Healthy Shopping in a World of Supermarkets

Well as fired up as I am about knowing where my food is coming from I felt almost powerless when I made my grocery list today. My children have to eat this week, my garden will not be producing for quite a while, and I have even gotten my pigs yet much less had them slaughtered!

SO.....what's an organic health lovin' mama on a budget to do??

I started out by making a list of what I knew was good for us. Then I bought the most important items first...here is a few of the items I got:

Cage Free Eggs - These were considerably higher than the regular eggs but all I could think about were those poor hens in battery cages laying cheap eggs. I just could do it. So I found these eggs instead. They were more than I normally spend but I only bought 2 instead of 3. Plus my long term resolution to this issue is that we are getting our own free range chickens this spring. In the meantime I will buy free range eggs.

One very important part of healthy living is to only use pure foods. We have been using pure cane syrup all year and we love it. We use this instead of pure maple syrup because it is about half the price ($3/can). Artificial syrup is a created product and it is not a good idea to put those kind of things in your family's bodies. Also this brand of syrup is made/canned in Abbeville, LA....so it is local. You can buy this little jar at Walmart.

Fill your buggy with produce first. Get all those good fruits that the kids love. Now, I have also learned that many off season fruits and vegetables are carried in from far away, picked before being ripe and then ripened with a gas.....GROSS! BUT...I have to feed them something so I bought organic as often as possible (especially when there was little price difference). The strawberries were the most off season fruit I bought but my little boy was standing by them saying...."look mama, strawberries!"....I couldnt help it. I will be posting how to keep/use all this produce without waisting it soon.

Buying milk and cheese made from cows that are not treated with rBST is another important thing we can do to help shield our babies from chemicals. Bordon milk and cheese is sold at Walmart.

I also found whole chickens for about $4 each that were free range chickens. I bought 2 for this week.

Making these little changes is how we begin to change our lives!

Now I am off to make homemade yogurt, homemade granola, & homemade bread......babysteps lead me to this....haha! Yeehaw!