You can get more natural or organic food by buying from local growers....if you live near them. In trendy cities, you can buy organic for very high prices. You can even find American grown food, mostly fresh fruit or veggies, but you really have to dig for the country of origin labeling and buy in season. Florida still makes orange juice. Apples and cherries still come from Washington and Wisconsin, and cranberries still come from Massachusetts and Wisconsin and Potatoes from Idaho and Wisconsin...Salmon can still be found in Alaska. It is out there it just takes tremendous effort and money to get it. You can buy organic milk, at about $3.50 per half gallon. (Dairy state prices) You can make your own yogurt with this if you have the machine (cheap) and the personal energy (much more precious). The cook and collapse principle...I never do any cooking unless in bulk and to be frozen...I can't do it just for one meal.

I have to really laugh, as we are in the 'canning season' right now and by the time I can, I can't cook dinner!! Plus I spend two days in bed for every one day canning...plus, I have to watch my burns. I always get burned, usually I drip hot water on my calves, which I don't feel....later hubby points out my burns. I have, at this point run out of freezer room and must go buy a new freezer....and I didn't do any meat this year as I have in some years past. One year I stupidly raised 175 chickens!!! I sold 100 of them live and friends took them away in a big truck. We had 75 chickens in the freezer and I bartered for beef and pork. My daughter, then age 3 grew up to be a vegetarian, lol!! They were really good, and the eggs were really yellowy orange. I buy organic cage free eggs for a fortune, and hubby buys standard eggs....he thinks I am crazy. He made me breakfast last week, and he noticed my eggs were orangier than his...he told me that, so now he wants those eggs too, LOL.

Organic or natural food is very labor intensive. You have to cook from sratch. Good are very expensive. I do figure a little is better than nothing, so I do what I can...I have a large family so luckily I have a lot of people to give my pickles to, LOL. You can't make your own flour but some mills use only American wheat, oats, potato, etc to make flour...yes it costs more and it doesn't keep...you have to freeze any extra. Organic or natural foods degrade very fast.

You can look at a can of soda, sitting in its aluminum skin, think of the corrosive bubbling and it doesn't take a wizard to figure out, the stuff isn't good for you. Yep, I drink it...God only knows why. Does any one remember real soda in real glass bottles you returned? Milk in real glass bottles and a milk man? I remember neighborhood bakeries where goods were baked right there...a neighborhood grocery on almost every corner, a pharmacy on every corner, a shoemaker, a barber....OK so I gave away my age. When I grew up and married, I ended up in the country and stood at the edge of town and cried...I hated it...but over the years grew to love life in the country and eventually acquired land. Now I can't imagine what life will be like when I go back to city or small town life, which will inevitably happen, when I age up. I imagine I will adjust.

Until then, I will grow what I can, and shop by looking for a country of origin label...and count my lucky stars. Maybe through public pressure we can get stores to carry healthy food again....first we have to encourage local people to grow it.