We had a thread on DS about BPA that skeeved me out (and skeeved is my new favorite word, I say it every day).
BPA is a chemical in plastic that is super awful, like breast cancer awful for you. They banned it from baby bottles. You also aren't suppose to microwave anything in plastic.
Plastic is also used to line the inside of canned food. Imagine this...you have a can with this lining....the canner dumps hot food into the can....the chemical leeches into the food....you open that can and nuke it in a plastic bowl....tada! You've just created a toxic stew for your family.
yuck
So anyway, the first thing I've done is stop using canned goods. That is really hard. I have probably 60-70 cans of stuff in the pantry that I can't bring myself to eat. In the next week, I'll be rehoming those cans to someone who doesn't give a flip about BPA. Part of me is like toss them. The other practical part of me knows canned goods with plastic lining will always be purchased and my canned goods are no worse that what is on the shelf now. So my compromise - give it to a food bank type place where it doesn't go to anyone I know!
(Another added benefit of getting rid of canned goods - my stockpile will be practically zilch and I'll be able to make an inventory book of everything I have. That makes my little planning soul super happy.)
So onward to the organic things. I buy organic lettuce already but that's about it. Truthfully, I've not paid a lot of attention to organic stuff. But this week I added 10 pounds of organic carrots to our diet.
The carrots were only 6 cents per pound more expensive than buying them by the pound from walmart. They came in 5 pound bags, 2 of them for $7. I think they were on sale, that is something I forgot to check.
What I first noticed about the carrots is how well they were trimmed. Not a single piece of green stuff on the tops which is thrown away and adds to the poundage (so really, these were probably the same cost and regular carrots). The second thing that struck me was how clean they were. I guess when you pay more for your food, the companies take a little extra time in presentation and get the dirt off of them. Third, about 10 of the carrots had bug bites on them. Honest to goodness bug bites. It took an extra millisecond to nip those out while I was dicing them up to blanch for the freezer. It made them seem more real!
Oh wait, so back to my mad money. I purchased 12, 16oz plastic BPA reusable canning jars for the freezer this week. They were $3.89 plus tax for 4. I really like the size. I really like how they stack. It's just a good product. I blanched all 10 pounds of those carrots and got about 9 pounds into those 12 plastic jars. I wish I had been able to get another 4 pack but I bought them out. So I just kept the extras out of the freezer and we'll eat the two Japanese meals this week tonight and tomorrow.
My other mad money purchase was for organic raw honey to sweeten my tea. I'm a white sugar junkie which is probably why I feel like crap a lot. I am hopeful to find a local source but for now, I paid $8.99 for a little jar of honey. Boy did that hurt lol
So here is my mad money. I hope to add containers every time I see them for a good price at the grocer. If we like the honey and can't get more locally, I'll look into bulk purchase options online.
(coming soon - Kim makes bread - I hope I don't burn it, the organic flour was $3.50 a bag!)
Nice post. It does get more expensive for a while when trying to change the diet. We have been trying to buy all food with no HFCS and include more organics into our diets and it is definately a bit more expensive. I like how we are eating more healthy food now though.
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