Everything in moderation….

August 18, 2010 · Filed under toxic food, toxic people, toxic products · Tagged , , , , ,

…is one of the stupidest sayings I’ve ever heard. Sure, at first glance it makes sense. Don’t over-do or under-do anything and you’ll be fine. Sounds good. But when you really think about it, all this phrase  does is give us an excuse to stuff our faces with toxic crap while deluding ourselves of the reality of doing it.

Too many times I’ve heard comments like, “I eat_______ (insert poison of choice), but only once in a while. You know what they say, ‘everything in moderation’.”

I have  seven things to say about this.

1. Who are “they” anyway? The millions of overweight unhealthy people walking around the cookie aisles in the supermarkets of America? The companies who create these disgusting food products and rely on our continued purchasing and consumption so they can keep making money? The drug companies who benefit from people becoming sick? I’m not exactly sure who “they” are, but I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t listen to them.

2.What is the definition of moderation?  You might think you eat ____ in moderation, but how do you know how many times a week you can eat a food before it wreaks havoc on your body? Where are the standards? There’s no little chart that says that Froot loops are okay twice a week and hot dogs are okay twice a month. So realistically, whatever schedule you’ve chosen to mean moderation in your life is without much value.

3. Do you really believe that you’re eating ____ in moderation anyway? How would you know? Do you keep a diary or a checklist of all the toxic crap that goes into your body so you can keep track of how much you eat and how often? I think it’s fair to say that with the fast pace of life, it’s easy to forget little details.

4. “Everything in moderation” should be replaced with a different phrase;  ”I Don’t Really Care.” The next time someone who cares about health gives you a look as you gulp down a cup of soda, try being honest. Instead of saying, “everything in moderation” in that sing-songy tune that we all use, try saying what you really feel, which is “I Don’t Really Care.”

5. Have you ever noticed that people only say “everything in moderation” when referring to stuff that’s bad for us? We smoke in moderation, drink in moderation, eat cake in moderation, but you don’t often hear comments like, “I eat kale, but only in moderation, ” and “I shower, but only in moderation, ” and “I volunteer to help the elderly, but only in moderation.” So it’s a pretty good bet that if you’re saying “everything in moderation” as you’re about to eat it, it’s bad for you.

6. Fifty toxic food items in moderation are not considered moderation. Let’s say that I drink soda in moderation, and then eat Gushers in moderation, hot dogs in moderation, baked goods with bromated flour in moderation, hydrogenated cookies in moderation, high fructose corn syrup laden ketchup in moderation, artificially flavored ice cream in moderation, MSG laced chips in moderation, artificially dyed Laffy Taffys in moderation, margarine filled pie crusts in moderation, frozen chicken nuggets in moderation, preservative covered cereal in moderation, processed American cheese in moderation, nitrated meats in moderation, and your typical bakery cake, all in moderation. Which is better, to eat one toxic item several times a week or to eat several toxic items once a week? Answer: neither. It all stinks. You may think you’re eating one particular food item in moderation, but on the whole, you and your kids are not eating toxic ingredients in moderation.

7. I hate the word “everything.” Few things in this world are all or nothing. You know what? You can’t eat everything in moderation. You can eat some things in moderation. I have a pantry full of  non-toxic cookies, chips, crackers, and lollipops that can be eaten once in a while. But there’s no reason to allot yourself a frequency of which to eat or serve your kids toxic ingredients. It’s less about forbidden foods and more about forbidden brands and forbidden ingredients. So buy some snacks that don’t have poison ingredients and let your kids eat that stuff on occasion.

Everything in moderation. Except toxic crap.

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Allergic

August 15, 2010 · Filed under toxic food · Tagged , , , ,

Thanks to our environment, more and more people are developing allergies, especially to food. It’s tough to be an adult when you develop an allergy because you’re suddenly unable to enjoy your favorite foods. It stinks to be a kid with food allergies, because you constantly miss out on the foods that all the other kids are eating. And it must really be hard to be the parent of a kid with food allergies, with the frequent worrying about the safety and health of your child.

I feel for parents who have kids with food allergies. I can imagine how scary it must be to send a child out into the world with the hope that peanuts, dairy, eggs, or other culprits  will not cross their path. It must be frustrating to deal with teachers and administrators who claim to be very careful but turn out to be negligent.

If there’s one thing that parents with allergic kids have, it’s a legitimate, believable reason for voicing concern about what their kids eat. Allergies, after all, can be life threatening. There is an immediate cause and effect between the act of eating a food and having a reaction, and this link can not be disputed or challenged by others.

