnatural turn?
• who can you trust to ask about how to use your purchasing power as what I like to call a "capitalist vote" by BUYING the right kinds of products? AND
• (scary question) when does the "capitalist vote" actually work against progress by making demand so high on the right product that a BIG business comes in, buys it up, takes it over and tries to ruin it?

I am thinking, still, that my one true power remains in going to a family farm to buy my products. In this way I am using my capitalist vote ($$$) to support not only a product, but a system.

If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear/read them!