{"id":6965,"date":"2013-02-05T16:24:37","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T21:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/?p=6965"},"modified":"2025-02-21T06:34:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T06:34:45","slug":"the-grocery-game-challenge-6-february-4-10-2013-what-foods-not-to-eat-organic-and-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalskyweb.co\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/2013\/02\/05\/the-grocery-game-challenge-6-february-4-10-2013-what-foods-not-to-eat-organic-and-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grocery Game Challenge #6 February 4-10, 2013~ What Foods Not To Eat, Organic and Gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit<\/p>\n

I was reading an article yesterday on Yahoo about 9 foods that we should never eat<\/strong> and wasn’t sure what to make of it. What I did realize though was how important growing organic food was and why we do it every summer. One of the items on the list was canned tomatoes which we use in the off-season for making pasta sauce. It states that it’s not that tomatoes that are the problem it’s the can. The can itself apparently has a harmful chemical called (BPA) <\/strong>Bisphenol A<\/a><\/strong> which is a chemical found in hard plastics and the coatings inside food and drink cans called epoxy resins. They behave in a way like estrogen and other hormones in the body. After reading more about the potential health effects of this chemical I’m shocked they are even allowed to be using it. The article goes on to say that it’s best to find tomatoes in a jar rather than a can. We typically buy our tomatoes in the can.<\/p>\n

A few other foods in were deli meats which they say are crap, which for the most part may be true as they are full of sodium, hormones, antibiotics and nitrates.<\/strong> They say opt for a cooked turkey, tuna fish sandwiches or roast chicken instead which we could easily do and get plenty of meals out of it. Margarine and vegetables oils well those are other foods that we should already know are not good for us but that doesn’t stop everyone, someone has to be buying the stuff, we have. Salt is\u00a0OK\u00a0in moderation which is understandable but I rarely have ever thought to purchase a higher quality salt. I do have\u00a0Fleur\u00a0de\u00a0Sel<\/strong> from France which was a gift, that sounds posh to me.<\/p>\n

One product use that we did change is using\u00a0sweetener in our coffee, tea<\/a> and other foods. We noticed that we were craving sweets often and read up how\u00a0sweetener\u00a0is just not that great. You could opt to use something like stevia or revert back to\u00a0granulated\u00a0sugar which we did. No sense putting something that contains aspartame and potentially causes cancer and neurological disorders into our bodies if we don’t need to. Best of it is the article mentions a study that confirms artificial sweeteners cause weight gain and\u00a0increased\u00a0appetite.<\/strong> Bet that comes as a shock to those who use it NOT to gain weight. If you are a soy drinker they say drop the soy protein isolates and opt for coconut, almond milk and tempeh. We don’t use any type of soy products in our diet so this doesn’t apply to us but may for you.<\/p>\n

Potatoes was another mention and they say to go organic if you can with potatoes. I had somewhat of an idea about what they were going on about and really it does make sense to me. Potatoes soak up all the nice chemicals in the ground because they are a root vegetable and heavily sprayed with fungicides and pesticides<\/strong>, no surprise there. I might actually try and grow some this year because our relatives do and you can easily taste the difference between organic and non-organic vegetables and fruits. If we had a bigger plot of land we would grow as much as we could. As soon as our garden is ready to eat, it’s like heaven in your mouth and you wonder why we buy what we do in the supermarket. I nearly fell over when they tried to charge me almost $4.00 for 4 tomatoes on the vine today which were NOT organic. The reason is organic is costly and not everyone can afford to spend $3.99 on 2 bulbs of organic garlic when they can get a 5 pk of non-organic garlic for $1.00 or less. It’s even more reason to dig up any part of your garden or plant a balcony garden as long as you get some sunlight to weigh in on all the organic nutrition\u00a0in the\u00a0\u00a0foods you can sow and grow<\/a>\u00a0and save money.<\/p>\n

Sadly, they say our favourite movie snack in a bag is a big no, no. That’s right that microwave popcorn is coated on the inside and when you put it in the micro the coating melts onto your lovely popped corn. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it. \u00a0The bags liner apparently contains PFOA a proven toxicant and carcinogen in animals and may lead to infertility, liver and testicular cancer. \u00a0Are you heading to the pantry yet to start tossing out food? I know, very tempting but with anything in life that is processed or treated in any way we risk putting all of this into our bodies.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we have to do what we have to do in order to put food on the table where it becomes more of a game of survival then anything else. It’s just not realistic for many to spend that kind of money in the budget especially with so many other bills and debts we have to pay. Unless of course your options are limited by your health and you have to make that choice. Maybe I’m jumping the gun but I would love to see what an all organic grocery shop looks like each week in terms of cost. Maybe we will score a grocery game challenge poster that does all organic shops. So, when fans ask me how much should my grocery budget be<\/a>, the answer is simple, it’s up to you. No one can tell you what your budget should be but you. Problem is that anything that is good for us will cost us an arm, leg and other body parts if they can squeeze it out of us. Even if we can buy or grow a few organic foods and still stick to the budget <\/a>that’s not so bad, I guess. I’m hoping to get more guest\u00a0Bloggers that are professionals on the topic this summer to share some tips and tricks in the garden and talk more about organic foods for us.<\/p>\n

There is so much we can and can’t eat in today’s world I don’t know if I’m sad or happy that they find all of this information out about products but know that an informed consumer is better than not knowing anything at all. One thing I do know is that the prices aren’t coming down fast on organic products, one trip to the organic section today and I struggled to put stuff in our shopping cart. What I want to know is how organic is organic when we don’t get to grow it ourselves?<\/p>\n

You can read the full Yahoo article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How often do you buy organic and what do you normally purchase?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coupons Found This Week<\/strong><\/h5>\n

\"february-canadian-coupons<\/p>\n

Our Grocery Shop This\u00a0Week<\/h5>\n

\"february-grocery-game-challenge-shop-1<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0Grocery Game Challenge Results\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Shoppers Drug Mart<\/strong><\/p>\n