Then you have someone like me, who luckily does not have kids with identified food allergies, but nonetheless cares about what they eat. In my case, the cause and effect is often challenged by others, as well as mocked and dismissed. While a  kid who eats peanuts can suffer from anaphylaxis only moments later, a child who eats red dye and hydrogenated oil sometimes has years before the effects of eating this garbage can be seen, and even then, it’s so hard to prove the direct relationship that whatever ailment  has developed is classified as genetic and given magic pills which don’t do anything.

Recently my child was given a snack which contained aspartame. When I indicated that this was not cool, I was asked, “Oh, is she allergic to aspartame?”  “No, ” I replied, “She’s allergic to cancer, just like the other kids.”

So is this where we stand? That unless you’re going to drop dead on the spot there’s no good reason to avoid a food? We’re so obsessed with instant gratification that we’ve allowed this tendency to permeate the food based decisions  that we make, and it’s going to create a whole new generation of fat, sick kids. Sorry to depress you.

If you look up the word allergy, you learn that an allergy is an abnormal bodily reaction to a substance. When we serve our kids a lifetime of poisonous substances, their bodies have no choice but to react in an abnormal way, which means illness.

I think they deserve better, don’t you?

You may think you are exempt from allergies, but I have news for you. We’re all allergic to toxic crap.

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Poison of the week: Diet coke

August 10, 2010 · Filed under toxic food, toxic products · Tagged , , , ,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’M SORRY! But I have a feeling that you kind of suspected that fake soda is full of poison.

What’s the mentality behind diet soda? That you’re doing yourself a favor by not ingesting empty calories and a ton of sugar. So far I’m with you. But the logic falls apart when the replacement for calories and sugar is toxic crap.

So what’s in diet coke?

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavors, Aspartame, Potassium Benzoate, Citric Acid

You know how this part goes. This is the part where I say that carbonated water is ok, although you might not want an excess of carbonation in your body, unless you’re a big fan of burping. The HFCS issue has been covered in previous posts, and I hope at this point you have at least considered eliminating it from your diet. Potassium benzoate is also one we’ve covered. Today we’re going to focus on phosphoric acid and aspartame.

Phosphoric acid is…any guesses? The name is pretty accurate. It’s acid, and it’s there to acidify soda.  Foods that are acidic are destructive to the body. I’m not  going to tell you just how many of our everyday foods are acidic, because you’ll feel as overwhelmed as I sometimes do and you’ll give up. But I do think it’s fair to  attempt to give up foods that are not only acidic, but actually contain the word acid on their labels.

What’s wrong with having an acidic body? Well, remember in high school when you learned about ph levels? Most of us are walking around with acidic ph levels, rather than alkaline. Guess what thrives in an acidic body? Disease. Illness. Malaise. Sorry to the drug companies, but many of the ailments that are usually treated with drugs can be treated with dietary changes and the balancing of body ph. Bottom line? Acid is bad. Don’t drink it.

Now onto my favorite poison of all time; aspartame.

Aspartame has a long and complicated history, full of corruption and misinformation. I’m not going to try to make an excessively compelling argument in order to convince you that it’s bad for you.  You’re going to have to decide for yourself. I’m not going to mention that there are around 100 symptoms associated with aspartame that the FDA was forced to disclose. I’m not going to list all of the illnesses that are exacerbated by the consumption of aspartame. I’m not going to cite all the studies that have linked aspartame to the development of illnesses because studies can be found to support any cause. You’d be amazed to find out how many studies claim that aspartame is harmless, and more amazed to learn that these studies are usually funded by companies that rely heavily upon its use in their products.

If you want a science lesson, start by knowing that aspartame contains three very insidious components: methanol, phenylalanine, and aspartic acid. All three of these chemicals have each been shown to either stimulate brain cells to death, severely disrupt hormone balances in the brain or act as a dangerous nerve poison. I ‘m asking you to use logic and decide if your instinct tells you that this chemical could possibly be a substance that is benign to the body.

If you’re the type of person who will continue to put this stuff into your body because you’re waiting for 100% proof, and because you’re convinced that it would not be on the market if it was possibly harmful, then I have a bridge to sell you, real cheap.

Let’s look at this from another angle: does diet soda really taste that good? Out of all the things you could ingest, does diet soda rank in the top ten?What would happen if you stopped drinking it, or at least cut back? Would you crave it the way one might crave a piece of chocolate or a piece of meat? Or could you live without it?

