I used to go grocery shopping and it wouldn’t take very long, even if I had quite a long list of things to get. And then I had kids. And I started looking at what was actually in ‘food’. I quickly realized that not all ‘food’ is equal. While there are obvious issues with things like food coloring (http://bit.ly/1fFonNn http://huff.to/1gPxHLl), there are also lots of food ingredients that aren’t actually food. Think of bread that contains the same ingredient as yoga mats (Subway to remove chemical from bread) or sawdust that is used to stop shredded cheese from clumping (Would you like some wood pulp with that grated cheese?). And goodness knows what half the chemicals in the ingredients lists are or what they actually do.

And don’t get me started on GMO’s and the chemicals that are put on food before it’s even processed, or the way in which livestock is bred.

So many people are unaware of what is in the food they buy at grocery stores. And with a lack of laws to ensure that ‘food’ is properly labeled, even those of us that have an interest in knowing, cannot fully know.

So when I go to the grocery store, I am thinking about what chemicals are in the food; whether the packaging is minimal and/or recyclable; whether I need to buy organic for that particular item; and whether it’s likely to be GMO. On top of that, as a lot of my grocery shopping is for my kids, two of whom are gluten free and pretty picky … I have to think about whether it has gluten in it and whether they might actually eat it.

Shouldn’t we be able to go to the store and know that the food we are buying for our family contains only food. Shouldn’t we be able to know that the food we are putting in front of our family is grown/bred in a way that is dignified and respectful of the planet and everyone/thing in it.

We shouldn’t have to be detectives to figure out whether the food we are putting in front of our family is actually food and not some random chemical.