An All-Natural Experiment

I'm going to venture out of my usual blog fodder of fashion, Connecticut, men and beauty today to talk about an experiment I decided to try for the next month: eating organic.


I don't have the best eating habits in the world (buffalo wings and Blue Moon anyone?), and even though I maintain a healthy weight, I sometimes feel run-down and crappy for no apparent reason. After reading all about celebrities going raw and all-natural and such, and the recently-coined "real food movement," I decided to try a change in lifestyle for a month. I might lose weight or gain more tone, but my real goal here is to see if eating organic foods and dropping some substances from my lifestyle will make me feel better and have more energy, which are effects typically promised by organic food devotees.


Right now, I am guilty of eating farm-raised fish, nutra-sweet, caffeine, and processed foods. I love my Diet Coke, my Chinese food and as weird as this is, I love the Uncrustables PB&J frozen sandwich things, which are probably one of the most over-processed foods in the supermarket. So here is what I am going to try to cut out or drastically reduce in my diet:

1. Nutra-Sweet. I'll take the 50 calories for a sugar packet in my coffee, because after using Sweet-N-Low since high school, even though it's not on the cancer list last time I checked, it can't be good for you.
2. Factory-farm meat. I have eliminated this, with the exception of eating out, due to the numerous articles I read in the Times that turned my stomach and the horrible effects of factory farms on our planet. Plus, how good can it be to eat meat that was injected with hormones?
3. Low- and Non-Fat foods. In many cases, the fat is replaced with chemicals. That can't be good.
4. Bio-engineered foods. I'm only buying organic vegetables and fruit. They taste better and are worth the extra dollar.
5. Processed foods. The further from raw materials you get, the lower the nutritional value in any given food.


Here are some of the new foods I picked up to try out tomorrow, which will be Day 1:

• Odwalla energy juices, to possibly replace my morning/afternoon coffee
• Alaskan salmon, because farm-raised has more mercury
• Kashi cereal bars, breakfast idea
• Fruitabu fruit leather, for when I want candy
• Bolthouse Farms coconut juice, mostly as an experiment, but to be added to water for flavor.
• Polar flavored seltzer, not necessarily organic, but it's better than soda
• Odwalla high-protein cereal bars, to duke it out with Kashi
• Tribe all-natural hummus, to go with the organic baby carrots
• Bolthouse Farms Mocha Cappuccino protein smoothie, another breakfast possibility

As a Starbucks addict and a girl who likes things like alcohol and eating out, which are hard to get all-natural, it's unrealistic to say I'll go totally organic. But I think replacing the majority of my eating habits with better food will help me feel better, and be healthier for me, not to mention for the planet. I'll try this for a month, which I think is adequate time to feel results, and we'll see if it's all it's cracked up to be.

Good night!
Hayley