Freaky Food Fuss: Part Deux/Dos/Two!

(A continuation of yesterday's Part One rant)

So, where did we leave off.....

Milk:  Oh this one really freaked me out.  I never was a milk drinker, but girlfriend likes some moo juice on her cereal and in her hot beverages.  All that crap about whether you should have whole, 2%, 1% or skim milk is so small compared to the fact that you are drinking more from the cow than its milk.  If you like drinking milk, please stop reading this now if you would like to continue drinking it without being skeeved. You can return in a few paragraphs.  I'll let you know when!

If you aren't drinking organic milk, you are probably drinking cow pus.  Yup, cow pus.  Ew.  Double ew!  The regulations on how long they can leave the machines hooked up to a cow's udders are...well.... udderly ridiculous!  (couldn't resist that one)  If a cow's udders are sensitive and haven't formed a callous, they become raw and get lesions on them.  More biological stuff happens to the udders that I will spare you the details of and the end result is that until the udders toughen up, things like pus go into your milk.  It's light colored too, so it just blends right in nicely, doesn't it?

"Oh my gawd!  There better not be any of that crap in this bottle, missie!"

There's also the fact that cow's milk is genetically formulated to help a calf gain a whole lot of weight in a short period of time.  I read a lot of stuff by some nutritionists, professors and doctors that suggest that the increase in milk consumption with children in the past few decades is why kids are going thru puberty faster and are larger than kids 50 years ago.  That supposedly hasn't been confirmed by the government and even if it was,  you and I both know that we will never know.

I'm done with the milk grossness now!  You can come back!

By the way, you can't milk an almond, rice or soy so that isn't milk in my world.   I refuse to entertain the discussion..... but I respect those who are successful an fooling their taste buds into accepting it.

The entire time I was pregnant I did not drink cow's milk.  I wanted to gag.  When the doctor said it was time for Allie to start drinking it, I hedged.  I learned that organic milk is kinder, so she gets that.... but only the bare minimum of it.  It feels just wrong to push it any futher.

Meat:  The food industry does miserable, horrible things to cows, pigs, chickens, etc.  When I learned that pigs react emotionally to being separated from their loved ones and mourn (LOUDLY) upon the death of their fellow pigs, I had a really hard time with that.  Pig products are rarely eaten here.  Beef must be grass fed and organic.  Veal is wrong.  I lived across the street from cows and I live in a cow town.   I challenge you to look at a calf eye to eye, watch how they are killed and then eat veal.

I had to stop eating chicken when I was pregnant because the smell grossed me out after driving past the Perdue factory on my way to VA.  That smell lived in my sinuses until I gave birth.  Blech!  Cage free eggs.  Why not be kind?  Do I need to expand on why cage free is better?  Hmmmmm.....smashed in  box until the legs atrophy and/or break, or clucking around the coop working out the dark meat?

"The horror of it all!  Why, I ask!  WHY?  Leave the beasts be!"

Last but not least, I have a really hard time with the "anything that's in the machines when we turn them on in the morning is considered an ingredient" policy of many plants that make processed meat.  What is considered acceptable by the food industry is way off the charts in my world!  I do not like my hot dogs with a vermin chaser.

Fruits and veggies:  I get the pesticide thing.  I understand WHY it is the way it is.  I will not bash anyone, especially farmers, when it comes to stuff that comes from the ground.  I live near farmers and  I see how hard they work at trying to keep their crops looking and tasting scrumpdillyicious until it all gets carted the hell out of here.  At least they are trying for the greater good.  But I still feed Allie organic fruit and vegetables every day.  I want to keep the chemicals out until I have no control about what she puts in her stomach.  And I'm no super mom here.  My lazy ass buys those pouches of puree for her.  God bless Earth's Best.  She loves them and I don't have to do the hard work of making them all sorts of tasty.   I tried cooking them myself and she hated it, so I learned my lesson. It's BV....Beyond Vic.

Well, this turned into quite the rant, didn't it?  Originally, I started all of this because I was amazed that I was willing to eat such garbage without thought, but I would do whatever I could to keep the same crap away from Allie.  I've chocked it up to another example of how motherhood makes you a smidgen more selfless.  I've also decided that ingesting a pound of chocolate mini eggs while giving my child only 8 plain M&Ms for a treat is the start of setting a very poor, hypocritical example of how to eat.  If I love my child enough to feed her only the best, I should try to do at least HALF as good for myself, right?

