The Organic Mother

I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about this final installment of food ingredients to avoid. I’ve decided to get right down to the basics, the foundation of the typical American diet and the source of so many of our health woes.
Our family has been eating small of amounts of all of these food ingredients still even since we’ve moved toward our organic, whole foods diet. These last three ingredients are about impossible to avoid when we eat out, buy processed foods and prepared meals and if I use my family recipes (or most cookbooks used in most homes today). Refined sugar, bleached white flour and refined table salt are difficult to avoid. I’m going to suggest some substitutes and ideas I’ve found helpful to limit your consumption of these pervasive food ingredients. What makes them all so dangerous to our health is the processing, the final super-processed form in which they come to our grocery store shelves. This is not sugar cane, raw honey or maple syrup. This is not whole soaked or sprouted grain. This is not sun-dried sea salt. Refined sugar, bleached white flour and table salt are about as far from their natural and wholesome beginnings as they can be. Let’s take a closer look. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been writing recently about food ingredients to avoid and was asked if I’d also write about what to avoid in cosmetics and skin care products. This morning I came across this article that clearly explains what to look for on your labels and gives safe ingredients and their purposes to make your shopping easier. I am a constant label reader and find articles like this super helpful. As I continue to help you on your journey to vibrant health, I will share everything I find valuable. I hope you find this article useful and that it moves you toward a healthier, more organic life!

So go ahead! Click here to read what Dr. Mercola has to say about skin care product ingredients!

I thought you would enjoy this article from the Slow Food USA Blog! Please comment below!

Written by Jeffrey Gangemi, Director of Partnerships and Communications at FarmPlate.com

The numbers clearly show that demand for local food is growing. According to the USDA, the market for local food “sales to intermediaries, such as local grocers and restaurants, as well as directly to consumers through farmers markets, roadside stands and the like” could reach $7 billion this year, up from about $5 billion in 2008.

There are lots of ways to support the local food movement. Of course, starting a farm, investing in sustainable food businesses – even buying organic – all require relatively significant financial resources.

Increasingly – and particularly through the use of technology – people from all sorts of backgrounds are able to do their part to support the small farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs that are remaking how we eat in this country. Their message is clear: we can all do something to help fix what’s broken about our food system. ……Read More

A major part of achieving optimal health is living in partnership with nature.

Growing your own food is a great way to rekindle this connection with nature.

But have you thought about eating plants that grow wild—perhaps in your own backyard?

Some “weeds” can be delicious if prepared properly, and they are absolutely free.

In an article published earlier this summer, Live Science collected some easy-to-identify healthful weeds, including:

• Dandelion: The entire plant is edible, and the leaves contain vitamins A, C and K, along with calcium, iron, manganese, and potassium.
• Purslane: Purslane tops the list of plants with omega-3 fats.
• Lamb’s-quarters: Lamb’s-quarters are like spinach, except healthier, tastier and easier to grow.
• Plantain: Not the better-known banana-like plant with the same name. It has a nutritional profile similar to dandelion.
• Stinging Nettles: If you handle them so that you don’t get a painful rash from the tiny, acid-filled needles, these are delicious and nutritious cooked or prepared as a tea.

This is of course how our ancestors ate. They hunted and gathered, and ALL of it was wild. And by all accounts, they were far healthier than we are. Read the rest of this entry »

Organic, raw food full of nutrients. Yum!

I’m back after a month and a half hiatus! Sometimes life and farm get in the way of research and writing. I have more important information to share with you about food ingredients. In my first three posts, I shared 9 food ingredients to avoid: aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG), partially hydrogenated oils, BHA, BHT, high fructose corn syrup, artificial food dyes, sodium nitrates and nitrites, and agave nectar. I’m going to suggest that the best way to avoid all of these ingredients is to examine your buying and eating habits and eliminate as many processed foods as you can. The closer you can get to an organic, whole foods diet, the closer you’ll get to eliminating unhealthy, and even toxic, ingredients from your life. I just watched Dirt! The Movie and was inspired by the story of the hummingbird told by one of the contributors and stars.

When wild fire broke out in the forest, this little hummingbird got right to work flying to the stream to get water and flying back to put it one drop at a time onto the flames while all the other much larger animals looked on, paralyzed by fear and helplessness. When asked what she was doing and told that she could never put out the fire that way, she replied, “I’m doing the best I can.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not writing about food ingredients to put people in a panic or to make anyone feel guilty about their food choices. Many of us grow up eating a certain way or eating certain foods and carry those ways and those foods with us into adulthood. We cook the way our parents did whether that means meals from boxes and cans or meals from scratch.

