Juice Boxes: Friend or Foe?

My husband and I inherited a red 1996 Thunderbird a few years ago, and my husband loves it. We bought a second car when I started working part-time because the amount of driving I would have to do in the morning would have been insane with one vehicle. Well, our precious little T-Bird decided to you know, um, die, last week so we are a one car household for a week or so. (We are so, so, so lucky that we are getting another car for a very minimal cost. Family is amazing.)

In any case, if I am driving, I am either listening to NPR or a random mix CD we burned for our drive to Shenandoah. I just love NPR. It's bursting with such interesting, diverse stories. And I cannot lie-- sometimes my most peaceful moment of the day is as I drive a snoozing Gabriel home from work, listening to All Things Considered, Fresh Air, you-name-it.

ANYWAY, in the annoying suburban traffic to and from dropping my husband off at the train and to and from work, babysitter, pediatrician, who-knows-what today, I listened to NPR as usual.


And then comes this story. About JUICE. About LEAD. ABOUT KIDDIE JUICE WITH LEAD IN IT. I wrote all that obnoxiously bigger because it is totally fine to start reading this entry from this point (especially if you are bored by my droning on an on about our family car issues and my potential unhealthy love of driving while listening to NPR.)

What's in my juice?

I write about making homemade babyfood all of the time. And when I hear stories like this, I am so glad I am trying to keep my kiddo on unprocessed, organic food made from scratch. Sure, I have given him organic banana puffs to help him learn the pincer grasp, and yes, we buy Earth's Best baby cereal because I just am not up for grinding oatmeal myself (who knows? maybe now that I wrote this I will feel challenged to try it), but most everything he eats is organic and made by Mommy.

But no matter how glad I am that most of what he eats right now is homemade organics, I know that as he gets older it will not only become easier to feed him processed food, but it is going to get more difficult to intercept the processed food from reaching him. And let it be known that the lead-contaminated juice mentioned in the NPR story was not just conventional juice-- some of it was organic. Organic food does not prevent all hell from breaking loose. (I do think homemade whole food has a lot to do with preventing bad food from getting into a child's diet, though.)

I started joking around that I wanted to get a juicer (I've wanted one for me for a long time) for the baby --so that he could have juice fresh from fruit without any added sugar-- just a little while ago. I say I joked about wanting it because when the words came out of my mouth to my husband, I thought, "Is this healthy or is this overprotective?"

And now I hear this story about LEAD in KIDDIE JUICE, and I think to myself, "NO! I am not being overprotective! Manufactured foods are RIDICULOUS."

I am sure there is more to come on this story, and I will keep on reading and educating myself, but suffice it to say, my husband stopped laughing about me asking for a juicer tonight.