Bora Bora

Get a free Bora Bora organic wellness bar here. They are all-natural, USDA organic certified fruit and nut bars. When you sign up to have the company send you a bar, you are automatically enrolled in a drawing for a free trip to the island of Bora Bora. I have a second email address I use for these type of things.

Thanks, Organic Deals and Coupons!

Fiddledeedee Organic Friday

Thanks, Fiddledeedee, for your organic deals roundup!

Don't Judge a Book...

I've always judged Big Lots as a dump. But I had to pop in today to purchase door handles my realtor recommended we buy, which is how I wound up discovering a treasure trove of organic goodies.

I am now a Big Lots believer. I stocked up on almost $28 worth of organic products and I will be back. In fact, I joined BL's reward program, the Buzz Club, which entitles me to 20 percent off the next purchase when I make 10 purchases of $20 or more.

I also had to swing by Kroger, so I got to make some price comparisons.

My purchases:

4 boxes Annie's Organic Macaroni and Cheese, $1 ea. (Kroger: $2.19 ea.)
3 bottles Glen Muir Organic Pasta Sauce, 25.5 oz., $1.30 ea. (Kroger: $4.99 ea.)
2 bottles Campbell's Organic Tomato Juice, $1.50 ea. (Kroger: $3.99 ea. for a comparable organic brand)
2 16-ct. boxes Yogi Organic Tea: green chai and apple spice, $2 each (Kroger $4.59 ea.)
1 box Cascadian Farms Fruitful Os Cereal (for kids), $2 (Kroger $4.99)
1 box Kashi Cinnamon Harvest Cereal, $2.50 (Kroger $4.99)
1 package Kashi TLC trail mix cookies, 8.5 oz. box, $2 (Kroger $3.49)
1 box Cascadian Farms Organic Peanut Butter Chip Granola Bars, 6 ct., $2 (Kroger $4.79)
1 cannister whole almonds, $2.50 (not organic, but the non-toasted almonds are really good for you; I forgot to price check at Kroger, but think I remember them being about $5)

The $1.30 Glen Muir pasta sauce is a steal and I'm wishing I bought all the bottles I saw. It's even cheaper than the regular pasta sauces on sale at Kroger.

The $1.50 organic vegetable juice is another steal (Yuck! But my husband takes them to work and really enjoys them!). The same size non-organic Kroger brand is $2.19, the non-organic V8 brand is $2.99, and a comparable organic brand is $3.99.

[Just added: Ben just came home and got really excited about the vegetable juice - and he's not one to get excited about groceries. He's been buying himself the store brand and paying more money. Now I have to go back and stock up!]

Alas, the Big Lots in Newnan does not accept coupons unless they're generated by the store. Some Big Lots do accept them. If you're planning to go and think you may go 10 times over the next year, sign up with the Big Lots rewards club first for extra saving.

And if your BL does accept coupons, click here and here for some Kashi coupons.

Evos

After a spending a chunk of Saturday at the Ringling Brothers circus (Zing Zang Zoom) in downtown Atlanta, we decided to head a bit north in the city to visit a healthy fast food place I heard about: Evos.

Why can't this place be closer to where I live? I fell in love.




This was my selection. Tasted great. Of course, I didn't check the nutrition guide until after I ate it. I then realized that at 660 calories, plus 150 for dressing and 80 for rice noodles, I had by far the most fattening item on the menu. A good lesson: whenever a menu includes Thai food with a peanut sauce, it's gonna be high in calories.


Now, Ben on the other hand, went for the double-stack burger with airfries. They don't deep fry anything in this store. Ben said he missed the grease in the burger. I thought it was really good. More "beef" tasting than most burgers. And I love the taste of red meat, even though I don't eat it often. The burgers come from organic grass-fed beef. Two-thumbs up.


The fries are air-baked. My kids gobbled them up. Four flavors of ketchup available, from original to garlic to fiery hot - all organic.


The chocolate shake Benjamin chose was awesome. The vanilla shake my husband picked was very good. The mango banana fruit shake I got was okay. The kids loved it, but I probably wouldn't order it again. Why is it that I always like what everyone else orders? The milkshakes are made with organic low-fat ice cream. I swear I could not tell the difference.

My New Crush: Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is a key authority on organic eating. He's a journalist who's been reporting on where food comes from for more than 20 years. He's also the author of the highly acclaimed, top-seller "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto".

Gotta love quotes like these: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Avoid fake (i.e., processed) food, ignore health hype (it's often dead wrong), graze widely, and don't eat anything your great-grandma wouldn't recognize."

I saw these links from the Oprah site that I thought were handy for newbie organic eaters like me.

Real Food, Real Answers: 8 Questions with Michael Pollan

Food 101 with Michael Pollan

Don't Buy It...

One of those pricey, vegetable pre-wash sprays, that is.

Now, while I'm sure they work quite well, the fact is that you can make your own spray quite easily. Here is a dirt cheap, easy-to-make recipe. And you probably already have all the ingredients. I use it all the time and am always amazed by how much grime comes off my produce.

