Today was my boy's first feeding. My wife and I looked for organic baby food at Kroger, but found no organic rice cereal. So, we begrudgingly went ahead and bought the Gerber brand. As we checked out I just kept thinking about how the first solid food to enter my little boy's body would be fortified with preservatives. When I inspected the ingredients there where like 30. HOw can there be so many ingredients in something as simple as rice cereal? I felt conflicted.
My wife and I are relatively health conscious and try to buy organic and local produce as often as our bank account will allow. So, naturally we had a hard time with this. Well, we didn't feed it to him the first night we bought it and while we were at Target the next day running errands, I thought I would go ahead and check the baby food isle to see if Target carried organic. And then, WAM-BAM, there it was!! I immediately check the ingredients for comparison. 4 INGREDIENTS!!! And the rice was brown rice, not enriched white rice flour(which you find in most baby food).
The cereal brand is Earth's Best Organic. I'd never heard of it before, but then again, I've also never been a dad before. At any rate I decided to check it out via the Google search when i got home. All the reviews I read were very positive. Some reviews even spoke about how rice cereals constipate, but that the brown rice helped to eliminate that problem.
As we continue our journey as our little boy's personal chefs, we will continue to buy Organic. I feel good about all the people who have fought against genetically engineered food and harmful pesticides. Being mindful and aware of what we consume-on all levels- is integral to our well being. To eat food that is abused (this includes PLANTS and ANIMALS), is to eat angry food. This is a philosophy I learned from a book by the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. The lesson there is to know your food. And when you eat your food and smell your food, be thankful for it. Many people pray over their food, but do they really consider where it came from?
PS. HE LOVED HIS FIRST SOLID MEAL!!
PPS. I think I will start illustrating each blog entry.
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I'm so glad he liked it so much. I've been trying to buy more organic as well. It's a little more expensive, but I think it's worth it on some foods. We're also going to start a square foot garden in the back that doesn't use fertilizer. I'm just afraid the squirrels will attack it. We'll see...
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