Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: expensive, food, Health, money, natural, organic, poor, popcorn
I really enjoy organic foods. They have a more vibrant color, more pleasing texture and amazing flavors when compared to their counterparts that are produced in “conventional” ways. I’m also obsessed with organic dairy products and 100% whole wheat foods like bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, etc.; I just can’t get enough.
Yes, organic foods cost more. However, I feel that making the choice to nourish my body (the one and only body that I get for this lifetime) in the best way possible, and limiting its exposure to pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, and other chemicals as best I can is worth it. I don’t want to experience disease and other ailments, that could have been prevented, later in life. Why kick myself later when I can just follow the old “Better safe than sorry” rule right now? Health insurance and medical costs are expensive now; it’s quite likely that they will be just as expensive in the future, if not more so. So, for me, spending a little extra on organic foods is really an investment in my future – kinda like college. I spend $625 per class – I can think of a lot of other things that I could do with this money, but my education is worth it to me.
No, I’m not a kid with wealthy parents who pay for everything. I work 28 hours a week, my annual income is less than $20,000 and I’m just barely above the official “poverty” threshold determined by our government. Despite these things, I’m still convinced that I’m better off forking over the extra dough to purchase organic products. My overall health and well-being today, and 40 years from now, depend on the food choices that I make every day.
I’m not perfect. I do have a few non-organic guilty pleasures and they are Edy’s Slow Churned Rich & Creamy No Sugar Added Vanilla Light Ice Cream, microwave popcorn, Diet Dr. Pepper with Vanilla from Sonic (i.e. high fructose corn syrup), Craisins, and Wasabi Peas. Yes, microwave popcorn is probably the worst thing you can eat – hydrogenated fats, artificial flavors, artificial colors, artificial preservatives, and tons of salt all conveniently packaged at your fingertips. However, I did find Orville Redenbacher’s Natural Buttery Salt & Cracked Pepper to be the most delicious and not as horrible as others. Good old Orville, he even makes an Organic SmartPop Butter popcorn that is 94% fat free. No sign of it in stores around here, though.
So, even though I’m just as poor as the next guy or gal, it’s worth it to me to spend a little extra on the food that I put in my body. I’ll be thanking, rather than kicking, myself later.
~ Sarah H
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
: 
Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: Checkers, diary, Happy Meals, journal, Kashi Go-Lean, KU Greek community, Sigma Delta Tau, Sysco, women
Dear Journal (I choose journal over diary because the word ‘diary’ seems like I am about to write out all of my secrets, when in reality ‘journaling’ seems to be a lot more about reflection),
Today I ate the following:
Breakfast: 1 Bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal with skim milk
Lunch: 2 plates of a Mexican fiesta (aka a mish mosh of ground beef, chicken, black beans, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, queso and chips)
Dinner: Beef tips with veggies, potatoes and gravy, corn, salad with good ‘ol ranch dressing.
After dinner until now: 10 peanut butter M&M’s (during my night class) and a bowl of cereal with skim milk
So journal, what does this all mean?
It means that what I am capable of eating is actually pretty limited. Since I have payed for my meals at the sorority house already, I choose 97% of the time to eat there whenever possible. Although, when I begin to think about what my sorority house is feeding me, I think about how my sorority house has the mentality of a college student: “Cheaper is obviously the better route in life…[when you're in college]” Buying groceries from discount stores like Checkers and ordering large amounts of packaged food to feed 40 ‘women’ (as we are supposed to call ourselves) from companies like Sysco, it seems that my ability to go organic is rather limited.
So Journal, I read this article about what is put into the Happy Meals I choose to eat on the weekends (since the sorority house only makes meals on weekdays), and I was merely stunned at what I was putting into my body. If anything, I was reminded of the clever, yet horrifying Meatrix videos. My conscious began to feel guilty for the food choices I am making each day. Yet, do I have a choice when in fact my meals for the majority of the time have already been paid for?
I showed my best friend the Happy Meal article and her response was, “So I’m pretty much eating silly putty, breast implants, and detergent.” I responded by saying, “Yes…yes we are.” Then, I got queasy. And then she said, “It’s just so expensive to eat healthy and organic.” I nodded and pondered this idea, Journal, and I’m just so perplexed.
Everybody (I mean the majority of our class and many others out there) wish they could just switch to organic, but there are just so many obstacles lying in our path.
Help me Journal…help me come up with a way to eat healthy and organically without making that tremendous dent in what money I even have. Also, help me have a good, clean conscious that won’t make me feel bad about everything I put into my body.
