For me, LESS is MORE

So, Patrick wants honest food. That pretty much sums up what I want, too.

We’ve come to the same conclusion, though via different paths. My path started about four and a half years ago when my oldest son, then a newborn infant, was having terrible “colic” and gastrointestinal distress. He was miserably uncomfortable – in pain. Neither of us was getting much sleep. I began to think that projectile vomiting and massive “blow-outs” were something all babies did and that I just needed to bring three extra sets of clothes for both of us every time we left the house!

Imagine my shock (and sadness) to find out he could be reacting to my breastmilk – the most important and natural food for an infant. It turned out his body was having a difficult time with proteins from certain foods I was eating – proteins that made their way into my breastmilk and on to irritate his digestive and immune systems. The first thing the pediatrician suggested (if I wanted to continue breastfeeding) was to eliminate all cow’s milk and cow’s milk products from my diet. I wanted to cover the bases and get my baby comfortable and well-nourished as quickly as possible, so I chose to eliminate a few of the other “top 5 allergen” foods from my diet right away and try to sort things out later. I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to eliminate cow’s milk, corn, soy, and egg from my diet, right?

We got home from the pediatrician’s office that day right at about lunch time and I was famished. As I looked through my cupboard and ice box to identify food I could eat on my newly restricted diet, I found that potato chips and a cola were all that we had in our house at that moment that met the criteria. It’s not that we didn’t have a cupboard and ice box full of what we thought was healthy, good food. We had a lot of "food" in our house.

Turns out, it’s not quite as easy as not drinking milk, not eating tofu, passing on the scrambled eggs, and skipping the corn chips in order to avoid cow’s milk/dairy, soy, eggs, and corn. Nope. You see, among the many proteins found in milk, two are particularly troublesome to some people – casein and whey. Turns out these milk proteins, as well as soy protein, are both pretty cheap to purify and add to processed foods. This adds extra protein, and apparently some other ‘qualities’ for processed foods – I’m not even sure what… flavor? texture? Eggs are surprisingly present in many foods. Corn is incredibly cheap and through distillation and chemical extraction, corn derivatives such as extenders, binders, sweeteners, etc., can be cheaply obtained and make their way into many food products. Even the vitamin C in a lot of supplements is derived from corn.

I didn’t even care so much about the methods of obtaining or the reasons for adding these extracted, processed proteins and derivatives to foods. What I cared about was that I had a kitchen full of what I thought was pretty healthy food and all I could safely eat from our selection was potato chips and soda. My husband set off for the grocery store as I sulked on the couch with a bag of potato chips and a can of cola.

I thought I was conscientious in seeking out “good” foods. I believed the label when it told me a can of soup was a “healthy” choice. I believed the box that said it was “heart healthy.” I thought packages that declared their contents to be “low fat” surely must be good for me. But as I picked up products in my kitchen that day and read the labels, I quickly realized how shocking it is to actually know what’s in the food you’re eating.

Sure, it is “low fat,” but did anyone bother to mention all the crazy additives that are put into the food in an attempt to make it taste as creamy and satisfying as it was before the fat was processed out of it? And, sure, there are “non-dairy” creamer choices, but the term “non-dairy” can be applied to products which do not have lactose, a milk sugar. I had to avoid troublesome milk proteins - casein and whey. And, what did I find listed right there among the “non-dairy” creamer ingredients? You guessed it – casein. And, prior to that day, I never even stopped to think about what ‘non-dairy’ creamer could possibly be made from if not milk. . .

Though I regret that my son suffered any amount of pain or discomfort, there are at least two silver linings from our experiences. One is that we have discovered, through my search for answers to my son's gastrointestinal issues, that both of my children and I are Celiacs and must remain on a strict gluten-free diet. This has been blessing for us to learn in so many respects - not the least of which is our continued comfort and health! Another silver lining has been my realizing how unnatural our current food supply system actually is – how unhealthy for our bodies and our planet this system has become.

I look at some packages of food and cannot discern how the "food" is considered edible, let alone nourishing. I read about massive food recalls in which many people have gotten critically ill or even died before the problematic item(s) are identified and then thousands of pounds of food are collected and thrown away. We’ve all read the stories of babies and pets becoming painfully ill and even dying due to melamine contamination in imported foods. Our society has been demanding more for less and the food industry has been responding.

Well, I say LESS IS MORE! Less chemicals, more healthy and earth-friendly. Less packaging, more bulk items. Less miles travelled, more fuel saved. Less imported food products, more local, trusted food sources. Less processing, more honest food.

As a busy mother of two small children, I’ve been carving out time over the past year to join Patrick in this mission to bring a cooperative grocery store to our community. I hope that some of you reading this will be able to find some time to join in our efforts. Please visit our Volunteer page and contact us if you can give just a few hours a month to our cause. Your time, your talents, your money (when our Membership drive gets under way) - whatever you can give will be appreciated! Together we will create MORE for our community in a Local, Empowering, Sustainable, and Seasonal way!

I hope to see you at one of our meetings soon!

Kristin Petherbridge