Friday, March 19, 2010

Live Healthy Fridays


Many of you know that I am an Educator living in Colorado, so it probably won't surprise you that I feel very passionate about feeding my family food that isn't going to harm them in the long run. For us, that means making sacrifices in some places to pay for better food. Please watch the documentary Food Inc. in your Netlfix watch instantly queue and it will literally scare the pants off you. It is simply criminal what goes on to produce mass quantities of food in this country.


Now we are by no means "food saints" and though I hate to admit it, I have definitely made a drive through run here in there if you KWIM. But there are some items in our refrigerator that must be organic, because I know that it is good for my kids and our environment.


All of the dairy items in our fridge are organic, which includes: milk, butter, sour cream, and yogurt. This is so my children are not ingesting hormones and antibiotics that could ultimately cause my 6 year old daughter to enter puberty in the 4th grade - no thank you. Please see this article for more info about hormones in food. As for cheese, I called the Tillamook company a few years ago and asked if they used milk with hormones and antibiotics to make their cheese and they said, "Absoulutely NOT." I have also noticed that they now publish that info on the packaging of their products. You can find Tillamook and many organic products in your local Walmart Grocery, so it is readily available if you have no other options.

Here are just a few articles to help you make decisions about what kind of food you want to consume. Educating yourself is the first step to making some changes in the way our country feeds us. The only way to create change in the industry is to start demanding healthier products.

Dirty Dozen explains which foods to stay away from to avoid harmful pesticides that can cause cancer, Parkinson's and infertiltiy to name a few.

Produce that does NOT need to be organic.

Thank you for stopping by and have a great weekend -



5 comments:

Aphra Bolyer said...

Thanks, Liz, for all the info. We are just starting to go organic at my house, so this was very helpful. It's a shame we have to be food detectives to avoid so many harmful additives and such.

Suzanne said...

Thank you for all of this information. I just started a bootcamp, LOL, and the trainer firmly believes in organic. I am trying to make subtle changes, so my family does eat healthier. Eventually, we will be all organic too(:

Deborah said...

I read this and thought it was interesting:
http://www.dairycouncilofca.org/Milk-Dairy/MilkMain.aspx

Liz said...

Deb - thanks for sharing this. Research is a funny thing and can be interpreted many ways and the article about myths you attached is certainly interesting, but it is also published by the Dairy Council of California... get where I am going on this? What most of the research I read said was that it is unclear how the hormones affect humans, but since early puberty in girls is on the rise, my common sense says, maybe eliminate a possible factor to help avoid it by buying organic. Notice how the article did not say there were growth hormones in organic milk???

Jeannette Siciliani said...

Love this post! So glad to see more information about living a better, healthy, lifestyle.