• I have relatives who scoff at my organic, BPA-free, grassfed, natural, label-reading, healthy way of eating. They can’t go as far as calling me a crunchy, granola-eating hippie because, A)  I don’t eat granola – the oats haven’t been soaked to remove the excessive amounts of phytic acid, and the sugars/carbohydrates are usually high on the label. (I’m kinda joking but kinda not). And B)  I eat meat.  Lots of it! Truthfully, probably too much. You might be thinking I have a Vitamin B-12 deficiency by the amount of red meat I crave to eat. It just tastes sooo good. Of course, excessive red meat is also not healthy, like anything else in excess, but I make sure it’s not the hormone-filled grade so, I feel a little better. You get the point.

    Once when I tried being a vegetarian for 3 years in college. I broke down for a steak and asked my friend if I could have a bite, and devoured the entire thing. Once I did start eating meat again,  I could have cared less about eating chicken though. In fact, after returning to eating meat, I have never really enjoyed chicken unless it was slathered heavily in sauce. Until…I found a local farmer who sells honest-to-goodness, free-range, freshly slaughtered chickens that aren’t fed soy or corn or anything but only eat bugs found in the grass. You really can taste the difference. Try it!

    Back to my nay-saying relatives. You can’t call someone a hippie who eats meat, by my relative’s definition. I also shave under my armpits. So what do they call me? A sucker, a fool, someone who overpays for food.

    And to the doubters, I challenge you this:

    Buy your groceries and save the receipt. Now find the healthier equivalent and compare receipts. I did this once. Read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, “ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE.” In the book, her husband does a financial breakdown for the long term cost of health issues versus eating healthy in the present moment. That should be enough to convince you. The difference is not as much as you think. In fact, sometimes, it can be the same. When you are grocery shopping in a healthy fashion, you might try skipping the foods in a box and just getting fresh produce, meats, eggs, dairy, nuts and legumes. Even non-organic processed foods add up. So, you might end up buying less and hopefully eating healthier portions. There are ways to eat healthfully on a budget. So, model what you tell your children, “Where there is a will, there’s a way!”