My family and I recently watched Food Inc.
Even though I was not surprised by the facts that were presented, I was still left with the feelings of anger, disgust, but most notably a deep feeling of hopelessness.
The problems within our food system are so big and so egregious that as an individual it seems pointless to try to fight to fix it. Why should I care about something that seems likely beyond my control to influence?
I pondered this question over the next few days and have finally came to some sort of conclusion…
Why care? Why try?
I had to look not farther than the two small faces that sit across from me at the dinner table. The food system that we are putting in place now will be the food system that my children and grandchildren will be nourished by for the foreseeable future…unless we do something about it now.
I can eat as responsibly as I know how for my family’s sake. But for real change to take place it will take many people to come to the same conclusion. A large contingent of those willing to forgo the convenience of prepackaged foods, factory grown meats, and industrialized dairy…to insist on real food that is neither genetically modified or chemically laden.
It will take the extra step of going to the local farmers markets to buy our produce or the farmer down the road who is raising his chickens in the open air and sunshine. It will be asking our local grocery store if they sell local organic produce…and if not, why not? Making our food choices known and then voting with our dollars.
This is a choice that is not quick or convenient when we are used to buying things already prepared and packaged for us. How can we find the time to prepare and eat real food?
My question today is how can we not? There is nothing more basic to life than food, how can we ignore what is happening to our food system? The very system that is supposed to sustain us is slowing killing us.
I cannot…
So starting March 1st and for the whole month I am challenging myself to eat nothing commercially processed that I cannot make myself. No more canned beans, or spaghetti sauce, no more pre-made pasta or tortillas. Gone will be the crackers, chips, and store-bought cereals. No meat or dairy that is not local and organic for my husband or pre-made veggie burgers for me. Just real food made from ingredients in their simplest forms…no added corn syrup, fillers, or preservatives.
I cannot change the system by myself, but if enough like-minded people come together I must believe that we can and will make a difference.
So that is where you come in…
I would love for you to join us! Come back March 1st and see what we have in store…there will be ways for you to take part and link up. This will be an opportunity to learn from each other as well as encourage one another to make a difference!
Come ready to share your plans here and with your own blog posts on March 1!
I would also highly recommend you rent or buy Food Inc…you will never look at food the same.
Here is a link to the first 3 minutes of the movie.
I’ll be one of the first to join you!
Also of great importance – we have a week to voice our opinions about roundup ready alfalfa – let the usda know what you think about it.
Well you are first! Thanks for joining us…should be exciting!
I have done so about roundup…sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the wind. But we can’t give up trying! Kim
T-minus 2 days and counting, I can’t wait to get started
I posted about this film, too: http://watsourced.blogspot.com/2010/01/does-your-farmers-market-take-food.html.
I love the idea of a month-long challenge! I’d also like to come up with a way to get the Corn Refiners Association to quit airing those propaganda commercials about high fructose corn syrup being “fine in moderation.” When an ingredient appears in almost EVERY processed food on our pantry shelves, moderation does not exist.
Yes we have become ‘walking corn chips’ as the author of the Omnivores Dilemma points out…not a good thing to be! I would much rather be walking spinach or broccoli or something healthy! Kim
We’re doing our best, but I can’t promise the whole month. Due to poor planning on my part, and the fact that it’s February in New England, there isn’t a lot out there. My end goal is to get to a 90% homemade diet in the next year. We’ll see how it goes.
Yes March is going to be harder than say August, but if we can do it in March we can do it year around! Glad you’re going to be joining us! Kim
I just saw the movie yesterday. Nothing about it was particularly surprising…but I felt the same way, angry and disgusted and hopeless. I was VERY happy to see an emphasis on the struggle for low-income families; that’s my own focus. I look forward to what you come up with in the next month. I’m passionate about real food and we need more activism on this issue.
Yes I was too…good wholesome organic food should not be more expensive than the highly processed foods. One should never have to buy fast foods because that is the only option on a fixed income. Kim
My boyfriend and I recently watched Food Inc. as well. I did not consider myself to be naive to agribusiness in this country…. but the more I read/watch/learn about our food system, the deeper I realize the rabbit hole goes. We both felt the same sense of DOOM… but it is a highly motivating feeling! That night we joined a local CSA (found through http://www.farmtocity.org) and ordered heirloom seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange.
