Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

First understand, unless you move to a farm and grow and raise your own food, you are will run into these problems. I shop at whole foods and still check the labels on things. You would be surprised at some ingredients even in products at whole foods! Carrageenan, found in a lot of products such as coconut milk can irritate the digestive tract and has carcinagenic properties. I follow 100 days of real food and food babe on facebook. I can tell you, it can drive you crazy!

So anyway, we do the best we can. We buy kashi cinnamon harvest (organic) because it's the only cereal that Ive tried so far that doesnt contain dyes that DS will eat. My rule of thumb is that if its made by nature I eat it, if it's made in a lab I dont. I dont buy any kraft products. I buy grass fed beef and organic eggs and other dairy not treated with chemicals. I do the best I can, but I don't live on a farm, so I cant always steer away from every single company that I dont agree with because I have a day job, lol. My main concern is the ingredients.

I have also gotten something called lunch bots (find them on fb too). They are stainless steel containers. I use them for DS's lunches sometimes (better than plastic).

So my best advice is do the best you can.

ETA: through food babe I have also learned a lot about beauty products. I have tried the natural deoderant, but switched back because I couldnt handle being sticky. I did find good sun screen for DS, which is the first that has not given him a chemical burn. Its Green babies.I think it's active ingredient is zinc oxide or something. Thick as anything, but great product.

Message edited 7/17/2013 8:42:40 AM.

Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

I think this is a great discussion because I would like to eat more organically and introduce less chemicals now that I have a LO, so while I try my best I appreciate the info in this thread so much.
I am just going to add that money is the root of all evil, and it's every companies bottom line so whatever they can do to make more/deliver less they will. That's why there are factory farms, bc it's cheaper. That's why there are chemicals, bc it produces more. America has so much excess and we tolerate so much from these companies as if they are doing us a favor. I wish we could go back to the days of local farmers and not importing every blessed thing.

Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

What has helped me:

1. Read EVERY part of the label. For example, lots of organic products contain carageenan, which I am not comfortable consuming.

2. If isn't organic or part of the non-gmo verified project don't eat anything containing, corn, soy, canola, cottonseed, beet sugar etc.

3. Use the non-gmo verified label to shop for items.

4. Do research at the Cornucopia Institute. They have scorecards for different organic companies and post exposes on different food industry issues.

5. Shop at farmer's markets so you can get local, organic produce.

6. I completely agree re Trader Joe's. I will never eat any of their items that contain ingredients corn, soy etc and ARE NOT labeled organic or non-gmo verified.

7. When I buying cleaning products and beauty products, I run each ingredient through ewg.org.

Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

It is impossibly difficult. I have made a real effort and honestly it takes me so much longer at the store PLUS I have to go to more than one store and even then, I end up with only "some" organic/non-GMO products and my food bill as increased significantly. Almost makes me wish I hadn't started reading labels because now I don't want to buy anything! I don't live anywhere near an organic farm or even a Whole Foods and quite frankly between my full time job and the cost of gas, I cannot run all over LI every few days. I also find it unrealistic to be 100% clean because that means you can never go out to eat, you can never even go to someone's house for a party!

It is so sad that so many of us really want to try and do right by our families but are being thwarted every step of the way by big business and even our government. It's unbelievable to me that we have so many BS programs and wasteful spending in this country but none of our "leaders" make an effort to attack the source of so many health problems - our food is being poisoned and they are sanctioning it! Why don't they have any programs to encourage more organic production, or even to subsidize the cost to consumers? It's so frustrating.

For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

One of the things I absolutely love (sorry if it was mentioned already) is the fooducate app. You scan a barcode and it gives the product a letter grade based on GMOs, artificial colors, etc. So this helps too!

Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...

Re: For those who eat organic, stay away from GMO's, pesticides, and buy Eco- friendly products...