Post 400 (Subtitle "Will I ever catch up to Dan?")

Everything Changes

After watching the documentary Supersize Me a few weeks ago, I have changed the way I think about food. In Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock performs an experiment by eating nothing but McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for thirty days. There are a few rules. 1) He has to try everything on the menu. 2) If the McDonalds employee asks if he would like to supersize his meal, he has to. 3) He has to eat everything he orders. He underwent a thorough physical exam prior to this experiment and was found to be healthy. By the end of the experiment, he had gained about twenty pounds, started having chest pains, and had frequent feelings of depression. According to his physical exam after the experiment, his liver function had decreased and his cholesterol level was elevated.

The brief discussion on the manufacturing process of McDonald's chicken nuggets has really stuck with me. They puree the chicken and add (this is the worst part!) various additives and stablizers then press it into the fake chicken nugget shape.

Up to this point, I haven't been able to justify the cost of buying organic and non-processed foods. But now I'm thinking, can we really put a price on our health?

I have begun familiarizing myself with the organic and health foods section at Giant Eagle. I have purchased some organic produce, juice, milk, and eggs. The produce seems to go bad more quickly than I'm used to, which means I have to buy less of it at a time.

I still have a lot to learn. Does it matter if the chicken are free-range and we able to lay their eggs on a nest? Or does it matter if they have been fed an organic vegetarian diet? What about foods that say organic on the label, but don't have the USDA organic stamp? My sister told me that the USDA stamp only means that the foods are 80% organic, so how reassuring is that? What about other health foods like Kashi? My kids absolutely LOVE that cereal, of which we have tried two kinds so far. It's not organic, but it has seven whole grains and all sorts of cool stuff like dried broccoli in their cereal.

I've also noticed that the organic section has organic mac n cheese and organic oreos, cookies, etc. which are still not healthy even if they are organic! So just because it's organic, that doesn't mean you should eat it.

The main thing I learned is that so many of the things we put into our bodies weren't meant to be eaten and aren't doing our bodies any good. So I'm trying to eat healthier and feed my family healthier foods.