We also got together a group of friends for a movie and potluck dinner night and showed Food Inc. So far we have changed the minds of five friends, who have commited to joining CSAs and eating locally. Movie nights are a fun and effective way of getting people together to learn and discuss these kinds of issues… and then they go home and talk about it with others… and it goes on and on until change simply MUST happen!
Good for you! We did a screening with friends too. All of us mom’s were in tears when the poor woman who lost her son to e-coli was speaking.
Way to go finding a CSA and sharing your knowledge with friends…this is how change begins! Kim
We are with you – changes we are already making. We had several planting failures last year which placed us a bit behind with the canned beans, tomatoes, etc. Buying local is what we do mostly though not completely. I will definately be back on the 1st to participate!
Great Annette! Can’t wait to see everyone who is jumping in with us. kim
I don’t think I’m interested in participating in this challenge although it does sound interesting. I do a lot of cooking from scratch and am not sure about taking it the rest of the way. However, I have a different goal that I’m working out.
These last two years I’ve been preserving our food through freezing, dehydrating and canning. My intention starting in March is to can something each weekend, whether it is using some excess freezer items (cranberries for example) or making soups or chili for later eating or taking advantage of sales (grapefruit might be cheap soon).
February does not work for this goal unless I am able to start later in the month.
We are not actually starting until March…just giving everyone a few weeks to devise a plan! I love you canning goal, we do a lot of it around here too…Kim
I’ve been studying forest gardening and permaculture a lot lately – and I’ve found some hope. Not that everyone’s going to get into it overnight, but at least there’s a mechanism, a WAY to reverse some of the crap we’ve caused.
Forest Gardening…that sounds very interesting. I would love to hear more. Kim
We already pretty much already eat this way. Occasional store bought tortilla and bread (but bake bread too). Always store bought pasta (too lazy to make) and granola (better half like store bought better he eats most of it).
A look in our cupboards and food storage is a view almost totally w/o labels.
Good for you for having such a great start…I do bread and granola too but have never even attempted pasta and with 5 kids we eat a LOT of pasta! I’m going to have to practice. Kim
How are you going to do fats/oils?
I am cutting all foods commercially processed that I cannot make myself. I will have a list of things like oils that I will still include. I will also include salt, pepper, spices and sugar since they are all things I have no way of making. Kim
I felt similar after watching Food Inc. Especially when I had to make a list for groceries the next day. I didn’t want to go to Walmart even more than usual. But when we saw it we were really struggling financially and it wasn’t feasible to go anywhere else really. It is winter there isn’t much of a local market right now and it is discouraging. We are upping our personal production this year- I froze enough tomato sauce to last until last month, we still have canned peaches from the orchard….so this season we are doing even more. We took out all processed foods last year and it’s been nice not to mention the 25 lbs I lost because of it. I make all of our bread products. There are so many people that don’t care, awareness is key to changing the way the food system works.
I agree if would could just educate people about how their ‘farm fresh’ foods are really manufactured as opposed to grown I think we could begin a change…it is all about getting the word out! Kim
Sarah- I’m working on a post about great finds at Walmart for the budget-conscious. There are actually products like cage-free, antibiotic-free, organically raised chicken; organic, free-range eggs (a generic brand, too!); and lots of dairy products that are on the same shelves as the mass-produced stuff and at comparable prices. Just keep your eyes peeled! 🙂
http://watsourced.blogspot.com
Since I had read a number of the sources used for the film, what was probably the most impressive point for me was the head of Stoneyfield Farms who pointed out that WalMart doesn’t carry organic products for fun, they carry them to meet consumer demand. So even if you have to shop at WalMart because that’s what you have, you can still vote with your (even limited) dollars within the store and create demand for those products you feel better about.
At my old farmer’s market they actually had resale stands that sold grocery store produce. Believe me, those bananas were NOT locally grown in the Midwest. So WHAT you buy can be more important than WHERE you buy in some cases.
