The biggest change is making huge decreases in purchases of items with high fructose corn syrup. This stuff is cheap, addictive, and plain nasty. I truly believe it is so addictive, that it is a primary reasons Americans are so fat. Once you start tasting food without it, you will realize how much this stuff masks the great taste of most natural products. For those of you tight on money, here is one to try.

Go to Trader Joe’s and buy their organic Ketchup with no high fructose corn syrup using natural sweeteners. It is just slightly more than Heinz but is so much better that you with never want a bottle of Heinz again.

Oh, and I have altered eating habits recently because I found out I have incredibly high cholesterol (which means I can relate to a few of the comments above), but that in no way, shape or form is related to how the GOOD food is created. Sure, much of it isn’t even remotely pleasant, but is it pleasant when a lion sinks his teeth into the jugular of a zebra?

Anything where we eat the skin, I buy organic as it’s virtually impossible to get all the pesticides off of the skin.

I fully admit that I’m lucky to be able to afford to do these things as Wal Mart et al are much cheaper.

What we used to see as convenience and cost effective spending I now see as amazingly expensive and dangerous. Trust me, plavix is expensive, not fruit. Shopping locally and trying to make the best choices for our family has not really cost more than we ever spent on “convenience” foods, it just takes more planning. The key to the farmers market is buying in season, adjusting recipes and cooking with what is most cheaply available, freezing as much as you can when it is the cheapest and just making more conscious decisions about what you will or will not eat. Read every label and after awhile you just know what to buy and what not to buy. All organic btw isn’t necessarily the same or automatically better for the earth or you. You have to do a lot of research before you know what is and isn’t’ worth it. I recommend the book The Omnivores Dilemma for more info on that.

It takes time but we have now stopped eating processed foods almost entirely and in a remarkably short time my husband is now down to his ideal weight and has dropped his cholesterol to rates most healthy people envy. I hate to go off on a rant but it is crazy how much hidden damage our fast food lifestyle can have on us without us knowing until it is way too late. Now that I have lived through this I like to share our story whenever I can. We eat meat about once a week now and don’t find we miss it much. (Dried beans for protein instead of meat can easily make up for your veggie expenses) but I still like to check in to sites like this to see what is going on in the world we used to visit so often. The funniest thing is when we do go out now it is so nice to have a true treat that I don’t miss our old hedonistic ways at all.

I absolutely love the service.

That said, if organic product prices were to start to come down to the prices of those non-organic prices in the store, I would certainly start to buy organic items. I am a cheap ass after all and my wallet decides what I eat and buy more than any sort of pesticide or other chemical does.