Challenge yourself. Say, “Hey, I drink toxic crap on a regular basis. It’s not healthier than regular soda. It’s all garbage. I will commit to reducing the amount of diet soda that I drink because I don’t think I should be putting fake chemicals and acid into my body on a regular basis.”

Don’t be scared. You can do this. You just have to want to.

Are you wondering what you’ll drink instead? If you need bubbles, try flavored seltzer. If not, how about good old-fashioned water? If that scares you, flavor it with lemon, lime, or an herbal tea bag.

And don’t forget to show your kids how you no longer drink soda, because you found out that it’s poison.

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Boycott

August 6, 2010 · Filed under non-toxic people, places and things · Tagged , , , ,

Do you make shopping lists? Lots of people do, otherwise you end up with a bunch of stuff that you don’t need but seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve done this so much that I’ve been politely asked to not do the family shopping anymore (see, men, we women can also make ourselves inept in order to get out of doing things). Some of the items you’d find on my shopping list are pretty typical; bread, eggs, oranges, rice, etc. I assume you’ve got similar stuff on your list.  You probably jot down the foods you’re running out of, the foods you need for the coming week, and the stuff your kids ask for. Maybe they say, “Buy cookies!”  Maybe they say, “We want ice cream!” But at no point do they say, “Hey, when you’re at the supermarket, please pick up hydrogenated fat and yellow dye #5….”

Why don’t they ask for that stuff? Because it’s not what they’re after. They want the treats they’ve come to enjoy, and we can provide snacks within reason. But it’s our responsibility to buy the snacks that aren’t full of chemicals.

It’s simple, really. Just make a “NOT shopping list.”  Or to take a trip back in time, for fun, you could also call it “Shopping list…NOT!”

Shopping list…NOT!

partially hydrogenated oil

high fructose corn syrup

artificial colors and dyes

artificial flavors

preservatives like BHA, BHT, TBHQ

GMO’s (genetically modified organisms)

MSG

I know it may seem like a lot, but I promise that there are tons of products without these ingredients. Some are priced comparably, and some cost a bit more. You can find a balance by prioritizing your food budget the same way you do with all the other money that you spend. If avoiding chemicals is important, you’ll find a way to buy the snacks you want without spending too much. Maybe you’ll buy fewer junk items, and spend a bit more on the ones you do buy. Maybe you’ll make your snacks last longer by not eating them every day. Maybe you’ll shop online and buy in bulk. You’ll get creative and figure it out. The point is, there are ways to feed our kids snacks, the very types of cookies and candy that they like, without also feeding them chemicals. It seems like a no- brainer.

All you have to do to start is switch one snack item from a toxic brand to a brand with better ingredients, to a label that does not contain anything from the NOT Shopping list. Keep buying all the other poison that you’re used to, if you must. Start with just ONE item.

Then, when you’re ready, move on….

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What’s the big deal?

August 3, 2010 · Filed under toxic places · Tagged , , , ,

A great way to get out of any situation and make another person seem a little nuts is to ask, “What’s the big deal?” when they get annoyed about something. Suddenly, you’ve effectively taken the heat off of the thing you’ve done wrong, and redirected the conversation to the supposed overreaction of the other person. A brilliant tactic. So when I stand my ground and decline offerings of toxic snacks that are directed at my kids, I get irritated when the response is, “What’s the big deal?”

It may not be a big deal to the person who is adamant about giving junk to kids, (even though this type of person is often doing it to win affection or attention, or to reward, praise, or comfort the child), but it’s a big deal to those of us who are trying to keep unneccessary crap out of our kids.

Is anything in life a big deal? Often the attitude is, if it won’t kill them it can’t be that big a deal. We’ve all dealt with the quandary of explaining to someone that even though immediate death will not result, it’s still kind of a big deal.

You come home and are less than pleased to find out that your husband put the kids to bed with no dinner and no bath. He tells you to calm down and asks, “What’s the big deal?”

Your wife changes the channel for just one second at the exact moment that there’s a winning touchdown. She reminds you that you can watch the game highlights later and asks, “What’s the big deal?”

Your spouse declares that your in-laws will be moving in for a month while their house is being renovated. You say you’ll be moving to  the backyard. You’re told to stop being so dramatic and are asked, “What’s the big deal?”

Will anybody drop dead from the above situations (I guess that depends on your in-laws)? Probably not, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not big deals, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t have the right to care about them. There’s a whole shade of gray in between the black and white of life and death.

