I never thought of myself as a food snob. I love to eat. I love to eat well. It occasionally effects my weight if I let the eating well take over my sense of fullness. But what others eat is something I've not really cared about. Until about 5 years ago, I ate a fairly normal American fair, with the exception of fast food. I've never been a fast food or fried food fan. They always upset my stomach, so I just avoided them.
About 5 years ago, though, I started the slow process of educating myself about food. I've always been into research. Tell me I have whatever disease and I'll be speaking in doctor lingo in no time. I'm my kids' pediatrician's worst nightmare on that type of thing. I slowly became aware of organic foods, GMOs (genetically modified organisms), Montsanto and Round-up pesticides, pastured meats and eggs, and a whole host of other food-related news that I'd never known. I now refuse to willingly feed my children so many things that many moms consider child food. My kids will never go to McDonalds, if I can help it.
My older son has started Kindergarten, and on a recent walk to school with him, we decided to meet up with another mom. Her son is my son's best buddy in the new class, and she also has a younger child like we do, so we've had a great time talking. On the walk home, she handed her young daughter a package of Hostess blueberry muffins. I literally cringed and had to hold back an exclamation. Every sense of my being wanted to grab the muffin out of her daughter's hand. I considered it to be a chemical creation, like play-doh. Something I couldn't imagine ingesting myself, much less willingly giving it to my child. I had to hold back, for the sake of friendship and just inwardly cry a little. The force of my food snobbiness hit me like a wall when I got home. I couldn't believe that I'd been so harsh (albeit internally), and who was I to judge? I quickly asked another natural momma friend what her thoughts were, and she cringed exactly as I had.
My husband thinks I've gone off the deep end. Maybe I have. I watch him eat little cracker sandwiches with processed cheese, and feel like he's slowly killing himself. I buy mostly organic, although I'm not insane about it - we do occasionally end up with non-organic produce. I read the labels on just about everything we buy. If it has a ton of chemicals, I don't buy it. You'd be surprised how many things in a regular grocery store that applies to. I also get my beef from a local rancher, and buy the free-range chicken from Trader Joe's. When it's not the super hot summer, I also buy organic produce from a local co-op. Going through the co-op has actually made my switch to all-natural much cheaper.
I still buy a few items that I'd like to eventually move away from. My older son has Asperger's Syndrome, and getting him to eat anything beyond the five safe foods he likes is close to impossible. So I still feed him Oscar Mayer Bologna, even though I've tried to switch him to the Whole Foods grass fed beef (nitrate free) bologna. He patently refused that one and threw up with I tried to force it. I also still buy the "cage-free" organic eggs, which I realize is a total joke if you're educated about how eggs are produced. [If you're not familiar with it pastured is the only humane way, see more here: http://grist.org/sustainable-food/lexicon-of-sustainability-cage-free-vs-pasture-raised/]
I've recently started trying to eat a Primal diet, which is basically pastured or wild meats, organic veggies and fruits, and some dairy. I stick to this about 85% of the time, but I feel pretty good about that balance for now. I eat almost no processed food, with a few minor exceptions (diet soda being my current biggest hurdle).
I'm still troubled my reaction and whether it's my place to educate those that obviously don't know the difference. I wish the USDA would be taken over by people who've done family organic farming, rather than being run by those CEOs of the major food producers. That's like the blind leading the blind. If we had better regulation in place and people that actually cared about our health in charge, I think we'd see a difference in the food industry. And I'm loathe to use the word industry, because that in and of itself is what is wrong with our food system today.