The point of me writing about food is to inform my readers. Then you get to make informed decisions with potentially new information. I think that at any given time we are all doing the best we can with the information and resources we have. My hope is to inspire some of you. I think it might be working. One reader wrote, ” Your blog has convinced me it is time to step it up…the cheat, easy on the run food is unnecessary…just need to plan ahead a little more.”  Another reader inspired this article’s topic, informed consent. She wrote “…we all [have] the right to make fully informed decisions about the food we eat!”

She’s right. This is difficult given the number of ingredients that can be included in our foods but are not required to be included in the list of ingredients. It’s difficult with so many unpronounceable ingredients in our processed foods today. It’s difficult with some ingredients coming under so many different names (look back at MSG in Part One). However, it is still our right as consumers to make informed decisions about our purchases. We have the right to know what we’re putting in and on our and our children’s bodies. Informed consent is usually a term used when discussing a medical issue. Patients have a right to know all risks involved, probable consequences and alternatives before making a decision or giving consent for a procedure or medication. I believe that this same principle should apply to food. Food has the potential to help or harm us. And as educated consumers, we have the power of knowledge and the power of our dollars behind us. Not only can we make changes within our families, our buying decisions can make changes within the food industry itself. So let’s get on with learning about some pervasive food ingredients and continue making the best decisions we can for ourselves and our families.

I love hearing from you! Please continue to leave comments right here at the end of this post so we can keep the conversation going. I want to hear about the changes you’re making or NOT making! How do you decide what food to buy? How are you insisting on informed consent and voting with your dollars?

Here we are with ingredients 7-9 of the Top 15 Food Ingredients to Avoid: artificial colorings, sodium nitrites and nitrates, and agave nectar. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been really difficult to narrow the list of food ingredients to avoid down to just 15. That in itself is kind of scary. (I think I’ve found another bonus for you.) Since I switched to eating all organic foods at home and eating mostly fresh, homecooked foods (not a lot of processed food choices in our house), I guess I’ve taken the many food additives out there for granted. I don’t do much label reading anymore unless I’m eating somewhere besides home. I buy the same brands most of the time, so I don’t worry about what’s going into our bodies.
Two of the ingredients below, both preservatives used mostly in foods with lots of fat, I didn’t know much about until starting this research. It continually surprises me what the FDA rules as being safe for human consumption, for topical use on our skin and for medicines. Read the rest of this entry »

For years, even before I started eating organic foods, I have read food labels. It all started when I finally went to get a doctor’s help with my migraine headaches when I was a college freshman. I had been getting migraines since I was about 13, and they increased in frequency until I was getting about one every week my senior year of high school and my first year of college. I kept a food journal and eliminated known causes of migraines. One of the biggest culprits was monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavor enhancer found in many foods and seasonings (check your steak seasoning jar). I thought I had successfully eliminated MSG from my diet until I started doing research for this article! It’s hiding under different names (see below) along with some other unhealthy and dangerous ingredients in many of our processed foods today.
Over my next five posts I will share with you the top 15 food ingredients to avoid today. I’ve found some surprising and alarming information over the course of my research. Read the rest of this entry »

Hannah with best friend, Dahlia, a year before diagnosis

I was 23, a senior at Smith College. I had been to the school health clinic a month earlier with the flu. The nurse practitioner was feeling the lymph nodes in my throat to see if they were back to normal. They were, but she felt something else. A hard lump. She called the doctor in for him to feel. He thought tests were warranted. This set off a series of doctors visits over the course of my last month of college. I got through the tests, including a needle aspiration in my neck. I graduated. I celebrated. My first day home, I got a call from the doctor who did the needle aspiration: “I’m sorry to be calling with this news. I don’t like to do this over the phone. You have thyroid cancer.” Read the rest of this entry »

My kids LOVE Halloween! They plan out their costumes sometimes a whole year ahead of time. My son has known since last Halloween what he wanted to be this year. My daughter is a little more finicky…she likes to find out what all of her friends are going to be before she decides on her costume. We keep costumes simple by using items on hand, borrowed costumes and hand sown (by me) creations. They get all excited even though we don’t trick-or-treat in the traditional way. We go to a few select relatives’ homes and the public library for a total of six stops. They get a few treats without food-dye and get to trade in any treats they can’t have for organic alternatives. I think most of the excitement is in planning the costume, dressing up and seeing everyone else’s costume choices. Don’t get me wrong….they love the treats too…but they enjoy the day without loads of candy. I have a friend whose children do go around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat, but turn in all of their candy to her in exchange for a special wrapped gift when they get home. It’s easy to start your own healthy tradition, just make sure to make it FUN! Here are some fun, healthy snack ideas that get my kids all ramped up! Read the rest of this entry »