Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Food Maize

It's my last Monday off work and I'm toddler free, so I decided after two loads of washing, dropping Miss 1 off at day care and a gym work out I would get some grocery shopping done.

Trying to be healthy is not easy these days. Whole food, wholegrain, organic, biodynamic, free-range, raw, spelt, chia, amarynth, un-homogenised, gluten-free, dairy-free, lactose-free, sugar free, high fat, low fat, no fat...... Uuuggghhhh I'm exhausted already.

I thought I'd make it easy for myself and go back to basics and just eat wholesome, organic food and that way I was being a good Mum and a healthy person. Well it's not that easy. Sure there's loads of organic products on the market but it's an expensive excercise to shop almost all organic. Plus you have the added hassle of having to source your groceries from several different places as yor health food shop might have some of the items you need, and the supermarket may have the other items. I'm yet to find a butcher that sells organic meat so we buy whatever we can get from the supermarket and our local health food shop.

Today I bought 250g of bacon ($13) and some cream ($6 for 200g). I'm nearly at $20 and have only purchase 2 items! Organic cornflakes were $5.97 for 350g and the 500g box of non-organic cornflakes is$1.99. It's making it very hard to stick to organic.

On the up-side, buying eco-friendly and non-petroleum/mineral oil based cleaning products is a little easier on the budget. The Eco Store brand of washing powder is cheaper than Omo and the Earth brand of floor cleaner and all-purpose spays are cheaper than Nifti and Pine-o-Clean.

I don't know how long I'll stick to this Organic food thing. My doctor told me the other day that there was no scientific evidence to show it made you healthier. I figure that you have to believe in something and I choose to believe that this makes us healthier and therefore happier. I want, like most Mums, to give my daughter the best possible start in life and there is no way this could be doing her any harm, but the possiblilty of it doing her good is too high not to give it a go.