Ignorance is Bliss

The saying "blissfully unaware" is very true. I say that, because right now I would like nothing more than to drink an ice cold Diet Coke while eating a nice slab of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I say that because while checking the labels of some of the snacks and bread we consume on a daily basis, HFCS is top on the list, and in some cases it's the 2nd ingredient. I think we learned in health class that ingredients are listed in order of the quantities, so things listed first have the most....so with that coming in 2nd place it can't be a good thing to eat.

So anyway, I went to the grocery store last night and it took me almost 2 hours. Seriously. I was reading labels, looking for stuff I've never purchased before, and I'm happy to say that I planned to go over our grocery budget this week because I had to stock up on some stuff (and I have no clue what I'm doing), but I didn't do too bad. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to go this week or what we'll eat, but we shall see. Meijer has an organic and a natural line, and they were both on sale plus you got a coupon for $3 off your next shopping trip so that was pretty cool. I went home and boxed up the stuff in the pantry to bring to our church food pantry, and since I don't like throwing things away we've been slowly depleting our stash this week. Today? Today we went all natural....which is not to be confused with au naturel mind you. It takes a lot more thought and prep, but I think we'll get in a routine and it will become the new normal. I made some pretzels and some graham crackers and the kids loved both of them! I forgot to buy the big pretzel salt so they're not salted, but Matt loved them anyway. We had egg salad for lunch with fruit kabobs, and neither child has had any juice today. I bought a bottle of organic apple juice but said we have to treat it like gold so we're drinking water. The kids usually drink a couple glasses of juice a day so it will just take some getting used to! My daughter loves water but my son? Not so much. I was reading the top 10 list of fruits that have the most pesticides and apples is on that list so I figure if the USDA recommends buying organic apples, I should probably give my kids organic apple juice so they're not drinking pesticides. You can see the list yourself at the side, it's called the Shoppers Guide to Pesticides. This is getting a bit out of control, but like I said, I'm hoping it will become the new normal.

I made these graham crackers and they turned out great! Much better than the picture, trust me.

It said to roll these pretzels into the shape of pretzels and I think that while I get an A for effort, I most certainly get a C or D for presentation. Oh well. Next time I might get creative and make them the shape of something else!

And one more tip for you that I found. I usually wash our fruits and veggies in just water, sometimes I use soap when I'm washing apples but just a good soaking it usually all I did. I found a great natural way to clean them and get rid of a lot of the surface pesticides:

Natural Fruit and Veggie Wash

1 cup of water

Cut a lemon and squeeze out enough for 1 Tablespoon

2 Tablespoons of vinegar

Mix in a spray bottle and spritz away! Plus it smells pretty good.