I suppose I should accept that Cadbury and Little Debbie are actually BRANDS, not valuable participants in the food pyramid.  DAMN. (By the way, have you seen that the food pyramid lately?  It doesn't look like anything I saw as a wee one in school.  The USDA got fancy!  Check it out here)

As a person who lives by the philosophy that cake makes everything better (I told you yesterday that I'm not perfect in the health department....I'm just trying!), I have promised myself that I will never force my child to eat a gluten free, sugar free, organic ingredients only cake again.  Some things purely exist for the purpose of happiness and just shouldn't be messed with.  Long live cake!

Allie's 1st Birthday and the "horrendously healthy cake".  Just by looking at the cake she can tell something is not right.

The look on her face says it all.  This was her one and ONLY bite.  I love how she's holding onto my mother's hand as if she's frightened. 

The cake on the left was Allie's cake and the one one on the right was for the rest of us who didn't give a sh*t what we were eating as long as it tasted good!  (You can see why I was so traumatized by the Elmo cake this year considering that the previous year's cake was this sloppy heart made with extra Vitamin L(ove)

By the time Halloween came around a few weeks later we decided to give in and let her have some of the tasty carbs!  This is her first piece of bread (it was Italian bread). Notice she's clenching bread in both hands and she's jammed so much in her mouth that she can barely chew.  I think she likes bread.

Freaky Food Fuss: Part1

When I was pregnant, I read a book called Skinny Bitch Bun in the Oven: A Gutsy Guide to Becoming One Hot (and Healthy) Mother.  I was determined not to be a fat, round blob after my baby was born.  When Im not pregnant I am not exactly what one would refer to as "being in good shape".  So, I didn't want to become one of those women who looks at pregnancy as an excuse to eat as if I had a tape worm, only to come out the other end of the situation going "Oh my gawd, Im a small planet!" The whispers of others haunted my dreams...."So THAT'S what happened to Pluto....SHE ate it!"

September 2010

I can proudly state that I only gained 24lbs total during those ten months and I actually weighed LESS a few weeks after giving birth than I did before getting pregnant.  I accomplished my goal of staying off of the map of the solar system and I was thrilled.  Of course, I didn't account for the fact that carrying a baby was helping me burn calories through that whole time, so when I didn't change my eating style after having Allie, I went right back to square one.  Size Fat, Pre-Baby.

The book ended up being nothing about how to be skinny and hot (although the ice packs I stuffed in  my bra while working during those summer months would tell you I was definitely HOT.)  However, I learned some things about food that changed how Allie and I ate then and how we both eat now.  I fully recognized that every single thing I ate was going through her little body as well, so I wanted to eliminate all things toxic.  My job was to create the healthiest little being I could, and to protect her from the bad stuff.  (This job apparently is long term since I'm still obsessed with it.)

The bun while still occupying the oven

Where to begin..... 

Sugar substitutes:  I could go on and on about this.  Sugar substitutes are not meant for people who don't have a sugar problem.  They jack up your metabolism and freak out your pancreas.  Insulin is running around your body like a disappointed golden retriever who thought someone knocked on the door.  "What?  There's no sugar here?  Are you sure?  Cuz all of the signs point to sugar being here!"  I wont even go into the conversion into formaldehyde and how it tries to make friends with your brain!  FOR-MAL-DE-HYDE!!  Bad bad bad friendship.

The juicy stuff is how all of that garbage got passed by the FDA, but I will spare you the legal talk.  It's some seriously crooked political bullshit.  Just google "why sugar substitutes are bad" and you will get LOADS of information.

So, with that being said, is there any reason why you would choose those pink, blue, yellow packets filled with evil shit over the stuff that grows from the ground that is just down right delicious??  Not if you aren't struggling with sugar issues?  And why would I start my baby's life with a chemical running through her teeny veins if I didn't have to?

My hardest task was finding gum with sugar in it.  I challenge you to find it in every store you go into.  Sugarless gum is all that's out there.  Juicy Fruit, Bubble Yum, Bubblicous and Hubba Bubba are being phased out.  I still only chew them since going to war with "the packet people".  There was a lot of crazy pregnant lady ranting going on in CVS at the register about how they must be part of the conspiracy.

(Tomorrow:  milk, meat and veggie drama....to be continued....)