Sincerely,
Dena Hart
Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: community mercantile, food buying club, new boston cooperative, united buying club
My gastronomical intake on March 2:
Brown rice and quinoa, fermented from the night before with whey, mixed with homeground sunflower butter and raw local honey (People are going to think I’m so weird, if they didn’t already…)
Fresh pressed carrot/parsley/apple juice, homeade hummus with sourdough bread made with a culture I fermented for 7 days (Now they’re going to wonder why I spend so much time fermenting food, and why I use so many adjectives)
Curried split pea dal with sweet potatoes, onions, coconut milk and tomatoes over brown rice, hijiki, and ground mycelium powder (What the hell is hijiki?)
It’s true: I’m obsessed with food, a self-proclaimed foodie, I would even go so far as to call myself a food snob – I read Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation’s website in my free time. Honestly.
My food choices, and the amount of time I spend preparing them, are largely based on where I get most of my food. After making the attempted conversion to organics, I realized something all students probably confront: I didn’t have enough money to buy organic food (and I even work at the Merc!). My roommates and I, plus several other friends, were tired of either spending our entire income (plus loan money for some) to eat ethically, and we weren’t willing to give it up either: it’s a hard world for food snobs with a tight budget.
Our dilemma at first seemed to have no hope – working the streets and selling plasma seemed counterproductive for the whole health benefits thing we were going for. So, we took a lesson from our hippie friends from a generation ago and organized a food buying cooperative. New Boston Coop is a group, mostly broke college students and interested community members, that meets twice a month: once to place a bulk food order from United (which supplies the Merc) , and once to pick up the 50 lb. bags and split them up by orderee.
It’s cheap, yes, but it’s also a great way to get involved with a community of active Lawrencians who are ready to take strides towards a food system that does not depend on profit margins, markups, or underpaid hourly employees working without insurance. Plus, the potlucks are just fantastic.
Potluck/Splits Meeting – yum. (newbostoncoop.org/photos)
Consumption of co-op food. (My roommates, Andrew and Berrigan, are in the red and maroon shirts 
)
–Jennifer
Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: 24 hour, all in a day's eats, cereal, diary, food, food diary, meals, you are what you eat
I kept a food diary for 24 hours and then thought, this is hardly representative of my habits. I haven’t eaten a single m&m, I had three breakfasts (not in place of any meal, either… I’ll get there), and I didn’t eat any snacks between meals. Then I went back 24 hours and decided that I couldn’t ‘fess up to it because it was entirely (and uncharacteristically, I swear) too greasy. I began to log my current 24-hour period and at the time, I was sipping a latte and planning to bring $18 Whole Foods little fruit-topped cheesecake to my mom for her birthday. I decided that diary sounded too snobby.
Conclusion: Upon reflection, food, like trash, is intimate. We are well-accustomed to answering only to ourselves about what is acceptable and have strong beliefs about how our habits define us (or how who we are define our habits). When I write the foods down/take a picture of my trash, I have to come face-to-face with my daily habits, sans my mental justifications.
Dear Diary (Saturday 9am – Sunday 9am)
1 bowl of my cereal mix (All-Bran, Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts, Granola) and All-Natural Dannon Vanilla yogurt
Another bowl of the same (I was particularly hungry and planning a very active day)
1 mug of coffee w/ cream and sugar
1 PB & J that my man graciously made and brought to the library for me (aka made on his corn-syrupy wheat bread, non-organic partially hydrogenated oils-filled peanut butter and … I think it was all-natural jelly, actually. I know I’m hypocritically inconsistent w/ my organic demands, but I prefer a body-friendly PBJ since it occurs so frequently in my diet.)
1 apple that I found in my backpack from Friday
–hours and hours and hours pass with no snacks and lots of playing outside!–
1 Jason’s Deli salad-bar salad
Delicious Jason’s Deli strawberry shortcake
A second salad
More delicious strawberry shortcake
–No nighttime snacks because I was early to bed. I had breakfast before work @ 7am so it must be included in this 24hr period–
1 bowl of cereal mix and yogurt
1 mug of coffee with cream and sugar
You are what you eat? Today I was many helpings. Looking at what’s in a Happy Meal, it is clear that my m&m addiction, my job at First Watch (where foods must be researched on the sides of many cardboard boxes shipped from who-knows-where) and my residence in the USA promote a lifestyle full of ingredients I can’t pronounce much less predict what they are/where they came from/what they do in my digestive system.
One good thing I can say is that Jason’s Deli promises zero trans-fats, no MSG and an ongoing effort to reduce/eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from menu items. It also take initiative to make lots of cool eco-conscious efforts to reduce its footprint, like foam-free to-go packaging and napkins/plasticware by request only to reduce waste. Through extensive primary research, I’ve also found overwhelming evidence that it is damn delicious, too.
-Sonya English
[Please limit the articles you send me about over-eating and portion control.]