Good job! I haven’t seen the movies myself, but this describes a huge portion of our diet now.
Just had to stop typing to take a huge batch of granola out of the oven. I was just on the phone placing my order to pick up a few hundred pounds of organic grains on Thursday minutes ago.
It is possible to make big changes! I have committed for over a year now to living this way. I learned to make crackers, bagels, pitas, tortillas, granola, breads, and more. Google is a wonderful resource. (I also have a search box on my blog for recipes if you are looking for any.) I also taught myself to can two years ago and quadrupled the size of our garden last year.
We are blessed to have a wonderful local dairy nearby that delivers, but I really do need to change our meat purchasing. It is all a process, but TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!
Thanks Kimberly for the encouragement and the resource! Being vegan the dairy and the meat aren’t an issue but I have been known to buy ‘veggie meat’ which is full of soy, sodium and additives…so no more Garden Burgers for me.
Thanks again I hope you will link up on the first with tips for us who are just starting out! Kim
This is a great idea! I am going to follow along and perhaps join once I have a better handle on things.
Samantha
Cool Samantha…look forward to seeing you! Kim
I’m in, I’ll have to write up a post about it on my blog. Glad to see so many others interested in joining this as well.
You’ll be amazed at how great you feel, and you’ll be equally amazed when you eat something commercially processed after not eating it for a while, it all tastes weirdly chemically and flat.
Thanks Susy…you will be a great resource for all of us! Kim
Count us in. Maybe our whole two tomatoes on our plants will be ripe by then and we can get rid of the mold on the other plants 🙂
Welcome to the challenge Roblynn…where do you live that you already have tomatoes? I am so envious! Kim
Wonderful post! We will be putting the movie on our Netflix queue.
I’m so glad you announced this as early as you did. We will be participating. I’m thankful for the next three weeks to plan. My biggest challenge will be breakfast. Though I eat oatmeal every morning, the other three family members are big processed cereal eaters. Guess I need to learn to make granola a.s.a.p.!
Yep granola is on my list too…with 4 of 5 kids still at home we eat a lot of it!
Welcome to the challenge! Kim
Cooking Light has some great granola recipes that are tasty without too much sugar or too much fat.
Sorry, hit the wrong button. Here is a link to my favorite, Chocolate Crunch. I love it with some yogurt and home canned fruit. My favorite fruit this year so far is the brandied pears and honey spiced peaches, both from the Ball book.
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1687651
I *just* watched Food, Inc. too (within the last week). Ordered it through Netflix. I literally cried and felt like mourning afterward. Not that I was oblivious to these things, but like someone already said (maybe you?) not realizing how far down the rabbit hole it goes…? Having the wood pulled over our eyes little-by-little…? And now being so dependent (due to my own ignorance) by processed food and supermarkets. It does seem hopeless.
But I like what they said at the end, we “think” we are powerless, but we’re not. We can make changes three times every day! If we all stick to our guns and keep making those decisions each day, to the best of our ability. Start where we are. Become better informed. We WILL and CAN change things!
I’m glad I’m not the only one that cried at that movie. I was more frightened by it than any scary movie I have ever seen. Now that we know we can do something about it! Kim
Food Inc (and The Omnivore’s Dilemma) had a huge impact on me. Particularly with how I view meat – the feedlots and chicken buildings are unbearable to think about. Slowly but surely I have been making major changes – in most cases my husband hasn’t even noticed. I already made a lot of our meals, but I stopped buying most packaged foods and will continue to make changes.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to can (it was my first year of canning) any tomatoes from last year, so I must rely on commercially grown product. But this year is a clean slate and I am planning a lot more canning and preservation from our garden (which grows bigger every year!) It really is such a pleasure to use my own dehydrated herbs and to eat jam and green beans that I canned.
I was at the farmers’ market last weekend and there was enough produce to make several days worth of meals. Seeing what the professional farmers can do not far from me makes me realize how lazy I am in the winter. I need to make some changes in that area too.
