One Foot in Front of the Other

Eating at home is fairly simple.  My Daughter has a shelf in the fridge, and all of her approved foods are within reach on the kitchen counter.  We make a big deal about it, and she likes that.  But it starts to get complicated when you want to venture out into the world.  

This weekend my daughter will be visiting her Grandma and Grandpa for a weekend sleepover.  What will they feed her?  They are going to keep it simple, but in our generation, processed foods have crept into our lives.  I'm not talking about CONVENIENCE foods, which I think we all agree upon, but everything else.  Like our bread, mayonnaise, olive oil, yogurt, pasta, cheese, honey...  the list goes on and on.  Unless you can claim that you know where it came from, every step of the way, you can't say you know what was involved, or what it was exposed to.

I would say we eat fairly healthy.  We buy local meat, and cook what I would consider, from scratch.  But we don't make our own pasta.  I don't raise my own meat, and even if I did, I wouldn't process it myself.  I don't have the time to make my own yogurt, and cheese.  I could consider making my own bread.  I don't have bees, so honey is out.

They are all processed.

Before you stand tall, and say you don't eat like "that", so "those" things can't be impacting "your" child.  Take a look around, and accept the world we live in.  Chances are, there are more processed foods in your home than you are truly giving thought to.  And the things I have learned are alarming.  The issues don't stop with food dyes.

We have petroleum based preservatives as well.  And don't even get me started on artificial sweeteners.

I read a personal account this past week about just how blatant the permitted inaccuracies are in labeling. Story:  Storyteller's preferred/approved brand of yogurt was unavailable.  Diligently read the labels and found a label that read what we will call "clean".  Got home, and found the strawberry yogurt to be an alarmingly artificially color red/pink.  Called the manufacturer.  Had the manufacturer confirm they add no food dyes to their ingredients.  Asked to confirm there had been nothing added to the strawberries prior to the company receiving them.  Here is where it gets interesting.  The company after some research was then able to confirm, that they were able to confirm there was dye added to the strawberry product prior to them receiving it.

This label, was entirely legal.  Manufacturers are not required to list ingredients added to things they use prior to them receiving them.  In fact, in many cases, chemicals/ingredients used in processing/packaging are also not required to be listed on the label.

So before you presume that your child is naturally high spirited.  Or even OCCASIONALLY naturally this way.  Stop and consider, what are you eating.  And just how confident are YOU that the food is pure.