Concerns of Milk,persevatives,msg

Congrats on feeding your family healthy! Aside from what has already been said, I have two general rules:

1) Read the ingredient label. If you can't pronounce it, you shouldn't eat it.
2) (which is not so different from 1) Food should be readily recognizable as food--it should be visually obvious how it came into the world, whether via plant or animal (although we're almost entirely vegetarian at my house).

For snacks, my DD gets a lot of fruit and raw nuts. Luckily, she loves veggies (has never really had anything different). Veggies in the crockpot work great for little ones, since they're nice and soft. She doesn't drink juice, she does drink milk (I've heard convincing arguments both ways on this, but she loves it), but she also drinks lots of water--which we all should!

Make stuff yourself--premade stuff is usually junk--but keep it simple. Chopped tomotoes with herbs taste great on pasta...lentils simmered with onions and balsamic are a hit at our house... For more ambitious days, we're a big fan of the cookbook "The Healthy Hedonist." GL!

We stick to as much organic as we can, although not everything is. We are definitely milk drinkers in our family and only drink organic 1%. Snacks can be the organic smooshed fruit (we all love those), granola (we get it from Sprouts usually because they have a great selection), fruits, etc. I do think it's important to drink milk, but I also understand that some people believe differently.

We shop Sprouts and Target for almost everything. Sprouts has proven to be super cheap compared to the other stores including Target, but Target is right down the road. All fruits and veggies are from there, and we love their veggie chips (they also have some veggie tator tots that are not organic, but they have helped my son with eating his on certain occasions).

We go natural with almost everything. We don't immediately go to medicine, we have natural vitamins without the artificial stuff, etc. I even visited my chiropractor when we had tried for a year to get pregnant with no luck. My dr had been telling me for several months that my body just wasn't going to allow it so I needed meds. I was pregnant within two weeks of visiting my chiropractor, so I love you guys!!!!! :o)

My youngest son and I eat Organic and Natural just about everything. We go to holistic doctors as well. All ours meats, turkey, ham, chick, pork, beef is 100% Organic. Ranch, ketchup,all the cheeses, marinara sauces, mozerella cheese sticks, chicken nuggests, quesadilla, fish sticks, bread and even organic chips and crackers, oatmeal, maple syrup, waffles, pancakes, pasta, apples, bananas, strawberries, jelly, cream cheese, peanuts, peanut butter, frozen fruits and veggies. Most of the foods that I get are from Top Thumb, Super Target which is so much cheaper than Sprouts or/and Whole Foods.
I hope this helps.
Many Blessings.
M.

Hello J.,

Congratulations on your husband's graduation! in terms of what to feed your little ones, it's tricky. there are a few websites you can read and then make your own informed decisions.

so far, I have a few 'hard' rules:
NO MSG
NO high fructose corn syrup
NO artificial sugars
limit juices
no saturated fats (of course that goes out the window when going to a restaurant)
eat gluten-free whenever possible
limit milk products

just try following those few and it will really make you wonder what we've been eating all these years.

READ ALL THE LABELS... that's all I'll say about ingredients.

the 700club.org has a lot of info on MSG. I didn't realize how much it was in our regular foods and how many names it has.

I bought a soy milk machine and use it to make almond milk. I like it because the almond milk has the closest consistency to cow milk for when I'm cooking. it's too strong for the stomach to drink it (I would have to water it down) so I give my kids soy and oat milk and also use rice milk from time to time.

My kids get some cheese and butter. otherwise, no MILK because it gets my son's sinuses congested and it constipates my daughter.

One book I highly recommend is
smart medicine for a healthier child
here is the link from amazon
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_k?url=search-alias%3Dap...

also, when considering nutritional suplements, remember magnesium, fiber, vitamin D and calcium.

check out the asian and latin food markets for lots of different veggie varieties. try broiling veggies.

look on the web for gluten-free recipes and you'll be amazed at the variety.

for snacks, fruits, carrots, raisins, cashews (much softer than other nuts)
Good luck! ~C.~