Welcome to 2013! The New Year Resolutions are still fresh in our minds yet they can quickly fall by the wayside if we don’t keep some focus. I kept mine a bit simpler this year so that I can continue this journey into better foods that started a couple of years ago. Eating better has had additional benefits that were not my intention when I resolved to feed my family better that must be mentioned too, but first let’s look at how we can eat better.
We know that we need so many servings of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains to improve our diets. We also know that we should reduce the amount of meat we consume too. This has been drilled into us from elementary school on, yet this is only scratching the surface and may not really be as healthy as promoted. Why is this? From GMO crops to residual pesticides, many of the fruits and vegetables we are tasked to consume can negatively impact our body on the cellular level. We’d hope that trying to eat better wouldn’t do this but in reality, it often does. To make your resolution stick and give yourself the health benefit you’re looking for, choose fresh, locally grown produce and fruit whenever possible. You’ll find these items to be fresher, better tasting, and more nutritious than their counterparts in most grocery stores. Better tasting is a huge factor for my children and Non GMO a huge factor for me. If all you do this year is make this change, you’ll find it to be very positive one. There is plenty of information on GM foods out there and on our website, www.sunridgefarms.com so I won’t go too much in to that other than the easy way to avoid these foods is to look for a Non-GMO designation or a USDA Organic logo. I was concerned that I would be paying more for organic foods and on the surface it might appear that I did, but in reviewing wasted food, our overall health, and our satisfaction with our food, it was overwhelmingly a better fiscal choice. First, food that tastes better gets eaten. When we first started putting better foods on the table, I would put our conventional items out too. Quickly we realized that we favored the organic goods due to taste more than anything. It was especially evident with the kids and their fruit choices. They ate more, had less waste, and resisted less to the introduction of new items. If we compare year to year over the past 3 with health issues, we are seeing fewer illnesses like colds amongst our entire family even though we are even more on the move with work travel and our kids social activities. Just that alone has made the economic equation for choosing to eat better an easy decision. What’s even better is that we’re not perfect in our pursuits. A hamburger often follows a LL baseball game but instead of eating two burgers, it’s become a salad and a hamburger. No need to beat ourselves up as life happens. Better choices has meant better health.
See what eating better can do for you and your family. Make it a priority to change just a few habits this year and start tracking the benefits. It may not show up for a bit of time. I know it took about a year for the lifestyle changes we made to reflect in a positive light. Getting kids to ‘feel’ the difference between refined sugars and naturally occurring sugars takes time. It’s more than taste that we have to adjust to but once you do you’ll find your kids less interested in junk food. It actually won’t taste as good to them as it used to which makes it easier to put better snacks and desserts on the table.
Lastly, as you make the move towards better foods, you can start eliminating the presence of GMO’s. Clearly, this is still experimentation regardless of what the FDA allows. I expect that we’ll see more and more evidence that these foods have negatively impacted our health in the coming years. Enough time has elapsed where the correlation between the introduction of these foods into the supply chain and increased disease rates is more evident. This is especially true for inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s Disease and Colitis. This makes sense since the BT toxin, produced by many GM crops is designed to impact the gut of the pest insects of these crops. Coincidence? That’s what they’d like us to believe…but to some of us with first hand knowledge, we know differently.
I hope that this will help a few of you keep your resolutions to eat better. Take it one day at a time and make the adjustment. I’m living proof that these improvements are positive and possible. At SunRidge Farms, we strive to help you improve your lifestyle with healthy snacks, mixes, confections, fruit, grains, vegetables, nuts and seeds. We source Non GMO where possible and work very hard to ensure reliable and sustainable sources for these items.