The extended version of this commonly asked question is, “What’s the big deal? It’s just this once,”  which is a big  bunch of baloney. Every person who encounters your kids says that, not realizing that while it’s once from them, it’s also once from everyone else. By the end of the day, your kids have consumed just one piece of crap from twenty different people.

So what’s the big deal? I’ll tell you. Our kids have the right to enjoy food that’s not laden with fake, lab-concocted chemicals. They should have the benefit of knowing that they can live freely because we’re looking out for them. Is anyone going to drop dead immediately after eating a partially hydrogenated cookie? Probably not. But we have no idea what the overload of chemicals in the food we feed our kids will ultimately end up doing to their health.

Sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

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Out of touch

August 1, 2010 · Filed under non-toxic people, places and things · Tagged , ,

Often someone is considered “out of touch” when they’re outdated, not current, and not “with it.” It doesn’t seem to be a particularly favorable label. But I was away with my family over the past few days, with limited internet and phone access, somewhat out of touch. It was fantastic. Now I have to be careful to speak of the evils of technology, being that I’m a blogger, but I have to say, technology can be quite toxic;  the endless searching, friending, tweeting and texting can wreak havoc on the soul.

Non-toxic living isn’t restricted to food. Just as I don’t feel particularly pleased after I’ve eaten a ton of sugar,  I don’t like the fact that I often find myself on the computer. It’s not so much the blogging that takes up time, but the random internet searches, email checks, and visits to favorite sites (nothing weird or illegal, I promise).

I bring up the toxicity of technology in the same spirit that I often bring up the toxicity of food; because we often become accustomed to doing things just because everyone else in society is doing them. Everyone else buys Gushers, everyone else eats hot dogs,and everyone else is into technology; computers, cell phones, etc. etc. etc. Now I’m not saying we should eliminate technology; I can’t do it, and I don’t want you to for a variety of reasons, one of them being purely selfish. But I do  recommend the experience of being out of touch.  It helps put us in touch with the people who we yearn to connect with on a daily basis, but sometimes can’t because of the pace of life.

I have a friend who refuses to be a part of Facebook. I have a friend who absolutely will not speak on her cell phone when she’s in her car, even with a headset. I have to respect that.

I recently got fed up with some technological item and in my frustration proclaimed to my husband, “I’m moving to Amish country.”  I waited excitedly for him to say, “Fine. Me too. Let’s just do it.”  Instead he said, “Send me a postcard.”  So maybe long periods of time without technology aren’t for everyone. But here and there it may be beneficial to do a technology detox.

And the best part is, while abstaining from technology, you can still eat all the cookies you want.

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Don’t leave home without it

July 28, 2010 · Filed under non-toxic people, places and things · Tagged , , , ,

I’m not talking about your credit card. I’m not talking about your keys . The thing you should never leave your home without is food. This might sound crazy, and you might not be as food obsessed as I am, but if you’re trying to eat somewhat healthy, you absolutely must take food with you. Is it annoying to have to do this? Yes, but so are a lot of other things in life. I don’t particularly enjoy taking up time from my already short evening to prepare and pack food for the next day, but when the next day comes, I’m glad I did.

I know the importance of taking food with you when on the road. We recently stopped at one of those “Gas / public bathrooms/poison food stations” just to stretch our legs and fool our kids into thinking that our long car trip was almost over. We walked through the area where all the “food” was. I was reminded of how once upon a time I would have been loading up on all kinds of crap, defending the decision by proclaiming a long car trip to be a special occasion. I was really happy to feel a slight twinge of nausea as I walked through this section, hopefully signifying that I’ve officially  moved on. We passed the cash register where a family of four was holding 4 sodas, 2 bags of chips, 4 packages of cookies, M&Ms and Pepto Bismol. At least they’ll be prepared when the diarrhea hits.

Last year my family and I were on a trip to a southern state, and while we brought a lot of food with us, we foolishly relied on being able to buy some stuff at the local supermarket. We walked in, initially enjoying the fun of a new and unfamiliar grocery store (Come on. You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just another stupid supermarket but it’s in a different city, and so you enter with a little more pep in your step. It’s like when you go to a different Target; seen one, seen them all, but you delude yourself into thinking that this one will be different).

