food source

I think breast feeding has made me think about food in a completely different way. Sure, I have always tried to buy as much organic as I can. We eat deer meat that Jeff brought out of the woods less than ten miles from our house. We do a decent job "grub-shedding" and try to minimize our ecological footprint. But when you think about breast milk as the very best food for your baby, and you realize how darn close the food source is to the recipient, that point about eating locally really gets driven home. No carbon emissions. No hormones. No feed lots. Not even plastic wrap. Just pure goodness.

Now that Eliana is eating from sources other than my breast, I'm realizing how up-tight about the whole food thing I really am. It's one thing to eat a burger from the Old Post and know that that you're eating mass produced beef -- you have a sip of your gin and tonic, take in the view from the deck, and feel happy that you don't have to do the dishes. The hormone fed beef, the fries that were never actually real potatoes, it all tastes fine and it's just in the fun of having a night out with some friends.

But with a little one, I seem to have no gray area. She only eats organic veggies, and better yet, food I've made myself. Her few tastes of meat have been from her daddy's deer (though last night I gave her a bite of moose given to us by a friend...ah my Montana raised girl!)

Since I've been breast feeding, I'm even more obsessed with organic dairy. I have become an expert at all the high end, organic brands of yogurt -- in fact, I have a delightful bowl of Wallaby's Vanilla Bean sitting right next to my computer. I do not want my little girl developing breasts when she's four because she's been unknowingly been ingesting too many growth hormones. I sit here wondering how safe I'll be able to keep my girl. How much protection is too much protection. When did I become so uptight?

I blame it on all those good, milk producing hormones. Those hormones that pushed this baby so bravely into the world, that fed her and made her big and strong, that took my body, completely altered it, and then somehow put it back together, so that I could have this most awesome and incredible responsibility.