by  Minty   LaVendy

Not everybody realizes how important it is to eat healthy.  American people are usually very misguided when it comes to a healthy diet. Feeding her family is the most important responsibility a mother can have, it can make a night and day difference in a child's life now and later. We need to inform ourselves and realize that most of the food available to us is ladden with chemicals, hormones and other additives. The impact of those substances on our health is incredibly negative: from asthma, to ADHD, to cancer and so mainy other ailments....  For me a healthy diet is an organic, plant based diet. When we decided to switch our consumption to exclusively organic produce, it did involve a bit of an extra expense ( somewhat offset by the fact that we stopped eating meat.) The most affordable way I found, where we live, was to join a buying club. There are groups of people, who make it possible for you to purchase affordable fresh organic produce, like co op and buying clubs. We joined almost two years ago and the more we consume fresh produce the more we crave it( organic produce are so much tastier than conventional ones)., we started by buying a regular share( around 25lbs a week)  and it increased over time, we now consume close to 50 lbs a week for a family of 5. The children took on the great habit of turning to fruits when they need a snack, we now add vegetables to everything we eat.  For lunch my husband and I take a huge salad to work and we find it a lot more filling than anything else. We are not hard core vegan but our diet tends toward a plant based diet, it is not exclusive: when we eat in restaurants or at friends house we will bend the rules, but at home I make sure that the food available is mainly plant based. The more we buy at the buying club, the less we buy at the grocery store, produce supply most of our protein so our expense for eggs, meat, fish, cheese is greatly reduced ( we only eat eggs once a week and still use grated cheese to add to our food, mainly parmesan which is rich in the amino acid, lysine.)