So there we were, 2 tired adults toting restless kids, looking for organic vegetables. Looking for anything not hydrogenated. Looking for anything semi non-toxic. It wasn’t happening.  We approached one of the check out aisles and I asked a man and woman who worked there if there were any stores nearby that sold healthy food. They looked at each other, laughed and said, “This is it, honey.”  So we returned to the food selection and started combing through everything, looking for anything. We picked up an assortment of broccoli and cauliflower; in the center was a dip made of hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup. “Even the vegetables are laced with crap!” we said, laughing at how ridiculous this whole search was. We walked up and down every aisle, playing a game to make the quest more fun….first one to find any sort of non-toxic food was the winner. My husband excitedly proclaimed himself the winner as he ran over with a box of crackers. I pointed out the artificial flavors and the contest was back on. I found some bread that I tried to pass as acceptable, but was stumped when my husband pointed to a three-hundred letter ingredient and asked me to pronounce it. I couldn’t. Sadly, we both lost.

In the end, we did the best we could, but we definitely learned our lesson. When away from home, BYOF.

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Poison of the week: FlaVorIce

July 23, 2010 · Filed under toxic food · Tagged , , ,

OK, let’s begin with a grammatical gripe. If the name of the food is broken into syllables and separated by bullet points and each syllable is capitalized and the whole word doesn’t even really make any sense, you don’t want to eat it.

Now let’s look at the product, FlaVorIce. I guess the feeling you’re supposed to get when looking at the box is that this is some type of flavorful ice, as opposed to regular ice that comes out of your freezer in cubes.

So what’s in FlaVorIce (I hope you can hear the sarcasm as you read the word with its’ 3 capital letters)?

INGREDIENTS:
WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, FRUIT JUICE (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: APPLE, GRAPE OR PEAR JUICE FROM CONCENTRATE), CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF THE FOLLOWING: CITRIC AND/OR FUMARIC ACID, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE AND POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVES), RED 40, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, BLUE 1.

Water? Good. HFCS? Bad. We’ve covered this ingredient. When you bake, you don’t use HFCS. It’s a cheap chemical approach to sweeten foods. Skip it.

Next we have my favorite baloney line, “contains less than 2% of..”   This is another way of saying, “There’s so little of it in here; it’s just enough to allow us to produce this product cheaply and without any real ingredients, but not too much that it could possibly have adverse affects on your health, and furthermore is such a miniscule amount that you can’t even really see it or measure it, so just forget we said anything about it; we’re just filling our legal obligations to casually mention the poison we’re feeding you.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want 2%, 1%, or a half percent of toxic chemicals in my body or in the foods I feed my kids. Artificial flavors? Bad. Fake chemicals made in a lab. Sodium benzoate? It’s a preservative. As usual, research is still being done to determine how it affects our health. The fact that additional research is being conducted to see if it’s harmful to genes, and the fact that it caused birth defects in experimental animals is enough for me. At the very least, it tells me that this is not a real food, because real foods don’t seem to kill or harm animals who are being held in captivity for research purposes.

Potassium sorbate? Never been a fan. It’s also a preservative and here’s the thing about preservatives: in theory, they’re great, and in practice, they stink. Would I love a product that lasts and last forever? Sure, but that’s not the way food works. Rule of thumb: YOU WANT YOUR FOOD TO HAVE SPOILAGE CAPABILITIES. I’m not saying you should buy spoiled food or eat rotten food. What I’m saying is, if you have a lot of products that seem to remain intact on your shelves for extended periods of time, there’s something wrong with those foods. Food is meant to go bad. Food that never goes bad IS bad.

Finally, our old friends red #40, yellow #5, yellow #6, and blue #1. We’ve covered these. Please tell me that by now if you haven’t stopped buying items with food dyes, you at least feel guilty when you do. (Not to be the guilt pushing mom, but if you’re like the rest of us, you probably suffer from a good amount of guilt anyway. Why not channel all that guilt to something productive, like what you eat and what you feed your kids?)

Finally, the kicker. On the side of the box, right next to where the ingredients are listed, is a gold ribbon and the words, “Gold ribbons for Childhood Cancer Awareness…..because kids can’t fight cancer alone.”  This is surely a wonderful cause, but not the point. It makes me endlessly frustrated that companies sell products that are bad for our health and try to redeem themselves by supporting the very illnesses that their product has been linked to. High fat/ high sugar producers support heart disease, soda companies telling us to exercise to prevent obesity, and here we have a great deal, that when you purchase chemical ices for your kids you are helping to fight childhood cancer. A better way to prevent  illness is to care about the ingredients in your food.

So…FlaVorIce…might be full of flavor, also full of crap.

Avoid.

