Organic Eggs– Any Difference?

I just started purchasing eggs from a local farmer, a certified organic farm. The eggs are a little pricier than grocery-store eggs, but I am happy to directly support a local farm (and get fresh eggs, too).

I wish we could have our own chickens. I live in the suburbs, though, and chickens are verboten. Bah. Suburbanites have no imagination. Chickens are COOL.

Anyway, I get these eggs. All I care about is that they are eggs. When I found out that they are “certified organic,” it meant little to me… I don’t know if that’s because there really is no difference or because I do not know enough about chicken care. But that would be the SUBURBS fault because they won’t even give me a chance to raise my own and find out!!!! LOLOL. Oh, I know certified organic chickens are fed only certain foods (and no antibiotics) but I have heard many conflicting reports about the use of antibiotics for farm animals. I am, in general, against stuffing farm critters with potions, pills, additives, medicines and chemicals. You betcha. But I don’t know if the store-bought eggs are pumped with antibiotics and stuff. Not sure. It’s actually kinda difficult to find out where ANY of our grocery food comes from, as a matter of fact.

But I don’t notice any big difference in taste between organic and store-bought. Today I am hard-boiling them and maybe then I will notice a differemce.

Some of these eggs are a lot larger than “regular” store-bought eggs, that’s for sure. Take a look at this sucker.

And all the eggs do smell like the dairy farm from which they come. I’m hoping that boils out, lol.

A Nice New Blog About Simple Living

One of my online pals, Rena, has a new blog called Back to Basics. It’s really neat! She’s only just started it, but already it has a lot of very helpful tips and ideas for making your life healthier, simpler, and less toxic. That issue has been on my mind a great deal, too. The kids and I have been reading a book that exposes just how many toxins are all around us. It’s outright creepy!

Rena has some very good “recipes” for homemade toothpaste, detergent, and even dishwasher detergent! I have GOT to try that. I hope she continues to add more content, because I think this fills a need. Sure, we all know that we should choose natural products for cleaning and health and stuff like eczema treatment, but HOW do you do it? So this blog wants to answer those questions.

Check it out!

The Antioxidant Superhero

As I’m delving more and more into natural remedies and general living, I found a terrific surprise! Cinnamon has FIVE TIMES the antioxidant power of 1/2 cup blueberries!

Recent, surprising studies show that some herbs and spices are antioxidant powerhouses — and that cinnamon is the second highest. (Cloves are the first, but are harder to work into our daily diet).

Antioxidants are amazing little things. According to MedLine:

Antioxidants are substances that may protect your cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food, or by environmental exposures like tobacco smoke and radiation. Free radicals can damage cells, and may play a role in heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

They also serve as an anti-inflammatory, providing relief from arthritis, lowering blood pressure and LDL cholesterol, and may help prevent type-2 diabetes.

This is good news, because cinnamon is SO easily added to anything, and it smells heavenly. Next to cloves (the best source of antioxidants in spices!), cinnamon is my favorite spice. I even like the color (most of my modern office furniture is in the “cinnamon” color, haha!)

It’s always so gratifying when I learn that being healthy is actually easy.
photo credit: Darwin Bell

Yummy Chobani Yogurt

In my continuing quest to eat healthier more frequently (she says as she wipes pizza crumbs from her mouth), I found this very unusual yummy and healthy yogurt recently. Well, actually, the Hubs discovered it. It’s very pricey, and am usually blind to any yogurts over 50 cents a pop.

It’s Greek yogurt. It has NO corn syrup!! This strawberry yogurt does have some sugar, but I ate the honey yogurt and that had no added sugar!! And the protein amount is higher than many other yogurts. It’s also loaded with all that happy bacteria that is good for the digestive system. Yum. While eating Chobani may not qualify you for lower term life insurance quotes, you will feel better after eating it.

Like I said, the yogurt is pricey– it’s $1 for a small container at my local Hannaford’s. The nice thing is that the yogurt is firmer and a lot less sweet than other yogurts, so the kids dislike Chobani. Which leaves all the more for me.