I think the first of the changes I implemented was for Ruthie's diet when she began to eat solids. Some of my friends, with babies, had talked about saving money by making their own baby food for their kiddos and the thought had crossed my mind to try it but I thought it probably would be more trouble than it was worth. Well, one of those friends let me borrow a book called, Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel. (Thank You Katie!) And I thought, "Hey what the heck, I'll try one of these." IT WAS WAY EASY. Ridiculously easy. steam the food, puree, put in a freezer tray, pop out of tray next morning and put in big Ziploc and keep in freezer till needed. EASY. and when you fix the food - grab a cube out of freezer - put in microwave for 20 sec and "Wha-La!" instant baby food. this was highly empowering to me - and it felt great to know we were saving some serious money by doing this. It was also great to know EXACTLY what i was feeding my baby and allowed me to go a step further by choosing organic fruits and vegetables to make her baby food with.
At this point i was really not concerned at all with what me and papa were eating (whether it was organic, natural, etc) or not. Its all about Miss Ruthie at this point.
So my obsession with Ruthie eating organic began with fruits and vegetables, and as we added more new foods to her diet, I tried to find organic versions of those to feed her as well. So at this point in time, Ruthie has eaten most of her solid diet from organic food. probably 85-90%. why not 100%? well, some things are REALLY hard to come by in organic. Like meat - and when you do come across it - ground beef for $7.99/lb.....its really difficult to fit that into our budget right now. BUT I did find an alternative for that and that was the prepackaged baby food brand of SPROUT that started showing up on our HEB's shelves. All organic and Ruthie loves all the different varieties. And we've introduced her to alot of flavors this way of things we don't even normally eat - so hopefully she won't be as picky of eaters as we are. ;)
At some point, I did wonder about the formula that she was consuming - (Kirkland's Signature from Costco) and what was in it. But after doing some research and visiting several different grocery stores LOOKING for an organic alternative - I really didn't find much and what I did find would have been too expensive to change to. So I decided to just "stick it out" on the formula and when the time came to transition to cow's milk - Ruthie would be drinking organic milk. And so, that's where we are now. Ruthie has been drinking a glass of organic cow's milk everyday for the past few days. And after she's been doing that for a couple weeks we will slowly begin to wean her from the formula.
She loves yogurt so we feed her alot of the YO BABYorganic yogurt made by Stonyfield Farms. Its made from whole milk also. And its some pretty darn tasty stuff - I can understand why she loves it! :) We've found organic versions of most of the Gerber snacks on the shelves, like yogurt bites and puffs and they all taste good and Ruthie likes them all just fine.
And because she is beginning to eat a little of what we are eating now, we are (ever so slowly) transitioning some of the foods we eat into organic versions. For example, eggs. We eat scrambled eggs on Saturday mornings - especially lately and Ruthie likes them a lot. and they give her an opportunity to feed herself so we let her go wild with them. We have found that the organic eggs taste better to us as well. So, its a little more expensive for the organic eggs, but we feel we are making up for it in taste and a healthier value for our bodies. :) We've also tried some organic pasta - pretty good - can't really tell a difference in taste. Slowly, we are adding more and more items to our pantry shelves that are organic. Now sometimes, there's just not any organic options out there - and in those cases, we buy what we always have in the past. But we are always on the lookout for an organic option. I will say that for some produce - with very thick peels, you can probably get away with consuming the conventional version. There's a list floating around of the "Dirty Dozen"* on the internet. If you're going to only do a few foods organic - these are ones that you would benefit the most from (the theory is that pesticides and such are stored and applied to the skin of the produce - most of the dirty dozen are produce that you would consume the skin) So, you'd probably want to purchase organic fresh blueberries, but wouldn't need to worry about spending the extra on organic bananas unless you intend to eat the peel. :)
*A link to the Dirty Dozen is included on my list of Noted Websites.
I know I'm not the only person out there that is interested in consuming more foods from organic sources. Over the past few months, I have seen more and more organic items on the grocery shelves. That's good - because every dollar you spend is like a vote. Its telling the grocery chain what you want to continue to see on their shelves. I remember my dad always saying that Money talks. And that it always said, "Bye, bye", or you could read that as "Buy, Buy". Money is definitely talking for us all in this situation. :) Guess Dad was right!
