I read countless news articles and reports on contaminated food and food recalls that I had never really been aware of before. To say the least, I was disgusted. Eric Schlosser said it perfectly when he said " There is this deliberate veil, this curtain, that's dropped between us and where our food is coming from." So once I removed this "curtain", hung by the food industry, I was left feeling helpless and frustrated. The more I learned the worse I felt. I started to recognize marketing scams like "all natural" and "no artificial ingredients/preservatives" which are on practically everything in the store! I didn't know what to buy anymore. I actually went to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping and came out with virtually nothing.
I have always just ran up to the one stop shop convenience store, filled up our cart with every household need for the week, and headed home. Bam! Two hours from start to finish. There are no seasons for fruit or veggies in the grocery store. The supply of milk and eggs is never low. Everything is always available. While this is a nice idea, having everything available at all times, we are all paying the hefty price of good health for these modern conveniences and most of us don't even know it.
According to the American Cancer Society's Fact and Figures for 2012:
"About 1,638,910 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2012. This estimate does not include carcinoma in situ (noninvasive cancer) of any site except urinary bladder, and does not include basal and squamous cell skin cancers, which are not required to be reported to cancer registries."
"In 2012, about 577,190 Americans are expected to die of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease, accounting for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths."
Are these statistics alone not enough to make us re-evaluate our lifestyles?? What about all of the other diseases affecting Americans? Almost all of them are related to nutrition and lifestyle.
When the typical American decides to eat healthier, what do they do? That's easy, they watch their fat and calorie intake. They spend their shopping trips at the one stop shops looking for labels like low carb, low fat, low sugar, and so on. A few stock up on fruits and vegetables, but usually let them rot in the refrigerator involving bread. I know because I did it. But now I am learning more every day about real food and making changes one baby step at a time.
My family's baby steps have included:
- Eliminating processed food.
- Avoiding foods that contain msg & hfcs.
- Only organic fruit and vegetables (to avoid genetically modified food and food treated with chemicals or hormones)
- Buying milk from a local source.
- Only raw grass fed cheese.
- Free range local organic eggs.
- We are currently working on a few different meat sources. Our meat is coming from a variety of places right now, mostly local farmers or Trader Joe's. Meat is a tough one.
It's really tough to stay on our tight food budget of $600 a month and some times I can't get certain items I need right when I need them, which can be a pain. I have to be very careful to plan my meals for the week and now I'm working on monthly meal planning which I hope will make things easier.
These are my family's "baby steps" and they have been a pain. After all, baby steps can be rather difficult when you're just a baby. That's what I feel like, a baby who has everything to learn about nutrition and real food. So we may be taking small baby steps to some, but to us they are GIANT!
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