My hubby surprised me with this breakfast for Mother’s Day and it was delicious! He also did a great job picking out ingredients to make this healthy and m’organic (which was a bit of a surprise!). I think it’s a great example of how easy it can be to eat real food and make good choices. You don’t need to be a nutrition expert, or spend all your time in the kitchen, to pick up a few changes along the way and really transform your diet. Continue reading
organic
Cobb Salad – Another “M-organic Meal”!
I am so excited to share this simple, magical, “un-salad” recipe that has changed my kids into salad eaters (although, weirdly, they do not even realize this is a salad). To be honest, salads have never played a starring role in our family dinners, mostly because even a small amount on the kids’ plates is usually enough to completely freak them out and start an all out eat-your-veggies war – which I’ve learned almost never results in them actually eating their veggies.
BUT, an amazing thing happened when I made this salad the other night Continue reading
Do you know a good egg when you see one?
We go through a lot of eggs in our family. From breakfast to baking they’re in our diet every day, so when I started paying attention to what was in our food it was really important to me to choose the right ones. The problem was when I stopped blindly reaching for the cheapest egg carton and opened my eyes to all the different ones available I became kind of paralyzed by all the choices. Natural, Organic, Free Range, Cage Free,Vegetarian Fed, No Hormones, No Antibiotics, Pastured, Certified Humane, etc. the choices can be overwhelming! To help unscramble the options (:-)) I’ve done some research to figure out what exactly these terms mean and what’s important when buying eggs. It comes down to 3 things:
1. The diet the chickens were fed.
2. How the chickens were raised.
3. How fresh the eggs are.
How do these translate to the terms on packages? For an easy cheat sheet here’s what you should look for in order of importance. Continue reading
Orange you glad you choose organic ?
I was floored recently when I learned that some Florida oranges are treated with food coloring to make them orange. Just when I thought I had mastered the challenge of only feeding my family foods without preservatives and artificial colors! This sneaky citrus color is a perfect example of how prevalent artificial ingredients are throughout our food supply and how vigilant we have to be to avoid them. After learning this startling fact I started to do some digging and learned that Americans now consume five times more dye today than in 1955 and there’s been a 50% increase just since 1990.
Based on FDA data of certification of straight dyes and lakes (adjusted by the authors for percentage of pure dyes) and current U.S. population.
Going Organic on a Budget
Going Organic on a Budget
Before we began eating Real Food, I never bought organic. In fact, I was kind of proud that I was so good at keeping to a budget when shopping and didn’t “waste” money on the (mostly) more expensive organic items. When I began learning about what’s in our food I quickly realized that the only way to avoid the “bad” stuff – GMOs, pesticides, sewage sludge (yep), hormones, etc.- – was to eat organic. This meant I had to come up with a game plan to start “going green” without spending all our green. Here are my top tips to start the shift to organic in your own family. Continue reading