Food, Inc.

A few weeks ago I watched the documentary Food, Inc. My brother-in-law had been talking about it when they were visiting in July so I decided to watch it.  What an eye-opener!  Some of the stuff they talked about I knew, but a lot of it was shocking.  It's sad that we as a nation have let our food become so foreign to us.  By foreign I mean that many people really don't know where their food comes from (and I don't just mean from the grocery store).  One particularly sad part was when they interviewed a family that said, "Yeah, we'd like to eat healthy, but we just can't afford it.  For the same price as a head of lettuce, we can get a whole hamburger or two at a fast-food place."  How true! and how sad.  In general, healthy food is a lot more expensive than junk or fast-food.  The only way that's ever going to change is if people make it change.  I'm not here to preach food lobbyist reform, so don't worry about some political schpeal ;) 

Honestly, I thought that people who ate "organic" were either hippies or pretenious.  I also thought it was way too expensive (which it generally is, truth be told) & just shied away from it.  I'm not sure why, because I actually ate tons of "organic" produce growing up: my mom had a garden!  What's more organic than that?? Watching Food, Inc, really changed my mind about that, though.  In my mind now, eating organic is about being healthy & knowing where your food is coming from (more or less).  Also through watching other shows as well, I've become more concerned about what I'm feeding my kids.  They are not the ones who go out and buy their food so the majority of what they eat is because of me.  I don't want my kids to be unhealthy because I didn't feed them nutrious food. 

So now I've had a bit of a change of heart towards organic food.  Realistically, I can't afford organic for every little thing, so I need to start out small.  For now, I'm just going to try to get my produce & dairy/eggs organic & free-range meat/chicken if the prices aren't outrageous.  When I say "organic" I mean either labeled organic at the grocery store, labeled "grown locally" or "Utah's own" or from a fruit stand/farmers market.  This resolution came at the same time I also decided to put myself on a budget for groceries.  I've been doing pretty good for the past few weeks so hopefully I can keep it up.  I think it will be a little harder once winter comes because there are no more farmers markets or fruit stands.  Fresh produce is way yummier than the stuff you usually get in the store anyway, so it's a no-brainer to switch (aside from the cost).  When we have more room for it, we'll definitely have a garden.  Until then, this will have to do :)

If anyone knows of any good places to buy local or organic foods, let me know!