One of my best friends and I have been talking alot lately about what we eat, how we feed our kids, and what we might be able to do to improve our health and theirs. We’ve been talking more and more lately about shifting toward more organic, local, natural foods.

If I’m honest, I’ve always been skeptical about organics. I like the idea of buying local to support small farmers and small businesses, and I believe they’re less likely in general to have the same problems as conventional foods. When it comes to organics, I feel like every article I read about their benefits is immediately countered by another article about why they aren’t so great. Plus, they’re more expensive.

All that being said, more and more lately I’ve been wondering if they’re not much more, and I’ve decided to start trying to track the cost of the things we buy and they’re organic counterparts to see what sort of financial impact it would make.

We went to a Moms Organic Market for the first time yesterday, and I was just so happy with it all. I tend to fight the idea of organics also for the sake of convenience, claiming that it takes too long to cook more, but here was a store full of “convenience” foods with short, recognizable ingredient lists. I spent less than five dollars and got three Larabars for myself, a Clif Z bar for Evi, and a small bag of Popchips. My friend got some really delicious Gorilla Munch, and these incredible Cookiehead cookies that were AMAZING and had such a fantastic list of ingredients. We had the honey maple walnut whole grain cookies, and they tasted every bit as good as other store bought cookies without all the added junk.

We also found a box of organic Hamburger Helper, which we’re embarrassed to be excited about.

Basically, I just want to see shorter, simpler ingredient lists on our foods, and fewer additives of any variety. I want to be more careful with the animal proteins Evi eats (though she honestly eats very little) and move toward a greener, simpler way of eating. In the end I want to start cooking a lot more, because I think that’s a cheaper way of reducing additives in food than shopping for organics all the time.

We also came up with a plan to have a Healthy Party in October where we’ll invite all of our friends to come out. We’ll serve only simple, healthy foods with clean ingredients, and we’ll share and collect ideas for how to go organic, eat clean, etc.

Here’s where I need your help! I need tips, thoughts, recipes… anything you’ve got. Facts on why to go organic, ideas on how to do it on a budget… I’ll take it all! Then I’ll share it at our October party and store it here on the blog too. Feel free to link to your own stuff, and I’ll share it on Pinterest too.