Do you ever feel guilty grocery shopping? Not for not bringing your own reusable grocery bags. Not even for taking a mango sucker at the check out that is intended for the children. Just for what you buy -- or want to buy. I pick up an item and look at the ingredients. If it doesn't have some kind of corn syrup or artificial colors and flavors, it has enriched flour or pesticides or hormones. Sometimes I feel like there is nothing safe to eat. I know if my grandma was alive she would be reminding me about the mantra "everything in moderation." Right now sugar really is my downfall. I eat candy like I'm a 7-year-old. Have you tried the
Tropical Starbust? A-maz-ing.
I love to shop in the "hippie section" as CP likes to call it. You might better know it as the organic section of your grocery store. I would rather cut back on other areas of my budget and be able to get a few key organic pieces (did that sound like fashion?). I try to look at the items I consume daily and focus on those first. Since I have such a problem with sugar I figure if I am going to eat the crap it might as well be organic crap. I have my eye on some organic candy that has no corn syrup, no artificial colors and all the other bad stuff. It's made by
Surf Sweets. I will let you know how it is after I try it out.
Jamie's Must Buy Organic/Healthy List
1.
Milk. I don't care what brand -- whatever is on sale -- as long as it's organic. Take a taste test and you will taste the chemicals/hormones in regular milk.
2.
Yogurt. I like
Stonyfield's organic yogurt. The lid this month features a message from the President's Cancer Panel recommending you eat organic. And no high fructose!
3.
Strawberries. Maybe my most favorite fruit and also one of the worst. I read an interview with a non-organic farmer who said that you could grind up regular strawberries and spread them back out as fertilizer because they are filled with so many chemicals.
4.
Peanut Butter. I love
Earth Balance natural peanut butter. It's not organic, but it's natural. It only has five ingredients! Peanuts, flaxseed, agave syrup, palm fruit oil and salt. And it's not that weird have-to-stir-it-up-kind.
Not buying everything organic or healthy can sometimes leave me feeling guilty as I mentioned earlier. However, once I learned about "The Dirty Dozen" it greatly helped. Basically it's a list of the most contaminated don't-eat-these-foods list. Kind of like buying organic on a budget.
Here is the list taken from the Environmental Working Group.
12 Most Contaminated
- Peaches
- Apples
- Sweet Bell Peppers
- Celery
- Nectarines
- Strawberries
- Cherries
- Pears
- Grapes (Imported)
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Potatoes
While we're at it, here is a list of the least contaminated.
12 Least Contaminated - Onions
- Avocado
- Sweet Corn (Frozen)
- Pineapples
- Mango
- Asparagus
- Sweet Peas (Frozen)
- Kiwi Fruit
- Bananas
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Papaya
There even is a place
here where you can print out a wallet version or download an iPhone app to take with you to the grocery store so you can remember what you can skimp on and what you should splurge on.
If eating less sugar and more organic interests you, I would recommend the book "To Buy or Not to Buy Organic: What You Need to Know to Choose the Healthiest, Safest, Most Earth-Friendly Food" by Cindy Burke. It explains what exactly organic means, talks about the Dirty Dozen and so much more.
So I pretty much eat like Jekyll and Hyde. Clean, healthy, organic one day. Blizzards and Starburst the next. I will keep trying to make it work.
Pass the Skittles,
Jam
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