What is organic food? Organic foods are grown traditionally in a natural environment without the use of pesticides or herbicides and have a higher nutrient value than conventionally grown crops. These methods are more time consuming and costly to produce whilst yielding less than modern mass production farming techniques.

I have made the choice as a consumer to support organic farmers by purchasing organic produce whenever available and as my budget allows.

These days I try to eat as much organic food as possible. Sometimes it is not easy to keep to a strict organic diet; especially when I go to business networking events that involve dinner or lunch. My attitude is that I will simply do the best I can with what I eat.

I now juice fruits and vegetables and have only recently cut out all types of meat. This decision to cut out meat from my diet was heavily influenced by a DVD that I saw titled “Food Inc.” which changed my perspective about eating meat.

Much of my time is spent constantly researching and understanding what I should and shouldn’t eat. The result for me has been amazing; I have lots of energy, I haven’t been sick in ages and I don’t have any health issues.

At 47 years of age I feel like I have the energy of a 25 year old and my body feels amazingly young and healthy. This gives me a very calm and easy going attitude towards life and helps me not to get too stressed out. I had some blood tests in February this year and the results were excellent.

If someone had told me to start eating the way I am now when I was overweight I really don’t think I could have done it. My bad habits would have been too hard to get rid of. I know I would have had difficulty changing to such an extreme way of eating because I wouldn’t have been prepared to change mentally and I would have definitely broken a diet like this within days of starting.

My bad habits resulted from years of not eating properly and I know I’m not alone with this either. I started to change my diet when I started researching online and learning more about nutrition. I did a few nutrition seminars which I continue to attend so I can learn what to eat. I know this sounds strange but once you start learning what is really good for you and what isn’t, it is quite surprising when you realise how much you have been depriving your body of nutritional food.

I slowly introduced new things into my diet and had to teach myself to learn to appreciate new tastes in food. It was not easy for me because quite frankly it was difficult to change. Also another factor is the cost of eating organic food: once you start juicing, eating super foods and buying organic – your weekly grocery bill will go up significantly. I did this slowly and every week I buy something extra for the pantry e.g. organic soy sauce, a large bag of brown organic rice or sesame seeds. Items like this will last for a while and they don’t need to be replaced every week. The trick is to slowly use what you have and then replace things with an organic alternative if that is possible.

My pantry now looks like a health food shop however; I still have things for the kids or things that are just normal grocery items. I also cut out other unnecessary foods so I can afford to eat organic. Our family eats around 4-5kg’s of bananas each week between four people.

If you can’t afford to go organic due to the cost then look at how you shop. Do you buy vegetables from Coles and Woolworths? If so consider buying them from your local grocer because they will usually go to the markets several times a week and bring fresh produce straight to their shop. The produce won’t be stored for long periods or gassed like the big food chains do. Take some time out to visit your local fruit and vegetable shops and find out how often they go to the markets. Become fussy with your foods, look at labels and learn about food additives and then make a conscious decision if you will eat that food.

Running my own business and fitting in a hectic training schedule, housework and taking time out to spend with my family means that I am time-poor. I’ve made the conscious choice that the health of my family is important to me so I need to shop properly to get the best quality food I can for us; I now go to four different shops to get my weekly groceries. I don’t ever want our family’s health to be jeopardised by eating poor quality food. Diabetes, heart disease and cancer can often be avoided if we make the effort to eat healthy nutritional meals.

Awareness and learning will give you the power to reduce the chances of getting many life threatening diseases and other serious health problems. I don’t remember knowing of too many any kids in the 70’s or 80’s having diabetes or being obese. Cancer was not as common amongst children or young adults so why has this changed now? Where is the cure for cancer with all the money that is raised for research and why can’t scientists find a cure for cancer?

The answers are out there; you have to do your own research and once you learn what is going on with our food chain you will be shocked.

Resource Links

Must see DVD’s
I update this page with some of the interesting DVD’s I’ve seen.
http://michelleallen.com.au/?p=200#more-200

Facebook Health Week

Change something each week, post your goal and then support others. This page is a community page set to allow us all to share information, our health wins or setbacks and most of all support others on a similar journey.
http://www.facebook.com/healthweek

Organic Maqui Berry
Learn more about Maqui Berry Benefits and how this amazing berry can help you with many health issues including weight loss.
http://www.maquiberrybenefits.com.au

Our Water
Water is essential for our health, find out the facts on water pollution and how you can help by not drinking water in plastic bottles. Just by switching to a stainless steel filtered water bottle will save you money as well as protect the environment.
http://www.bpafreedrinkingbottles.com.au