Eat naturally

This process began with eating a vegetarian diet, which I have done most of my life. There are so many reasons to eat a plant-based diet. Some feel it's cruel to eat animals (vegetarians and vegans) and to deprive young animals of their mothers milk in which case all animal foods are avoided (vegans)-- baby calves have to be restricted from their mothers in industrial dairy processing. Vegans take vegetarianism a step further by avoiding all animal-products, in addition to food, because of the cruelty used in such industries. Some are vegetarian because of the extraordinary amount of energy used to produce animals foods compared to plant foods. Some do it because of health-- those who eat plant-based diets experience far less disease of all kinds and therefore live higher quality, longer lives. Eating fewer animal foods also allows me to avoid a number of environmental and agricultural contaminants including hormones, pesticides, and persistent organic pollutants. Being at the top of the food chain and exposed to factory farming conditions, such toxins accumulate in high levels in animal foods. Whatever the reason, there are clearly many. Find your in and do it! Even avoiding animal products a few days a week can have a tremendously positive impact. One of the interesting contrasts to the U.S. diet I observed while living in India is that despite the fact that while most are vegetarian, the meat eaters feel no obligation to have meat everyday whereas in the U.S. meat eaters tend to eat it everyday.
The next step in the process of eating naturally was to go organic. This is to avoid the pollution of my body and environment with chemical-based fertilizers and pesticides that are a by-product of the war industry and subsequently introduced to agriculture and have detrimental effects on our habitat. Though organic costs more (because environmental costs are not factored into industrial food prices), there are many websites with lists of foods highest in pesticides that are most recommended to buy organically. Also, avoiding non-organic corn and soy ingredients are important because of the genetic engineering of these crops (genetic engineering has gnarly consequences for our entire food system). In the beginning, eating organic that meant buying food with an organic label at the grocery store. Then I learned that the production of industrial organic misses many of the benefits that were originally part of the organic revolution 30+ years ago. Namely, what's the benefit of eating organic if it's production uses just as much energy as chemical food?
Next step-- go regional and seasonal! This is also an approach that has numerous benefits. First, to eat regionally means that you're in contact with your food producers through the farmers market or otherwise so you can ensure that agricultural practices are in line with your ethics (e.g. no human or animal cruelty, chemical use, etc.). Second, eating seasonally is more nutritious and hygienic. The food you eat travels a shorter distance from the farm to your table so that and the closer you eat food to it's time of harvest, the more nutrients it has. And imagine how many hands and surfaces touch your food when being shipped across the country or world for that matter. If you're buying directly from a farmer, the food has likely been harvested in the past several days and been handled only by the farm workers. It's also far less energy intensive to eat locally than to eat food that's been harvested who knows when, refrigerated, kept unripe by chemicals, then exposed to chemicals to ripen them, and then jet flown in air conditioning all over the place. There's a lot of debate on this topic as to how local is good enough. Well, my response is it doesn't matter. Just go as local for as much of the year as possible. No need to be militant-- it's the direction that counts. Once you start, you'll want to eat as locally as possible because the food also tastes far better and you will grow a great appreciation for the foods we have during the parts of the year when we have them.
And the ultimate method of going local, grow our own food. This is one of the most revolutionary things we can do.

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CANDY FOR MOTHERS DAY?
This Mothers Day may be the last time you can buy mainstream non-organic candy for Mom on Mothers Day that isn't made from genetically engineered (GE) sugar. Sugar in most conventional foods will soon come from newly approved biotech sugar beets unless we act now to stop it. In just a few weeks, US farmers are poised to plant their first GE sugar beet crops, Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets. Over half the sugar in processed foods comes from sugar beets (the rest is supplied by sugarcane), and since ingredients from GE crops are not labeled in the U.S., once food producers start using GE beet sugar in their candies, cereals, breads, baby foods and other products, there will be no way for us to know if we are eating GE sugar unless we buy organic foods, since GE ingredients are banned in organic products.
Take action now:
-Organic Consumers Association