I thought it might be fun and hopefully a little useful to share how we make our food choices.
I buy organic almost always when it comes to Emilia’s diet. She is eating oatmeal, meats, veggies, fruits, and eggs. She is dairy free because she has been sensitive to it since birth and rice free because her digestive system hasn’t been able to process it yet. We are planning on birthday cake for her first, but using better ingredients. I will share when I have nailed it down, because I am still not sure exactly what recipe we will be using.
We are not sticklers when it comes to our own diet.
I buy eggs, dairy and soy milk organic, with the exception of cheese, that usually depends on what we need and what’s available.
I stick to the Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen when considering buying organic in the produce aisle. If it is available organic, and it is not on this list, I buy it organic. I try to stick to fresh, rather than canned (although we still have a few cans sitting in the back of our pantry) or frozen. If I want to have it frozen (right now I have pears, beans, mushrooms and spinach in our freezer), then I freeze it myself.
As far as our pantry, we still have some boxed and canned foods in there, but we haven’t used them in while. I figure having them on hand later might be useful on a last minute dinner. I am not in favor of throwing away something I have purchased, so we will use them, just not buy them again. We haven’t given up decent cereal, but we eat it once every couple of weeks. I choose pasta and rice on a case by case basis, but chicken stock and tomato paste, always organic.
With our baking products, I am choosing organic when possible. Spices, not as often, but with our flour and sweeteners like cane sugar, honey and maple syrup, and our oils like olive and coconut oils we are going organic.
Because of the price of organic meats, we have not made the leap there (however Kyle’s mom did bring us down some organic beef from her area, since it is about half the price there). We do try to get as natural and antibiotic free as possible. I usually buy in bulk when it is on sale, and freeze it in freezer bags, (1 lb bags of ground beef and 2 chicken breasts to a bag). I am not a big fan of pork and Kyle is not a big fan of turkey, so we don’t buy them. Kyle loves bacon, so we haven’t given that up. It is usually a weekly Saturday breakfast for us, which he makes, so I am not complaining.
I have tried baking our own bread, and although it is decent, I have found a low ingredient bread from our local bakery that tastes better, so not organic, there.
I have tried to take our usual recipes and inserting better ingredients.
But, we do love a good pizza from our local pizza place, and General Tso’s chicken from our favorite Chinese take out. We aren’t afraid to eat when we go out, we just want to make better choices when it is in our control.
So, that is what we mean we say practical and natural. What are you doing to make your lifestyle healthier?