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SAD

July 20, 2010 · Filed under toxic food · Tagged , , ,

If you’ve traveled around the world, you’ve likely had the experience of enjoying all different types of cuisines. (If this sounds stuck up, let me make it clear that while I have been to a few places, I am not even close to being a world traveler, and have accepted that I probably never will be, and have set myself more realistic goals, like getting myself and my family out the door on a Sunday in less than 2 hours . We’re making progress.)

Whether you’ve traveled or not, you can usually find local restaurants that serve foods that are particular to regions from all around the globe. If you’re in the mood for Greek or Italian, you’ll be eating foods from the Mediterranean diet. If you want something from farther east, you might enjoy fish, soy, or other heart healthy food from the Asian diet. And if you’re in the mood for American, you’ll be enjoying a big plate of crap.

It’s sad. Not only emotionally, but, literally. Just like countries around the world, we too have been given a name to describe our diet. It’s the dullest sounding title until you look at the acronym. Our contribution to the world of cuisine has been named the Standard American Diet, or SAD, if you need an abbreviation because you don’t have time to say the whole name because you have a piece of corn-fed hamburger hanging out of the corner of your mouth.

So what’s in the sad, pathetic, Standard American Diet? Is it cold pressed extra virgin olive oil? Brown rice? Beans? Lentils? Vegetables? No. The Standard American Diet is categorized by foods that are high in sugar, high in fat, with high intakes of red meat, high fat dairy foods,and refined grains. Who cares? We should. First of all, it’s totally embarrassing that this is our contribution to the world of food. Second, it’ s really horrible that this diet also has helped us earn our very own set of life-threatening illnesses, affectionately known as the “western diseases.” Sure cancer, heart disease, and diabetes can be found in many countries, but we’ve helped these diseases become part of our culture. You may have succumbed and bought your kids three hundred silly bands, and you may be the first one to buy whatever technological advancement that Apple has dreamed up, but the Standard American Diet is one trend that you can do without.

Our American diet is SAD, but it doesn’t have to be. Eat a vegetable (other than french fries) and be happy.

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Where to begin?

July 17, 2010 · Filed under non-toxic people, places and things · Tagged , , ,

Lately people have been expressing an interest in making some health and eating related changes, but feel totally overwhelmed by the idea and unsure of where to begin. I want to offer some suggestions.  Please keep in mind that these things take time. I have been on a journey, although I didn’t realize this until recently when I looked back to where I started. So be patient with yourself; you will move as quickly as you are ready to.

So..where to begin? Well, that depends on where you currently stand. Choose from the following and decide what you are ready for:

1. I have no interest in eating well, reducing the amount of chemicals in my diet, or promoting these habits in my kids.

You’re not read for much. Good that you can admit that. Check in with yourself in a few weeks and see how you feel.

2. I am not looking to minimize the amount of junk we eat, but I am willing to look for replacement brands that contain less or no artificial colors, artificial flavors, hydrogenated oil, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, preservatives, and genetically modified organisms. (This may seem like a lot, but the brands who care about ingredients tend to avoid all of these)

You are at the point that I was at when I started. You will be doing yourself and your family a favor just by choosing less toxic ingredients.

3. I’ve gotten rid of junk foods with chemicals; now I’m ready to look at the chemicals in everyday items like ketchup, bread, yogurt, and cereal.

This is great; you’re on the way to eating real food with real ingredients.

4. There are basically no foods with chemicals in my house;  now I’m ready to focus on adding better foods, like more fruits and vegetables into my diet. I’m also ready to look at the amount of  sugar, salt, simple carbohydrates, and animal products that I eat. (Calm down. I said LOOK AT. I’m not going to brainwash you into becoming a vegetarian, although that would be fine with me.)

You’re ready to make a conscious effort to incorporate better food into your daily diet. You’re ready to look at the stuff you’re eating but know you shouldn’t, like sugar. (You’re not alone. I struggle with this and have decided that the only way to kick the sugar habit is to blog about it so I’m held accountable by my readers. Don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.)

In addition to acknowledging your current status, if you’re looking to make some changes, think about organic food. Learn more about pesticides and decide if you want to buy organic produce when you can. You don’t have to be rich, and you don’t have to do anything that’s beyond your comfort zone. Look for organic produce that’s on sale, look for affordable frozen organic veggies, and maybe skip the conventional stuff that’s known to be full of the most pesticides. http://thenontoxicmom.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/whats-on-your-list/

So now you know where to begin. The next question is, when will you start?

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