I’d like to put in a plug for Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules. It’s a wonderful little handbook. We may already know most of what he says (or maybe not) but everyone could use a pleasantly written (and not condescending) reminder.
Count me in for your March challenge!
Welcome to the challenge! I have not read Food Rules but I will certainly be looking for it, thanks for the tip!
Our Farmer’s market doesn’t open until March…I will certainly be visiting too. Kim
Awesome! I have been wanting to do something similar but haven’t gotten committed yet. This will be just what I need!
Thanks!
Food Inc., is a great eye-opener for people new to the idea that food and large scale agriculture is not necessarily a good thing – but Fresh, the movie offers more hope and a real place to start the changes that must take place.
http://www.freshthemovie.com/
Kim, my husband and I watched Food Inc. last night and were absolutely horrified. I mean, I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea how bad things really are in the food industry.
I LONG to be able to grow EVERYTHING we eat. It’s so sad to think that there are food companies who are POISONING us. And so few people (we are certainly a minority group) who know the truth. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease a few years ago, so we’ve been eating local, organic produce for a while now. I buy organic meats, dairy, and coffee at our local Costco. But I want to find a local dairy and beef farmer to support. Changing our diet has SIGNIFICANTLY improved our health. I want to scream this message from my rooftop sometimes. I’m saddened to realize that my diet wasn’t more of a priority to me before I became sick, and I don’t want others to make that same mistake and wait until they have health problems to reevaluate. This documentary was so NEEDED! Now, we just need it to air on Primtime TV.
AMEN! Our goal this year is to get a garden going for the first time and get through all of our “trial and error” this year so that as things get worse (food/financial shortages) we aren’t trying to learn how to do this at the worse possible time. I haven’t seen the film yet, but will definitely have to rent it!
My husband and I moved to the country in the last year or so and have been making the switch to healthy, local foods since then as it seems to be much easier to find local farm produce when you live next to the farms :o)
The difference in the way that we feel is amazing! We can absolutely tell the difference when we head to the “big city” for work once in awhile and eat some readily available processed food for lack of poor planning, it’s terrible! I think cardboard would make me feel less sick and probably have more nutritional value!
Looking forward to joining up on the 1st! And I’m looking forward to what a great resource this will be for those of us who are just starting to grow our own food.
God bless!
I would love to come back to learn more ways to reduce my independence on box stores. I know that I already do a lot, but could do a lot more too. Food, inc made a big impact on both me and my husband. We took a drive to a local farm the weekend after we watched it and have been getting all our meat from them since.
Although I haven’t watched the movie – I am a farm girl and grew up with real meat and milk – I can’t believe the junk that is sold as food. Walking around a grocery store last week, I realized just how little nutritious food is actually available. How sad is that in our country! I am a bread baker and am starting to make more of my own pastas and have never bought spaghetti sauce. Still, this year for the first time in a long time, I am incorporating more veggies into my flower beds and planning to can and freeze as much as possible. I am also teaching my grandkids how to plant and cook. Just wish I were back on the farm and could have my own chickens and dairy goats again!
[…] February 15, 2010 by inadvertentfarmer I’ve spent the last week making mental notes of which prepared foods I will be replacing with homemade, and those that will be leaving all together. Getting ready for our Real Food Challenge. […]
[…] recently read Kim’s (The Inadvertant Farmer) post about her reaction to the movie Food, Inc and subsequent challenge to make March her month of the […]
Kim, I linked back here from the Homemakers Who Work site. It took me a while to think things over but I am in!
Kris
Stacy (on Homemakers Who Work) linked me to this just a few minutes ago when I out of the blue mentioned I needed someone, or some people, to do a homemade challenge week with. 😀
Granted I have canned stuff I’ve purchased in the recent months, but it’s all organic so it’s a little less evil in theory. Not that local produce is currently available in my area right now anyhow. It all has to be trucked in from the California Valley, and that’s the closest.
I’m trying though. Slowly, and even the littlest bits help.
