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Have you ever noticed that if you talk about how you don’t eat {insert popular processed food here, e.g. cheese-covered tortillas chips, $2 frozen pizza) the room stills, voices are hushed, and people start to look at you like you obviously are from a different planet or have morphed into a food elitist? Here are a few of my most hated misconceptions about eating well.

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Do you buy baby food?

Now that Cullen is eating solids, I’m reading and trying to learn as much as I can about what I should be feeding him.  Pretty much everything I read tells me I should be blending, mashing, and pureeing my own baby food into little freezable containers.  The books and websites make it seem so simple.

These days, I think it’s really easy to question if, as parents, we are doing all the “right” things for our babies.  It’s easy to look around and feel like everyone else is supermom.  I stay at home with Cullen.  I take him to story times.  We play in the park.  I do the cloth diapering.  I really feel like I’m doing the best that I can do.

And while I do plan to make him some homemade baby food and have fun with some baby-led weaning, is it so bad that I’m also considering buying a few jars of the premade stuff just to make life a little bit easier?

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When Quinn was born, I quietly swore to myself that I would not be that “know it all” new mother. I rubbed my roundly pregnant belly and promised myself that I would be open-minded with the simpletons who insisted on giving me advice, even if I knew better. I’d welcome The Village and nod in deference.

I also promised that I wouldn’t let those same people chuckle to themselves for my being overprotective or over-researched. None of that, “Isn’t she cute? Not letting him eat off the floor! Just wait til she has her next kid. No more bubble-wrapping her babies then. Silly little girl playing Mommy.”

I would hit the ground running with kid #1 as though he were kid #5! Just watch me!

Oh, I would strike all the right chords, let me tell you. I would be well-researched on all of the latest child development studies AND let my kid eat off the floor.  Just confuse the bones out of all of my lookers-on, that’s right! You think you have me pegged? Ha! Watch me feed my child exclusively organic food in his hemp jumper AND vaccinate him to the hilt while letting him watch TV.

You don’t know me. (insert Z-snap here)

For good measure, I might find a study that stated letting kids eat off the floor is a good thing. Something about building immunity. Cover my bases.

In short, I had read too many magazine articles and absorbed too many modern parenting books. I imagined an army of strangers and loved ones poking their nose in my business (seriously, that’s what all of the articles swore would happen) and so I prepared. I would be graceful… while still knowing better. I would pull it off.

I absolutely wouldn’t do my all-time favorite thing in all of the whole wide world and SET THESE PEOPLE STRAIGHT.

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I'm not so sure about this...

We’ve been doing solids for two weeks now, and I was so excited that we finally bit the bullet and got started.  The first week, I gave Cullen a mixture of oatmeal cereal and breast milk, which he seemed to love.  I was thrilled that we were off to a good start.

Last week we had a small setback.  I heard a strange noise coming through the baby monitor, and rushed up to find Cullen throwing up in his crib.  It scared both of us to death.  But he had no fever, his spirits seemed fine, and the next day he was back to normal.  We figured it was a stomach bug or perhaps too much food (solids plus milk after).  Then we had a second setback this morning…

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It didn’t take much research to convince me that I wanted to feed my baby organic fruits and vegetables. When I learned that there were over 400 pesticides approved for use on the produce we eat daily and that, even after a washing, 98% of conventionally grown apples tested in a study conducted by the Environmental Working Group were contaminated, that was enough to motivate me to make the switch.

As a mother, my first priority is always the health and well-being of my baby, but I was surprised to learn that supporting the organic method of farming comes with the added benefit of helping others.

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Hi guys! Huck again, with my very last food blog. Tonight I’m going to share with you my very favorite junk foods. You know, food that you should only ever give your toddler sparingly. Like, when you’re bribing him. After the jump!

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We received a loaf of this bread from a friend, and it was so delicious that I just had to get the recipe and share it with you. The bread is light and moist and is great as toast with jam for breakfast, or with butter and a bowl of soup for dinner.

One recipe makes two loaves, and believe me, your kids will love this bread and you’ll need both loaves, because you can go through a loaf in one day!

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Cherry picking last summer

We recently started buying our milk from a co-op that offers local, grass-fed, non-homogonized milk. It’s been a little bit of a transition for us, as the milk tastes different than store-bought milk, and it has the cream on top, so you have to shake it before drinking it, and you still get a small clump of cream sometimes.

One day, my kids were asking me why we switched to a different kind of milk. And I responded that the milk we get now comes from a farm that is close to our city, where the cows get to graze outside on grass and live a happy life. I told them that now our milk comes from “happy cows”.

And, of course, their response cracked me up.

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Breakfast literally means to break the fast. My younger kids don’t seem to have a problem doing that. Usually the first thing they ask for in the morning when they roll out of bed is something to eat. However, as my eldest, now 12, gets older, it seems that she is more and more falling into that all too familiar routine of skipping breakfast.

I find myself telling her she needs to at least eat a few bites of something every morning more often than not, and since all my kids are there to witness it and to understand why we need to eat a healthy breakfast each morning, I also tell her what the benefits are to eating breakfast.

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A big thanks to YoBaby for sponsoring this series of posts. CLICK HERE for more of this discussion.

Over the last month I’ve written quite a bit about organic foods: reasons to consider buying organics, even more reasons to consider organics, and ways to save money on organic dairy and budget for other organic foods.

Maybe you’re convinced that you’d like to go organic, or you’re just organic-curious, but you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the options. Fear not: here’s a step-by-step way you can work on implementing more organics into your family’s diet:

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