by Rachelle Benson

Created on: February 24, 2009

The importance of Organic

The trends in our food industry have the following labels created to catch the consumers attention:
USDA Organic; Free
Range; All natural, well you get the picture.

As a wife and mother of three, we lived the hustle and bustle life playing little league, eating chili and hot dogs at the games. Packing up afternoon snacks of Juice boxes and fruit roll ups, colored yogurt's, good old pre packaged American food. We were busy people, getting it ready to go was fast, easy, and I could cram at least two games a week in plus a scouting adventure, and lets not forget 4-H. Its s go go world out there and eating on the run was a way of life.

Four years ago I began to get sick and I just never got any better. In fact I was getting worse and worse. Test after test, x-ray's, second opinions, third opinions, specialists and losing a year of my life confirmed again and again a diagnosis of
Fibromyalgia; Moderate Arthritis; Epstein Barr; Chronic Fatigue and other "syndromes" that all seem to be interlinked. And there began my research of how to cope with these diseases that will not kill you but make you miserable and debilitated for the rest of your life. I was only 31 years old.

Eight more months of trying mainstream medication left me bedridden and more disabled than ever. I came to my husband with articles and articles of what is in our food and that eliminating them from my diet may help.
But to do this would require the whole family to be supportive. Our organic adventure began.

This is not a success story that I am cured by eating all organic. I am still sick. And I will always have fibromyalgia. But my symptoms and flares are less. And yes I do feel better. You know that saying: "You are what you eat". I am no longer MSG, red dye, yellow dye, and nitrites. I am now "earthy" as my husband calls me.

We took our organic diet a step further by becoming modern day homesteaders. Keeping the animals keep me active as they need care and are therapeutic for me in more ways than one. Unable to hold down a "real" job they provide me with the necessary feeling of being productive, and the animals are forgiving on days I feel low and move slower to feed them. We know exactly what they are fed and we know that they are cared for humanely and in the end processed humanely.
So even our meats are hormone free, antibiotic free, free ranging, completely organic to ensure my family is eating optimal nutrition. Our poultry are raised the same way, eating clover and whatever

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