What I'm Learning about Organic Food

For those tens of readers familiar with me, they know that when I adopt a hobby or lifestyle trend, I go all out. With my fitness routine, they know that I study fitness trends, techniques, and methods with rigor even though I'm not a fitness trainer. The same can be said for fashion: Based on what I know, I could be the black Stacy London!

Well, now my interests are in organic foods. This all started because I'm trying to encourage the dad to make better health and lifestyle choices. Although I'm a fairly healthy eater, as can be seen here and here, I know that I can do a lot better. While I don't eat beef, pork, and love fruits and veggies (I once got really sick and overdosed from eating too many green veggies! No Lie!), I have a profound weakness for chocolate, carbs, and other processed foods. That being said, I knew that I had to change my eating habits. After throwing the processed snacks (tortilla chips, wafer cookies, honey buns, etc.) in the trash, I went off to the local health food store. Even though it's not the Whole Foods that I was used to when living in Ann Arbor, it would have to do.

When I got in the store, I immediately went crazy. When I see things, I like to go for the excess. I prefer to buy in bulk because I hate grocery shopping, so I piled tons of stuff in the cart. Mr. C looked quite oddly considering I hadn't tasted much of these foods but threw them in the cart as if they were my favorites. I didn't care though; I'd eaten foods like it before (ions ago) so it couldn't be that bad. After all, a whole grain waffle is a whole grain waffle. And the vegan cookies I used to get from Whole Foods were sold there, so I knew how those tasted. I'd also heard about Amy's Pizzas and frozen products, which I decided to purchase. Those couldn't be that bad either.

Well to make a long story short, I lucked up. While I haven't tried everything I'd bought, from what I did sample, the foods were pretty darn delicious. I especially love the spinach wraps in whole wheat. And those vegan chocolate chip cookies are to die for!! Seriously. But with this journey, I did learn a few of things about organic foods, some of which, I didn't know:

1. They make you full and make you stay full. Even the snacks that I bought were filling. They don't have those hydrogenated oils and other chemicals that just make you feel bloated with gas but still hungry. No, you don't need to eat very much of these snacks, and you can remain satisfied until the next meal.
2. They seem to take longer to cook in comparison to "regular" foods. This threw me for a bit of a loop. So I pop a couple waffles in the oven. The box says to cook them for 2-3 minutes. I had to cook them for 15+ minutes! The same with the Amy's frozen pizzas. I had to cook those for 16 minutes and not the 8-11 suggested time. I know that lots of organic gurus prefer rawer stuff, but we're not talking veggies here. You can't eat a raw frozen waffle or pizza!
3. You don't get that much food from $200. Yeah, I knew that I'd be broke after I finished shopping.
   

So thus began my quest for a better lifestyle. I wanted my eating habits to match my fitness ones. I feel better already.