PS!

Yogurt Phase of Step 2 is now complete!!!!

I will probably talk about this more after this week, but my yogurt is awesome.

Step 2: Organic Eggs, Yogurt, and Butter

Step 1 was organic milk. After much ridiculosity, I finally bought my milk and I love knowing that I've cut out one more source of bad things in our food. In just that short time we've already used almost a whole gallon -- can you tell I was in milk withdraw from not having it for a week?

Step 2 is to continue down the dairy path: Eggs, Yogurt, and Butter.

Eggs
I actually just used my first organic egg last night in some scrambled eggs I made myself for dinner. The awesomeness that is Whole Foods makes it so easy to get these products that I want. I bought these eggs from a local farmer (ok, so about 100 miles away, not great, but not terrible), through Whole Foods. It was just easy. They look so much different than store-bought. I mean, apart from the fact that they are brown. They're not perfectly shaped, some are smaller or larger. They have these fun little speckles on the shells. Generally the eggs were actually larger than the normal "grade a large eggs" from the store which I thought was interesting.

Yogurt
So far, I really want to make my own. My first attempt didn't go so well. You can read about my ultra noob-ness here. Really, who knew?

When I have my first solid (get it?) success at yogurt, I will consider step 2 essentially complete. I expect I will only continue to improve my yogurt-making skills, but currently I definitely can see I need to work on it.

Butter
I just opened my last box of regular butter, so probably soon I will switch to organic butter. Once again I am going with Organic Valley brand. They sell it at Whole Foods which makes it easier for me.I might even buy some at the store today when we go.

Stay tuned for step 3: Chicken.

PS, random funness, I posted this at 10am on 10/10/10. mwhahaha.

Step 1: Organic Milk

This is sort of the start of a spontaneous series I just thought of--recording my journey to buying higher quality food. This makes more sense to me than rambling for pages on each grocery budget.

Next time I go to the store, I am going to buy organic milk. I've done a lot of reading and I've decided, yes, organic milk really is better for you. You can read some stuff here and here. I found one hilariously poorly written / designed website bashing organic milk here.

Basically, it doesn't have any growth hormones, pesticides, or any other nasty stuff, and the cows are treated well and given (thanks to the new guideline which you can read about here) or here, a required 120 days in pasture in season.

Now that I decided to go organic for milk, I had to pick a brand. I read around, but I feel really daunted by trying to find a local farmer to buy from. Although I really shouldn't because the Cincinnati area has a lot of small farmers.

I read about Horizon, Organic Valley, and several others. these were the main two I was deciding between.

After I thought I had decided, I thought it was time to look for dirt. So I started searching for things like "organic milk deception" and "top organic brands" to make sure I was finding everything there was to find. One of the most helpful sites I found was here.

After doing my research, I've concluded that I will be buying from Organic Valley. They are basically a ginormous co-op of hundreds(?) of small-time, local farmers. Local milk from local farms goes to local stores--I love it. The only thing I could find negative about Organic Valley, was that they recently banned "raw" milk on their farms. No conspiracies, no hiding behind the regulations or skirting the issues, just making business decisions as businesses sometimes do. Plus, Horizon's website is so irritating to navigate.

Organic Valley has a helpful store locator which I've used so I now am fully equipped to buy milk I feel good about. Also, they have coupons!

I did just buy a gallon of non-organic milk tho, so I'm going to use that up before I buy organic, I don't want to waste it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Cookies!

I also made chocolate chip cookies from Joy of Cooking's recipe for chocolate chip drop cookies--fantastic!

I was comparing it to the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag and, they are pretty similar, but here's what I thought was interesting:

Joy of Cooking said to use 1.125 cups of flour and 1 cup of sugar (the other ingredients aren't important, I just want you to get a feel for how much dough this would make) and said it would make 45 cookies.
Back of Chocolate Chip Bag said to use 2.25 cups flour and 1.5 cups sugar and it said it would make 5 dozen (60) cookies.

So, for double the flour and 1.5 times the sugar, you are only getting a paltry 15 more cookies. You know what this says to me? Portion size. Cookies are bigger now-a-days. This is something I've been becoming more and more aware of in my search for healthy eating habits / healthy food for my family. I could rant for a long time about portion sizes here, and eventually digress into an all-caps post about the evils of fast food, but I am looking to have a more positive outlook than that.

I made a half batch, but only got 20 cookies (partially because I ate some of the heavenly dough, as did my hubby), which tells me I am pretty close to a reasonable cookie size. I think that paying attention to this sort of thing can really help with perspective when making / eating food. I for one, feel guilty about eating a certain number of cookies, regardless of size, so if I intentionally make them smaller, even if I eat 5 and feel guilty, it's still better for me than eating 5 cookies that are each worth a "normal" cookie and a half or more.

Ack! Salt!

