Passionate Homemaking

The longer I live the less con­fi­dence I have in drugs and the greater is my con­fi­dence in the reg­u­la­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of diet and reg­i­men. ~John Redman Coxe, 1800

“To eat is a neces­sity, but to eat intel­li­gently is an art.”
- La Rochefoucauld

How do we dis­cern what is most impor­tant, espe­cially when we are on a tighter budget? The word “natural” can be quite deceiving!

The Deceitfulness of the word: Natural

“The word nat­ural is one of the most abused terms in food mar­ket­ing. Con­sumers will pay up to 30% more for prod­ucts labeled “natural,” even though there are no reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing which prod­ucts (out­side of meat and poul­try) can be labeled as such. As a result, you can end up with gro­ceries in your cart that you think are health­ful, but are actu­ally laden with high fruc­tose corn syrup and hydro­genated oils. The term nat­ural is open to inter­pre­ta­tion, but here is what it means to me: Nat­ural ingre­di­ents are whole-​straight from the plant or animal - or they are made from whole ingre­di­ents, with as little pro­cess­ing and as few added fla­vor­ings, sta­bi­liz­ers, and preser­v­a­tives as pos­si­ble, thus keep­ing nutri­tions and orig­i­nal fla­vors intact…Take these nat­ural foods with their super-​nutritional profiles…and you have an expan­sive and excit­ing realm to explore!”

~Heidi Swan­son, Author of Super Nat­ural Cooking

When you buy food items in their whole state, they are actu­ally a whole lot cheaper! More nutri­tious! Any­thing that has been processed to put in a box, con­tainer, or can, costs more and is far less nutri­tious. Con­ve­nience in our day has lead to much more harm than good.

Where to Start?

I have found this list to be the most useful in start­ing out on eating more nat­ural and what are the most impor­tant foods items to con­sider. I have fol­lowed this list, one by one, as I was able, to incor­po­rate a more healthy and chem­i­cal free eating lifestyle. This means that we do not eat alot of meat at our home. We eat farm raised chick­ens and ground turkey in major­ity. Qual­ity beef, due to its out­ra­geous cost, rarely enters our home. We actu­ally don’t eat much fish either…which is prob­a­bly not the best idea, as it is high in Omega-3, but we eat eggs and flax seed to make up for it.

This list was com­piled by Greg Horn, in his book, Living Green: A Prac­ti­cal Guide to Simple Sustainability.

The Top 10 Foods to Buy Organic

1. Meats: These are high on the food chain, and thus can con­cen­trate chem­i­cals from the animals’ diets in their fatty tis­sues. Check out: Eat Wild.
2. Dairy prod­ucts: Also high on the food chain and rich in fats, which is where harm­ful chem­i­cals become stored. Homog­e­niza­tion and pas­teur­iza­tion processes cause lose of sig­nif­i­cant nutri­ents. Read more at: realmilk.com
3. Fish: While not strictly organic, it is crit­i­cal to buy wild fish and avoid all farmed fish, which can con­tain high levels of con­t­a­m­i­nants. Hint: all “Atlantic salmon” is farmed, as this fish is vir­tu­ally extinct in the wild.
4. Berries: All berries includ­ing grapes have a thin, absorbant skin that you eat. These fruits are heav­ily sprayed and tend to absorb more of the chem­i­cals that they come in con­tact with during pro­duc­tion. Ask local farm­ers in your area if they use pes­ti­cides. It doesn’t have to be organic, just free from sprays. You can also get great frozen berries from Azure Standard.
5. Salad crops: Let­tuce, spinach and celery are highly sprayed, and have no outer shell to pro­tect the part you eat, the leaf. Local pro­duce is a great alter­na­tive. Farmer’s Mar­kets, CSA programs.
6. Mush­rooms: Mush­rooms are highly absorbent, and con­ven­tional grow­ing uses pow­er­ful fungi­cides between crops to keep stray species from invad­ing the intended crop. I just skip these alto­gether, ad we don’t miss them.
7. Root crops: Con­ven­tional pota­toes, yams, car­rots, onions and other root crops can be sprayed with fungi­cides as well as pes­ti­cides, and the parts you eat grow in direct con­tact to chem­i­cals. Root vegi’s are actu­ally really cheap to buy organic, so why not!
8. Bananas: Banana plan­ta­tions use up to 20 times more pes­ti­cides per acre than crops grown in indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries. Con­ven­tional bananas are often grown with a blue plas­tic bag of pes­ti­cides placed over the soft, absorbent skin of the fruit. Enough said?
9. Waxed fruit: The shiny apple has a wax coat­ing that locks in the pes­ti­cides and makes them very dif­fi­cult to wash off. Part of this prob­lem can be solved by using a veggie wash, as described below.
10. Coffee and tea: Tech­ni­cally not “foods”, but hot water brew­ing can con­cen­trate resid­ual pes­ti­cides used in the grow­ing process while it is being extract­ing the “good stuff”. Remem­ber to use an unbleached filter!

A few last thoughts…Keeping it balanced!

Do your best with what you got! Don’t make it a source of stress or worry. Trust that the Lord knows your heart and will honor your desires, if your motives are in the right place. I know of indi­vid­u­als that have become so con­sumed with eating right that they have become very legal­is­tic and judg­men­tal towards others…that is not nec­es­sary. I just believe it is impor­tant to be well-​studied over the things that we eat, as we are respon­si­ble to be good stew­ards of our body, and keep it fit for the Master’s use! This is another reason we have chosen to live simply in other areas so we can pri­or­i­tize keep­ing ready and fit for Him! But this is not to say you have to do the very same thing we have chosen to do. Please just take this infor­ma­tion, and dis­cern what would be best for your family. These quotes and verses sum it all up:

What some call health, if pur­chased by per­pet­ual anx­i­ety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious dis­ease. ~George Den­ni­son Pren­tice, Pren­ticeana, 1860

Noth­ing is more fatal to Health, than an over Care of it. ~Ben­jamin Franklin

“Man does not live by bread alone…”
- Matthew 4:4

“Be not anx­ious for what you shall eat, or what you shall drink… or what you shall wear… Isn’t life more than food?… and the body more than clothing?”
- Luke 12:22; 29

More Resources

Try get­ting a fruit/vegetable wash solu­tion to clean your vegis with! This is proven to remove most pes­ti­cides, chem­i­cals and waxes. I used this for a long time! Veggie Wash is a pop­u­lar one.

You can also try making your own.

Check out more posts in the Nat­ural Living on A Budget series. To come…Prioritizing your spend­ing, monthly menu planning