I’ll join you for your challenge. I just ask that people check in on me on occasion. 😉 There’s something about having to be accountable to others that makes it so much harder to say “just for dinner this evening, well grab a take’n’bake pizza”. Then the next night I go and grab something quick from the store. *hangs head*
I’m in!!! I just watched Food Inc.. I’d read Fast Food Nation & Omnivores Dilemma, so this wasn’t new information.. but it just brought it all to light again.. it’s horrifying.
What’s everyone going to do, to prepare for this challenge? I guess step one will be to go thru my kitchen and clean out the crap!
Today, I made the list of things I normally eat… got rid of things I was sure I couldn’t eat next month and then circled the questionables.. I looked at a few items in my fridge tonight and was bummed to cross sour cream off my list. I usually eat taco’s 2-3 times a week.. anyone know of a good source for corn tortillas that are real.. um, besides making them myself? 🙂
I’m trying to convince my husband to do this challenge as well. Anything I put in front of him at night, he’ll eat.. but he does his own breakfast & lunch and he isn’t sure ‘what’ he can eat… just because he usually eats a sandwich with miracle whip smeared all over it. I’ve never been a big sandwich fan, so I can’t think of any options for him. anyone have any suggestions for a substitute for mayo/whip??
[…] I was discussing with Stacy that I would like to have a challenge partner for a all homemade week. Oddly enough it was apparently a just posted subject at Homemakers Who Work, which came from Not Dabbling in Normal. […]
It’s becoming easier these days to adopt an organic lifestyle, since organic products are now more common in the market. Your diet can now include all kinds of organic foods, from milk to meat to fruits and vegetables. There is no question that lowering your exposure to deadly chemicals and pesticides is vitally important to your health. It’s only natural to make organic coffee beans part of your organic lifestyle.
Posted in Fight Back Friday c/o The Food Renegade!
I watched Food, Inc last Sunday. I knew everything in that movie, but seeing that mother’s face as she retold the story of her son Kevin’s illness and death was heart wrenching. I posted on my Facebook that everyone should watch it and I immediately sparked an argument with a “friend” who works for the processing industry. With the majority of people thinking like my “friend” does, it will be an uphill battle to change the way people think.
Count me in on the challenge. I’m not sure how much I can change, but I can try.
[…] 1, 2010 by growandresist So, I’m doing this Real Food Challenge thing. Call me wacky. Or fringe-y. But I’m doing it […]
I don’t think I can participate in this challenge. I have been cooking and baking from scratch for years. We haven’t had store bought bread for years also. I cook everyday for my family and we rarely go out to eat because food is better at home. We do have treats for our kids but overall we eat pretty healthy. The only reason we buy packaged food is for our food storage in case of emergencies and disasters when you can’t get anything fresh. I do have pasta handy and canned tomato varieties so I can whip up a good meal in a jiffy.
The only thing I wish is that my garden would growbecause it would be so nice to can them. Food straight from the garden is so yummy!
I will join in. I saw Food Inc. a while back. It is very eyeopening and powerful. Like you said I am not surprised but it definitely educated me on alot of stuff. When I watched it I was already on the journey of making these changes for my family but it sure did help educate me. I will have to say that 2009 was a big year for all of this for me. I have started raising turkeys, growing a garden, canning and freezing ALOT from my garden, going to a local produce auction a purchasing the rest of the produce we ate and stored, making my own cheese and butter from raw milk, learning how to make my own bread, pasta, bagels, pitas, purchasing our eggs from a local farm/friend, researching GMO and organic qualifications, purchasing organic and heritage seeds for my garden this year. So I have made alot of good steps toward the ultimite goal which is feed my family better and support our local farmers. I make almost everything we eat from scratch. The way I do this that helps with time efficiency is cooking most of our meals in one day and freezing them. The next step I will try to take for this challange is to start making my own granola, zucchini bread and other breakfast items on a regular basis. Cereal is my best friend and worst enemy. I am NOT a morning person so I hate making breakfast. So cereal is a faithful standby around here. This is just one goal that I hope to accoplish over not just the next month but the next year. More of my goals are to raise more of our own meat and start buying more of our meat from a local organic grower, store away more for the winter months, which in turn means a bigger garden, start milking our goats, plant fruit trees, not allow our land to be farmed using pestiside anymore(it is land we own and rent to farmers). The are the ones I have planned and I am sure that as the year goes by I will do what I can to add more to that list.
