At the Co-Op

This morning Matthew, Luke and I ventured to our Co-Op, Valley Natural Foods, for the first time since Luke was born. In the last few months I’ve shopped at Valley a couple times either with Allan or solo, but this was our first time there just the three of us. I was prepared for an uneventful outing, as we have been to Target and Trader Joe’s several times without incident. But there is something about driving all the way down to the Co-Op that brings out the crazies in my babies. Maybe it’s a sign that we should find a different co-op… Local readers, do you love your co-op? Are your kids well-behaved when you visit or does every co-op make kids act silly?

In typical fashion, Luke was securely strapped to me in the Ergo while Matthew narrated our journey from the cockpit of the shopping cart. While scoping out the parsnip selection Luke began making grunting noises. I then felt a concerning rumble deep within the Ergo. I looked at Luke and knew exactly what was going down. I continued my shopping so as to let Luke finish his business, all the while praying the Bum Genius was doing its job. Matthew insisted that we did not need parsnips. I insisted that parsnips were delightful – like white carrots. He looked at me in disbelief and continued arguing that parsnips were indeed a bad choice.

After finishing in the produce department we headed to the loo. Upon removing Luke from the Ergo I found that unfortunately the Bum Genius needed to be fired. Luke had brazened the Ergo, my shirt and his entire outfit. As I removed layer upon layer of clothing I finally reached the leaky culprit. All the while Matthew was causing a ruckus in the single stall bathroom – putting toilet paper in the toilet, opening the garbage can with his hands to examine the inordinate number of wipes I was discarding, flushing aforementioned toilet, insisting that I use toilet paper to dry my hands instead of the wicked, terrible, two-faced Dyson Airblade. I turned to remind Matthew not to touch anything and at that moment Luke decided that he wasn’t quite finished with his business, we were simply experiencing an intermission. And then everything was covered – all of his clothes, the changing table, his jacket – everything!

Oh yes, the joys of parenting two little children!

To those of you that do not have kids or have selective amnesia from the days your children were little, please do not give a mom toting two small children the stink eye for occupying the only women’s restroom for 25 minutes while you wait to pee. Trust me, it may have seemed like an eternity while you were holding it, but in reality there was a world war fought in that bathroom while you were checking your iPhone.

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Valley has a wonderful organic juice bar and whenever we shop for groceries, we stop for a juice or smoothie. Today Matthew and I split a green lemonade. It was delicious!!!

For my Stripped meal plan, I planned to buy 4 lbs of chicken breast. After reading this article about chickens being fed GE feed and the spread of botulism I decided to only purchase meat that is either organic or uses sustainable practices in addition to non-GMO feed. Since then I have been buying the organic chicken a Trader Joe’s. When I approached the meat counter at the Co-op to ask a few questions about the chicken and turkey options I was faced with some hard truths. Out of the several brands of poultry available for purchase, only one brand was organic and non-GMO. And it cost double the price of the organic chicken at Trader Joe’s!

After this conversation I was left feeling very frustrated. I’m sure that many people blindly purchase the poultry at the Co-Op thinking that it is non-GMO without knowing the products they are purchasing indeed contain GMOs. For some reason, I was under the (incorrect) assumption that shopping at the Co-Op helped me to avoid GMOs and I was mistaken. I guess I’ll be sticking to the organic chicken at Trader Joe’s.

One of the other items I planned to purchase today was chili powder. I usually purchase the bulk Frontier Organics chili powder without thinking about it. Today I noticed the ingredients label:

Yep, you read that right – silicon dioxide aka silica aka the little packets that come in shoe boxes and vitamins that read: “Do not Ingest”. How on earth are they able to add that to organic food? On a side note, for more info on another common organic/natural food additive that is carcinogenic, carrageenan, read this.

So, instead I bought chipotle pepper powder and figured I could mix my own chili seasoning.

And that was my day. 🙂