1 Year Pledge

Hubby and I talked the other day and have decided to make a pledge to ourselves.

We've already been 90% processed food free for many years. But we've decided to do our best to be 100% processed food free, and as much organic as possible (budget allowing), and as much natural food as we absolutely can.

I have decided that I will continue buying the non-organic Bountiful Baskets, because I know the founders do their best to make sure our produce is very high quality. (And I contribute for 3 baskets each time... that would be an extra $30 per week, $60 per month! I'd rather spend that on organic milk)

Based on price firstly, I have decided to not buy organic eggs. I will be buying brown, cage free though. The second reason that I would rather buy just cage free, and not organic cage free is because the organic ones all say the chickens eat a vegetarian diet, and I do not like this. I understand that they would need to be vegetarians in order to control their food intake to ensure organic quality, however chickens are supposed to eat bugs. And I'd rather eat eggs from chickens who are omnivores. I do not know if the non-organic ones are all vegetarian also, I have only seen one package that said they were also vegetarian, so I get the ones that are cage free but do not specify that they are vegetarian, as that tells me the chicken farmers do not try to control the chickens eating bugs.
I know I'd be better off getting eggs from a local farm, but I haven't found one yet, so for now this is my best choice.

The reason why we have set a 1 year 'goal' is for 2 reasons- #1 it's January, so it will be easy to remember when our year is up. #2 As I've stated, we've been MOSTLY processed free (and completely organic free) for several years and have not noticed any benefits to our health or weight. (In either us or our children)
I am testing our bodies and the 'organic' food market to see if there truly is a benefit in our bodies by making the switch.
I will read labels and make sure I'm buying food with real ingredients. I have already removed margarine from our home and replaced it with butter, and sour cream riddled with thickeners and other junk I can't sound out with real sour cream. I've made my own yogurt and will continue to do so, and won't buy any more bread- it doesn't take long to make a loaf with my bread machine, so I will just do that. I will make pasta when I can, but I do have some whole wheat pasta in the cabinet for back up. And I will continue to make mayo. I did most of the year last year, but bought a jar a while ago and just finished it up.
I'm also going in on a grass-fed beef co-op. And have been buying local, raw honey.
I will be weighing and measuring my kids and myself tomorrow so we have a starting point. Also going to take some undies only pics so I can have a visual (I want to try and take these pics at the beginning of each month as well to attempt to view progress).
And, thanks to Bountiful Baskets, I have started juicing, and will continue to do so. I am starting with 1 glass of juice per day. (This is home made, green juice, where you run your fruits and veggies through a juice machine.)

We'll see what happens!