1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons baking soda
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix all together in a large bowl with a pour spout. Once the fizzing subsides, pour the mix into a spray bottle. Spray produce thoroughly and let sit for 10 minutes. Rinse in clean water.

The Dirty Dozen

The dirty dozen are the fruits and vegetables that carry the most pesticide residue. When deciding which organic produce to purchase, you should consider buying these first.

apples
bell peppers
celery
cherries
grapes
nectarines
peaches
pears
potatoes
raspberries
spinach
strawberries

In an ideal world, all my produce would be organic. But the biggest bang for my buck would lie in making the items on this list my organic purchases. I'd have a negligible advantage in purchasing the organic version of most other produce. Why? In the case of bananas, for example, the thick skin, which comes off completely, prevents the "meat" of the banana from absorbing the pesticide.

I recently saw on the "Today Show" that apples were the worst pesticide carriers because of the amount of chemical sprays they "require". I'll be back with a report on the veracity of that claim.

All produce should be washed thoroughly, regardless of whether they're organic. My next post will feature an easy-to-make produce wash that will get rid of most of the residual pesticides.

Fiddledeedee

One of my fave couponing sites has a feature called "Organic Fridays". That's where I can find great deals and coupons on organic foods. And many of those featured deals are at Publix, my favorite grocery store in Georgia.

Gotta love http://www.fiddledeedeemom.com/!

Coconut Bliss

This is our test product of the day: Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss frozen dessert.

It's a non-dairy product - made from coconut milk. Now, I didn't know that when I bought it. I went into one of my new fave stores - a natural foods store in Peachtree City - and an employee there talked me into trying out one of these buy one get one free (bogo) "ice creams". The taste took some getting used to. Delicious, but not as sugary sweet as what I'm used to.

My husband thought the chocolate flavor was a bit too intense. (Ha ha... Is that possible ladies?) Benjamin (age 5) scarfed it up and asked for more. I called it ice cream and he didn't notice a difference. I got vanilla and chocolate and we sampled both. They're usually $6.49 each. I know I'd only purchase it again at the sale price, but even then it's more costly that the gallon of regular, sugar-laden, non-organic, dairy-based ice creams I buy in the supermarket. And the Coconut Bliss is sold in pint sizes. The cost is the down side.

This, however, is the up-side: it's made of rich coconut milk and sweetened with agave syrup (which we use in our home in lieu of sugar), it's certified organic and made with certified fair trade ingredients. As a pre-diabetic (my mother has diabetes and I had gestational diabetes during both pregnancies), I'm always looking for sweet products that won't shoot up my blood sugar.

Conclusion: a Poorganic 3 out of 4 leaves - when on sale. Kids like it. Mom likes it. Organic and vegan. And it won't send me into a diabetic coma. Cool.

Poorganic's Genesis

Last Saturday, Ben and I watched the movie "Food, Inc." It's just the last in a line of documentaries and books I've absorbed in the past year that cleverly presented the argument for eating whole, organic food.

Now, I'm like most people (I think). The idea of going organic seems great. That is, until you see the pricetag attached. I can get my regular gallon of milk for $1.99 these days. Organic milk: $6.00. That's when going organic doesn't seem feasible.

But this movie clinched it for me. I've got to try. And I know it will have to be a gradual change. As I survey my pantry, I see boxes of processed food (like four boxes of wheat Ritz crackers) that I don't plan to toss just yet. But my goal is to replace everything with organic products once I use up my pantry items. I'm already pretty good about being healthy: brown rice, 100 percent whole wheat/grain bread and pastas, 100 percent juice - and that kind of thing. But going organic will take a deeper level of commitment.

Again, it won't be overnight. Several months back I made the declaration that I was going vegan. That announcement followed a period of reading books about the food industry. Uggh! Disgusting. The way meat is processed, the fecal matter that inevitably gets in the food, the animal cruelty, the massive amounts of chemicals in the food (did you know that ammonia is used in beef filler to help kill the ecoli?) - all of that and more is enough to turn your stomach. But enough of that. I don't want to harp on all the info that is so readily available nowadays about processed food. Back to my point... The vegan thing lasted less than a week. Too radical to take on at one time.

I decided to put this blog together as a way to document my quest to have my family eat mostly organic foods - on a budget. Thus, "Poorganic". Can a typical suburban mom go organic on a tight budget? Or is organic living only for the upper classes in a first-world country (or the masses in a third-world country where people grown their own food without chemicals and eat it. The irony!)

Already, I've had some encouragement. I attended a party Saturday, right after watching the movie, and discovered that there were other people trying to go organic. My friend, Rhonda, a nutritionist, knows of a place an hour away that sells grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and the like. She says it costs the same as the food sold in the supermarket. Hmmm... Seems too good to be true. But, we're going to get a small group up there and make a purchase. Apparently, you have to buy in bulk.

I'll be back to report on the trip.