One of the things I've been trying to do since I've been married is cook with less salt. I want to make flavorful dishes that don't require it. Just yesterday my mom talks to me and says the doctor told her to go on a low sodium diet, and did I have any suggestions. So, since I have to type all this up anyway, I thought I'd also share my salt story with you today.

Words

• mg = milligram
  
• dv = daily value
  
• oz = ounce
  
• "low sodium" means 140 mg per serving
  
• "no sodium" means 10 mg or less per serving
  

5 Quick Tips

• Pay attention to mg content, rather than the percentage dv and try to stay below 1,500 mg per day (less than 1 tsp)
  
• Don't eat "meals in a box" or any other of the instant foods, unless they specifically say low to no sodium. No "helper" meals, no mac & cheese, no "Home Bakes."
  
• Don't use canned veggies, soups, or meats with any frequency, as part of the canning process is to add a LOT of salt.
  
• Don't eat fast food or any ham more than once or twice a month, as it will completely blow your sodium goals for that day / week.
  
• Drink lots of water because it helps your body with salt and salt distribution
  

Fruit / Veggies

• Fresh vegetables have almost no sodium, while some canned veggies can have over 400 mg per serving. Canned fruits don't have too much sodium, but fresh fruit is better for you anyway.
  
• Pretty much any fresh veggie or fruit is a good choice: asparagus, avocado, broccoli, cucumber, peas, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, apples, pears, apricots, cantaloupe, grapes, grapefruit, oranges, peaches, strawberries, watermelon... etc
  
• The key here is to remember not to dump lots of salt onto all these great veggies you are eating.
  
• A great trick I learned is to season veggies with chili or garlic powder, or use lemon pepper seasoning. It adds a great flavor with none of the salt.
  

Meat / Dairy

• Avoid ham, as a single serving can have your entire daily allotment of sodium or MORE, depending on how it was cooked.
  
• Use meat as a garnish rather than as the main event; this will produce a savings on your grocery budget as well as reduce your sodium intake. EG: I make a lot of one-dish meals, and when I do, I usually add a pre-portioned amount of meat from my freezer. So one meal for 4 people, winds up only having about a cup of ground beef.
  
• The same goes for cheese. One idea for cheese is, buy a stronger flavored cheese, like Parmesan or extra sharp cheddar. You'll get more flavor per oz, which means you can use less.
  
• In poultry, dark meat has more sodium than white meat.
  
• Avoid "shelf-stable" meats like summer sausage because they are very high sodium foods.
  

Breads / Pasta / Beans

• Pretty much all pastas and rices are low in sodium, so long as they aren't part of a meal kit with a flavor (read: SALT) packet. Of course, I am biased to using whole grain products as a rule, and white only as an exception.
  
• Store-bought breads have more sodium than homemade, but not everyone has the time or the inclination to make their own, so look for low-sodium breads or just read the packaging until you find one that is lower than normal.
  
• Oatmeal is a great, simple, heart-healthy food and it actually is a zero sodium food.
  
• Don't use canned beans as they are very high in sodium. instead, buy bags of dried beans and soak them overnight when you know you will use them the next day. If you must use canned beans, at least thoroughly rinse them to cut down on the salt. Crock pots are wonderful for cooking dry beans
  
• Out of the bean family, lentils have the highest sodium content, so might be best to avoid that one or to eat it in small quantities.
  

Just about anything is ok in small quantities, and remember your body does need some salt in order to survive, but if your doctor is telling you to reduce your salt intake, some or all of these tips can help you along the way. As for me and DH, we don't have a sodium restriction in place from our doctor, but we generally try to follow the ideas mentioned above. We still use box dinner kits sometimes, we still use canned veggies and fruits. The biggest thing here is, moderation. We don't eat a dinner kit every night; but it is a nice convenience when we're both too tired from work and classes that day. I make a lot of our own breads, which also cuts down on sodium.

Moderation. Remember that. Quick Low-Sodium Meal Ideas

• fresh fruit or veggies
  
• oatmeal with milk & sugar
  
• toast w/ jelly or preserves
  
• toast w/ an egg
  
• fruit smoothies
  
• an apple w/ reduced sodium peanut butter
  
• a boiled egg salad (romaine, red onion, hard boiled egg, and a bit of olive oil & freshly ground pepper or a vinaigrette)
  
• lemon pepper veggies over whole wheat pasta
  
• a baked potato with a bit of cheese
  
• rice w/ veggies
  
• crock pot beans w/ veggies
  

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on sodium in food. My final thought is, do what works for you. If you don't want to make your own bread, don't. If you don't want to use dry beans, don't. Just make sure that you are making enough changes to reduce your sodium intake to 1,500 mg or less per day. Read food labels, look for "no sodium" or "sodium free" items as those are easy things to get you going in the right direction.

Enjoy!
What do you think about sodium?