Alot of this may seem overwhelming but my best advice is like Kim said it can be something small and it is a step in the right direction. Just take one step at a time and only take on what you can handle. Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do it all “right now”. You will look back in a year with a list as long as mine or even longer!
This is a good challange thanks for posting it.
I have been on this same journey for over a year. This year we raised our own heritage breed chickens, ducks and rabbits for meat. We buy a little goat and beef from local farmers who are doing good things with heritage breed animals, too.
I raised some of my own produce in a garden, but bought most of that sort of thing from local farmers who are growing great stuff with sustainable farm practices. I even have a source for locally grown popcorn!
I’m starting to make my own cheeses, butter and pasta, so that is where I can take the next step in your challenge. I’m excited to say that the only “store” food items we purchase are peanut butter, butter, flour, oatmeal, and a tiny bit of sugar, but we mostly use local honey or maple syrup to sweeten.
We have never eaten so well in our lives! I’m so glad you are joining the ranks of those who see the problem and want to see the change necessary to make a healthier next generation.
[…] the Real Food Challenge prompted me to look more closely at the food we eat on a regular basis. What items can I reasonably […]
We’re in! We watched Food, Inc. months ago and were horrified. We’ve been trying to make changes, but this will help us stay more true.
So I am already following through on one of my challanges. As I was driving home from an appointment today I saw a sign for a meat/butcher so I decided to go check it out. It was a jackpot. Turns out he grows his own beef, buffalo and elk all naturally with no hormones or antibiotics. What a great find. I bought hamburger, steaks, sausage and buffalo burger(well he threw that in for free so I could try it). His prices were GREAT! Ground beef $1.99 lb and t-bone $5.89 lb! It a little drive but I will definitely be supporting him from now on. Another benefit of buying local is the amazing customer service!
A day late and a dollar short, but I’m in! We face some interesting challenges because we keep strictly kosher, but have been heading in this direction since we saw Food, Inc. last month. We ordered a freezer full of grass-fed kosher beef from this site: http://www.goldenwestglatt.com/index.asp Not local, but I can’t get anything closer, unfortunately. Started planting seed flats today…let’s hope we reap what we sowed!
Hello Everyone,
I am one of the few who work at eliminating GM foods on a daily basis. Here in BC Canada we have created GE Free zones all around BC, and continue to do so. I travel and speak on GMO’s and help groups organize and work collectively on avoiding them, and what they can do to rid our world of Monsanto.
It is not too late to change this, but the tipping point is this year. As GM alfalfa and wheat begin growing in the US, our world will change forever. We have already lost our corn: it is practically gone forever. Most of the heritage varieties in the US are now contaminated through cross pollination.
You need to send letters, thousands of them, to your local and federal governments. Letters are the only real thing they have to observe. Also, educate yourself and others as well. Offer free movie nights to Food Inc, King Corn and The World According To Monsanto, and invite your town. Write letters to your local food stores demanding Non-GM vegetables and labeling of all fruits and veggies or you will stop purchasing there. And mean it; stick to your principles.
Getting off junk and processed food is a great start, but please keep it up as a way of life. Going back on it after March means Monsanto has you in their grasp. Be strong.
Thank you for this post, and for spreading the word about GM and healthy foods and cooking. It’s groups like you that make a HUGE difference in the world. You are powerful beyond belief!
April Reeves, Steering Committee,
GE Free BC
gefreebc.org, gefreebc.wordpress.com
Very true. Today is actually the deadline for sending in letters about GE alfalfa here in the US. I hope many people sent in letters.
Sending letters frequently to politicians is a great idea as well, letting them many people are against the contamination of our crops, especially the heritage crops.
I want to comment here, as I am a product developer for a poultry company. I am perhaps a bit unusual in that my own personal philosophy is one where which I believe it is important to eliminate or reduce as much as possible consumption of GM ingredients and food ingredient chemicals in the food I eat. I carry that philosophy in to the products I develop and always strive to put as few chemicals in a product as possible.
