This post wasn’t supposed to be so long! I was inspired by The New Mommy Files’ post Spending, Saving and Finding a Balance, breaking down some of my family choices and the values behind this blog. Read or skim!

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The caveman diet

I really do believe that a “paleo” diet is best. Most adults are at least somewhat intolerant to wheat and dairy (lactose past childhood) as they are not a part of the natural human diet. The “food pyramid” most people are familiar with was created by the Department of Agriculture. Bread and milk are big government business!  I believe that it is healthier to live primarily on vegetables, fruits and protein, especially meat and fish.

THAT SAID, I am a total noodle junkie. Especially the bad stuff, like Kimchi Noodle Bowls. MSG 4 life. Fact: My one year old has tasted Top Ramen. My husband also cooks amazing fried rice, and he especially loves all things bread. I personally eat bread rarely, but Sebastian eats everything, and bread was one of his favorite foods early on. I love yogurt and Sebastian enjoys whole cow’s milk.

Eating only organics

When people say that eating organically doesn’t matter, it gets me really heated! Because what “non-organic”, the sad standard in this country, really means is chemicals. Probably toxic chemicals. Definitely not what your body is supposed to be ingesting. Unless it’s Diet Coke…

We would love to shop the local natural food grocery store + farmers markets exclusively, but simply cannot afford it. Unfortunately, most people can’t. And that is pretty fucked up, but not nearly as fucked up as the fact that foods full of chemicals don’t even receive a warning label. (Seriously, it is real foods that are labeled and not the other way around – Just think about that. Oh, and the word “organic” is hardly moderated. Unless it says “USDA Certified Organic”, there are lots of marketing loopholes.)

When it comes to organics, we have a list of things that we will ONLY buy organic, including apples and berries and milk. We made the switch to only organic milk when I was pregnant and are very happy with that decision. We are working on switching completely to organic meat as well despite the staggering prices. (It’s well worth the money, if you have it.)

Creating minimal waste

For as long as I can remember, it has made my stomach turn to throw a bag of trash into the dumpster. It makes me anxious to imagine all of our waste just sitting somewhere. Luckily we have recycling available in our apartment complex and almost all recyclable items do make it there. We upcycle mason jars into drinking glasses and I use cute wine and kombucha bottles as flower vases. We almost never buy paper towels and use cloth rags instead. (I like paper towels for some things but when we buy a roll, it’s too easy to just grab one when a rag would have worked just as well.) We save napkins and re-wash chopsticks that come with takeout.

I do wish that we could compost but we don’t have the space to set that up where we’re living now. I hate throwing things like banana peels into the trashcan. I hate how quickly our trash fills up in general really, especially when a lot of what gets thrown away could break down fairly quickly if not encased in a plastic bag.

One great way we do reduce a lot of waste is by cloth diapering! We have been cloth diapering since Sebastian was 8 weeks old and have purchased maybe a dozen packages of disposable dipes since then – Last week our washing machine broke, and we did buy a pack on our last day after a week of cloth diapering while camping. We almost always use cloth, which I love love love. We have also used cloth wipes since the day we began cloth diapering and the adults sometimes use the wipes too, for everything from makeup removal to family cloth.

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