Food for Thought

The other night I went to hear the "Erin Brockovich of Food" speak.  She was visiting our valley to talk about her new book, The Unhealthy Truth:  How Our Food is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About it.  The information she shared was jaw-dropping.

Organic food is a passion of mine.  I wasn't always this way.  But just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from, on April 7, 2004, my youngest son was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL).  We'd fiddled around with some organic eating prior to his diagnosis, but once we heard the words, "Your son has cancer," we realized we needed to stop messing around with our children's health and get serious.

So after five and a half years of looking for answers by eating organically, baking my own bread, drinking raw milk, buying eggs from farmers, removing chemicals from our house in any form, reading everything I could get my hands on about nutrition and spending countless hours trying to convince our local school district to stop serving chicken nuggets whose first several ingredients are chemicals and preservatives as opposed to, you know, chicken, I thought I'd heard everything.

I hadn't.

So what did Robyn O'Brien, the Erin Brockovich of Food, say that was so astounding?

It wasn't how she got started as a food crusader--she's just like us:  A married mother of four who never really gave much thought to chemicals in our food until her daughter had a severe allergic reaction to eggs.

No, the information that really set my teeth on edge were facts like:

• How prevalent food allergies have become in the U.S.--at least one out of every 17 kids under the age of three suffers from them, more than double the number just 10 years ago.
• One out of every three U.S. kids currently suffers from one of the new "epidemics"--food allergies, asthma, ADHD, or autism.
• Companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart cannot produce and market the same products in Europe as they do in the U.S.  EU countries don't allow all of the artificial colors and flavors our legislators say are A-OK for Americans to consume.

And it just went on from there.

I was totally disgusted and frustrated by the end of the presentation.  Why do I have to lobby Congress to ask that I, or my children, not be poisoned by our food?  Why do I have to spend so much time reading labels instead of being able to pick up a box of crackers without having to see if they include Red #9 and MSG?  And most irritating, why do I have to pay more for food that contains fewer chemicals and additives.  This seems counterintuitive to me.

I spend so much time worrying about what my kids are eating that sometimes I feel like Andie MacDowell's character in the movie Sex, Lies and Videotape.  Remember her?  She was obsessed with the garbage barge and where it was going to go with all of that garbage.

Chemicals in our food is my garbage barge, occupying my thoughts nonstop.

But the presentation also motivated me.  It reminded me that one person can make a difference.  It reminded me that nothing worthwhile is easy.  And it reminded me that change happens in small increments.

If you look in my freezer tonight, you will find non-organic frozen pizza.  Oh, how I look forward to Friday nights when I serve it.  It's my "vacation day" from cooking.  There are non-organic Oreo-style cookies in my pantry that my boys used to make a craft the other day.  I'm betting more than a few were consumed during the craft.  Come to think of it, you'll find a few more "toxic" foods in my cupboards if you root around for long enough.

We're mostly organic around here, but I'm not perfect.  I don't expect the rest of the world to be perfect, either.  But I guess I would like to be more like those moms in Europe who perhaps have a little more confidence that they're not poisoning their kids simply by making mac 'n cheese for lunch.

At the end of the presentation, I had the chance to talk with Robyn about her efforts to talk to our country's legislators about improving the safety of our food supply.

"How do our legislators respond when you present them with all of these statistics and information?"  I asked.  "How can they not be shocked and agree to make immediate changes?"

She gave a knowing mother smile.  "It's kind of like potty training a toddler."

Enough said.  I'm getting out the Pull-Ups and preparing for the long haul.

This is an original Rocky Mountain Moms blog post.  You can probably find Natalie baking organic chocolate chip cookies over at How Can I Control My Life If I Can't Control My Hair?.