There's something strange about waking up one day to realize that I am now one of those people I used to think was crazy. For one thing, I don't feel all that crazy. I mean, no more than usual, anyway. Secondly, if I'm crazy, what are all those sane people thinking?
I didn't become a nutcase overnight; it was a gradual process. It all began when my wife started reading things. It was mostly about keeping the kids healthy at first.
wife: "Do you know about all the hormones and antibiotics and crap they give dairy cows?"
me: "I think I read about it somewhere."
wife: "I want to start getting organic milk for the kids."
me: "Um, ok."
I figure, hey, if my wife wants to be one of those weirdos that buys that organic stuff, that's fine. It's all for the kids, anyway, and who doesn't want healthy kids?
Then she reads Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Pollan convinced her to eat whole foods, which is essentially a doctrine that teaches you to use basic ingredients in your food like flour, butter, cream, onions, salt, and garlic instead of a can of cream-of-something soup. That, at least, was a concept I could get behind. That has long been my own philosophy of cooking and had nothing to do with healthy and everything to do with tasty. Kingsolver taught my wife that there are benefits to getting your food locally: fresher products, more intimate knowledge of what you're eating and who's raising it, and an understanding of the seasons of things (I call this the, "no, strawberries don't actually grow in December in this hemisphere" principle) so you know when foods are at their tastiest and most nutritious. I was sort of ok with this one too, as long as it didn't hit my pocketbook too hard.
Around this time, our regular purchases of organic foods were starting to extend past milk for the kids and we started regularly buying labels of local brands and looking at the produce tags to see where the food was grown. We also started planning to plant fruit trees in our backyard. I just about drew the line when my wife said she wanted to get all of our trees from some organic nursery. I can deal with a lot, but in my mind, fruit trees are expensive and I had no intention of paying ten times more for my trees just because some hippies started a nursery and started labeling their stuff 'organic.' My wife was pretty set on it, though, so we visited the nursery and actually got a really good deal on our trees. This was the first step down the slippery slope towards the organification of my backyard.
By this point, even I at times would purchase organic products from the grocery store. I would also check food labels for red flags like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils. I started forwarding my wife articles I would come across, like The Top Ten Foods to Buy Organic. Then my wife tells me that she wants to go to an essential oils class. I didn't have a clue what an essential oil was and I wasn't sure I was ready for any more insanity in our family. However, you don't get through 6 years of marriage without learning how to hold your tongue. Enter essential oils into my life, which I am sad to report, actually work.
What's next, you ask? Plastic. You are most likely aware that somewhere on each plastic product is a little triangle with a number in it. That number tells you what kind of plastic the product is made of. You may also have heard of the recent reports about BPA, an ingredient in polycarbonate and it's links to health issues. It turns out that polycarbonate (which is lumped into the mixed bag number 7 category) isn't the only plastic that leaches chemicals out into the food it contains. While some plastics are safer than others (number 2, HDPE, is what milk cartons are made of and is fairly safe) the only way to protect yourself completely is to use other materials to store food. That is why our cupboards are filling up with glass storing dishes and stainless steel mixing bowls. That is also why I now have two wooden bento boxes, straight from Japan, to take my lunch in instead of Tupperware.
So that's it. I don't know where the next bit of insanity is coming from but I'm sure I will come to embrace it in turn. For now I am an essential oil using, bento box carrying, organic whole food eater and grower. But don't even look at me like you want a hug, tree, because I will freaking chop you down. I still have some principles, at least until my wife changes them again.
I didn't become a nutcase overnight; it was a gradual process. It all began when my wife started reading things. It was mostly about keeping the kids healthy at first.
wife: "Do you know about all the hormones and antibiotics and crap they give dairy cows?"
me: "I think I read about it somewhere."
wife: "I want to start getting organic milk for the kids."
me: "Um, ok."
I figure, hey, if my wife wants to be one of those weirdos that buys that organic stuff, that's fine. It's all for the kids, anyway, and who doesn't want healthy kids?
Then she reads Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Pollan convinced her to eat whole foods, which is essentially a doctrine that teaches you to use basic ingredients in your food like flour, butter, cream, onions, salt, and garlic instead of a can of cream-of-something soup. That, at least, was a concept I could get behind. That has long been my own philosophy of cooking and had nothing to do with healthy and everything to do with tasty. Kingsolver taught my wife that there are benefits to getting your food locally: fresher products, more intimate knowledge of what you're eating and who's raising it, and an understanding of the seasons of things (I call this the, "no, strawberries don't actually grow in December in this hemisphere" principle) so you know when foods are at their tastiest and most nutritious. I was sort of ok with this one too, as long as it didn't hit my pocketbook too hard.
Around this time, our regular purchases of organic foods were starting to extend past milk for the kids and we started regularly buying labels of local brands and looking at the produce tags to see where the food was grown. We also started planning to plant fruit trees in our backyard. I just about drew the line when my wife said she wanted to get all of our trees from some organic nursery. I can deal with a lot, but in my mind, fruit trees are expensive and I had no intention of paying ten times more for my trees just because some hippies started a nursery and started labeling their stuff 'organic.' My wife was pretty set on it, though, so we visited the nursery and actually got a really good deal on our trees. This was the first step down the slippery slope towards the organification of my backyard.
By this point, even I at times would purchase organic products from the grocery store. I would also check food labels for red flags like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils. I started forwarding my wife articles I would come across, like The Top Ten Foods to Buy Organic. Then my wife tells me that she wants to go to an essential oils class. I didn't have a clue what an essential oil was and I wasn't sure I was ready for any more insanity in our family. However, you don't get through 6 years of marriage without learning how to hold your tongue. Enter essential oils into my life, which I am sad to report, actually work.
What's next, you ask? Plastic. You are most likely aware that somewhere on each plastic product is a little triangle with a number in it. That number tells you what kind of plastic the product is made of. You may also have heard of the recent reports about BPA, an ingredient in polycarbonate and it's links to health issues. It turns out that polycarbonate (which is lumped into the mixed bag number 7 category) isn't the only plastic that leaches chemicals out into the food it contains. While some plastics are safer than others (number 2, HDPE, is what milk cartons are made of and is fairly safe) the only way to protect yourself completely is to use other materials to store food. That is why our cupboards are filling up with glass storing dishes and stainless steel mixing bowls. That is also why I now have two wooden bento boxes, straight from Japan, to take my lunch in instead of Tupperware.
So that's it. I don't know where the next bit of insanity is coming from but I'm sure I will come to embrace it in turn. For now I am an essential oil using, bento box carrying, organic whole food eater and grower. But don't even look at me like you want a hug, tree, because I will freaking chop you down. I still have some principles, at least until my wife changes them again.
