Organic, or not?

Last night Dave and I got in a heated discussion about organic food. I was making out my grocery list for next week and Dave suggested I buy all of our produce at the Int'l Farmer's Market around the corner from our house. I asked him if they had organic produce and the conversation went downhill from there.

You see, we are making all of Hadleigh's baby food, and both books that I have recommend that the baby food be made with organic produce. In Germany buying produce wasn't an issue because pesticides and hormones aren't allowed in their crops, but we all know that is different here in the states.

Dave's premise was all food is organic, of course I took the opposite argument thinking that paying a little extra for the good of Hadleigh was worth it. We ran to the internet to see what all those "reliable" sources had to say.

The interesting thing is that even the lable USDA organic doesn't seem to mean a whole lot. They have to rotate their crops and pull weeds, but they can still use pesticides, etc. Organic produce cannot be genetically engineered...whatever that means. So after reading up on the USDA homepage, and reading their suggestins for making baby food I have decided that buying fresh produce would be best and don't feel obligated to have the organic label on things.

So this morning I did make my first trip to the Farmer's Market and it was super cool, and all seemed super fresh. Since I can't grow my own produce this will have to do.

On that note I will also mention what Hadleigh is eating these days. She has become quite a good eater, and gobbles down most of what we give her. For breakfast this morning, she ate oatmeal mixed with sweet potatoes and an egg yolk. For lunch she had yogurt mixed with mashed up plums, and for dinner we will feed her butternut squash mixed with oatmeal and a cube of green beans. In addition to these foods she likes bananas, avocados, peaches, pears, apples, zucchini, acorn squash, and probably a few other fun things.