Sunday, March 30, 2008

Finding Safer Produce

Ever since Pumpkin started eating solids, we have been trying to eat organic foods as much as is possible, or as much as makes sense.  If the organic produce is available in our grocery store and it doesn't look like it is half-rotten, which unfortunately it often is at Kroger, I try to go organic.  We have a new grocery chain which opened up up a store nearby.  This store doesn't offer a huge amount of organic produce, but it does offer a lot of more locally grown produce and it also has a great store line of other organic products.  Hopefully, I'm not just wasting money but when I look at the ingredients on the organic line of products, I at least recognize the ingredients and do not need to pull out a Periodic Table to try to decipher what chemicals have been added.  Another benefit of the new store is that they have spurred Kroger to start prominently selling reusable grocery bags in our local store, which I have purchased, and I find them to be not only a greener solution but also much easier to use because they are sturdier and hold more than your traditional plastic bags.

If you are concerned about the pesticides in the produce you are buying, you may want to check out the Pesticide Produce Guide which lists which items are most likely to have large amounts of pesticides found in or on them.  I found a reference to it on a blog post on Green Mom Finds, which discusses the many eco-friendly and safer products that are becoming available. 

We're trying to live greener here at the Pumpkin Patch, though we have a long way to go.  We do not have curbside recycling in our community here, as we did in our previous city, so we have fallen off the recycling wagon.  However, we have purchased bins for recycling and we need to start soon since we want to set a good example for Pumpkin.  I'll post about it when we start so hopefully my guilt from letting you all know that we're not currently recycling will spur me to start now.

2 comments:

Lilypad Mom said...

Trying to find good organic produce can be so hard. I try to make LP's diet as organic as I can where it makes sense as well. We had a great supermarket with a large organic line, but they closed the store near me. I find it is much easier in the late spring, summer and fall when you can go to local farmer's markets. That's where we get 90% of our produce when we can, it's nice to know it's local as well as organic. I just wish I lived in an area where farmer's markets could be year round.

PumpkinsMom said...

I agree, I can't wait to hit our farmer's market the year. It's something I've been meaning to do more regularly for a while but Pumpkin has finally given me the motivation to do it. I think he'll enjoy the shopping experience as well.