Everyone, you must note though a few things about the food industry.
Food processers and grocery stores are businesses. The purpose of a business is to make money. Organic and and natural products are more expensive to produce than their GM and chemical laden cousins. If consumers truly wanted these products and were willing to pay the premium for them, then both manufacturers and processors would make and sell them. The truth though is that the majority of people still do not want to spend money on these products. North Americans have grown accustomed to cheap food. In the 50s when genetic modifcation and food additives were much more rare, families spent I believe it was 20-30% of their family income on groceries. Now, people spend much less, under 10%. As the public demanded lower and lower prices over the last 5-6 decades, the food industry had to find ways to reduce costs, increase shelf life, etc etc. A lot of this came via chemicals and genetic modification. The food industry is unlike many other industries in that profit margins are low to begin with. To produce a natural product yet sell it for the same price an a non-natural product would require a manufacturer to take a hit on profit. Less profit means less jobs.
So I guess the moral of my story is, vote with your dollars and know that until naturals and organics become mainstream, we’re all going to be taking a hit in our pocket books, financing the future of natural products. Honestly, thats what it boils down to.
Something interesting (in a sad way) that I learned last week was from an ingredient supplier. I was inquiring about corn starch for a product I am developing and he told me that something like 95-99% of the corn starch produced in the US is GM and that if I didn’t want to use GM in my product, I’d have to pay extra. This wasn’t because his company was trying to charge a premium for non-GM, it was because no farmers in the US even want to grow non-GM corn because it yields less than GM corn. This particular ingredient company had to specially commission farms to grow non-GM corn for the corn starch, which cost extra because the operations were smaller and yielded less. This is how far we’ve come. The norm is no longer non-GM, the norm is now that if you want non-GM, you have to pay extra for it 😦
Please know that not everyone in the food industry is evil and actively seek out the healthiest ingredients possible within the price range that consumers are willing to pay. If everyone was willing to pay more, I’d be able to use fewer chemicals! So again, please vote with your wallets and continue to support products which are the least chemical ridden.
[…] Dabbling In Normal has presented a challenge to only eat real food. This is something I’ve been working towards anyway, so I am going to do this too. The […]
I’m late getting on board; but we just watched Food, Inc. on PBS earlier this week. It mad me angry and I felt the same hopelessness that many of you expressed. I’ve been growing my own organic garden for years; saving my seed (shhhh, don’t tell anyone), and trying to be a self sufficient as possible. But we still buy a lot of groceries full of chemicals, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup from the supermarket. We still hit the fast food restaurants now and then. So starting May 1st we will take the real food challenge. I’m going to post about this on my blog and report our progress. After watching Food, Inc. I just want to go through my cupboards and freezer and throw out all of the boxes of cereal, bottles of ketchup, salad dressing, mayonaise, barbecue sauce, and the diet pepsi my husband insists on drinking. Do I dare throw it all out?
Wow Linda, we’re here supporting you all the way! Yes, throw it all out: better yet, get someone to make a video of it and document the process and put it on YouTube. You go girl! I did that years ago and have never looked back. I do eat a healthy diet and it’s not hard after the first few months. It’s also cheaper: even though we grow most of our food, our grocery bill dropped to 1/3 from before: junk food is expensive. You don’t realize it at first because you buy a bag of this and that and individually it’s cheap. But if you were to add it all up, you can live well on organics and quality food. You need less of it: you eat less of it: your body adjusts back to where it should be and you live longer and healthier. Never ask why good food is so expensive: ask why cheap food is so cheap. Good luck Linda, we’ll be watching for your posts. Let us know where they’ll be.
What about feeding our dogs and cats? There is not a food label that does not include all sorts of ingredients I have no idea what they are….
Linda, there is one that does not contain GMO crops (soy, canola, corn) in it’s meal. It’s called Wellness and so far it appears to be the best I have used. http://www.wellnesspetfoods.com and you can call them at 1-800-225-0904. It’s made in the USA. It use to say No GM was used, but took the claim off, likely in fear of being sued by Monsanto.