An Oreganic Life

I live in a suburb located about 20 minutes away from one of the most beautiful parts of Oregon, reknown for its proactive approach to taking care of the environment, raising community gardens, and favoring locally-grown organic foods. Back in 2006, Portland was voted the greenest city in America. It has one of the largest, most sustainable transportation systems in order to cut back on urban congestion and air pollution. Many places have limited or completely banned smoking from public places and parks. City buildings are going green in whatever ways they can, including DH's work and the private school I teach at. You might say that it all had to rub off on us at some point.

We try to do the usual things such as carpool, turn off lights, unplug, and recycle. Now we are turning our attention to food. After discovering some health issues, DH was informed by his doctor to improve certain aspects of his diet. We both agreed that our whole family could benefit from this, so we have been working on making healthier choices when it comes to food. We were never ones to overdo any particular bad habit, but we realized that even the little things can add up quickly in terms of calories, sugar, and fat. I am not now nor have I ever been professional nutritionist, so I don't know how much of an impact we are making, but the numbers on the scales are improving. We are also seeing improvements in our overall energy. So now when I go shopping, I substitute certain foods for more organic selections and these tiny changes are making a difference. Many stores are carrying a huge variety of organic foods, so this has made this journey fairly easy. For instance...

• Vitamins. This is the easiest way to improve anyone's nutrition, though it is not enough. The kids take a daily multi-vitamin, though DH and I need to remember to do this ourselves more often. Why is it we take such careful care of our children, but neglect our own choices so much?


• Snacky foods. We allow ourselves the occasional indulgence of a bag of Orville Redenbacher, but try to stick with the all natural Pirate's Booty for snack times. Instead of cookies and chips, the kids snack on granola, yogurt (sometimes we freeze it), or dip carrots into ranch.


• We've cut back on the mainstream sodas in favor of Fresca or Hansen's more natural beverages when we crave carbonation. I know I have a Coke addiction (the soda kind), so it's definitely helped me to cut back on it. We've always tried to limit our children's caffeine intake to the occasional sip, though we allow a caffeine-free soda once in a blue moon. Most meals, they drink water, milk, or juice.


• When I shop, I have to look for foods that are low in sodium and contain no or fewer preservatives. Sometimes, I find this an impossible task when it means saying no to favorite foods. Bacon is one of the hardest to "just say no" to (and we still often say "aw screw it!). Pasta and rice dishes are now special treats.


• We are not so gung ho on these changes that we've denied ourselves certain meals from our weekly menu. DH is a pizza freak, so this one has been a toughie. This is why we try to cut back in the areas that are realistic for us to follow through on. Change is tough for anyone, so to make these changes stick, we are taking our time. However, I've introduced a tomato cheese bread meal into the mix, which tastes a lot like a veggie pizza and that has helped.

• Eating more fresh veggies (canned has high sodium content) and salads more often has definitely helped fill us up during dinner. I try to include at least a couple of salad creations throughout the week. We throw in a variety of toppings to spruce it up too. This can include any combination of veggies such as grape tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, snap peas, carrots, radishes to other goodies like shredded cheeses, croutons, tortilla strips, bacon bits, and cranberries. The salad is often the main course and is paired with a yummy bread or seasoned chicken. I highly recommend tomato basil flatbread which I have found sold at Safeway.

• We have tried to eat more fruit as well. Bananas and apples are the mainstays, but we are trying to throw in some new additions such as apricots and pears. The kids love peppers and the like, so that has never been a problem. When I make a skillet breakfast, they get a healthy dose of onions, green and red peppers. I am still on the picky side of this one, so I just remove what I don't like. Trying to raise my kids not to end up high mainenance with their food, like me.

This past weekend, we added one more thing to our diet. Instead of gorging on a big lunch, we snacked on some string cheese, crackers, and hummus. Baby steps. Are we morphing into crunchy treehuggers now? Can't say that we are (not that there is anything wrong with that). While we are nowhere near where we should be with our nutrition, we making small strides. It's a lot like trying to go green with your cuisine. Most of us aspire to take care of our environment, so we reduce, reuse, and recycle to decrease our carbon footprints. Why not be just as kind to our own health?