With our raw milk and homemade granola bars, I know we seem like hippies to our friends. Of course, those things are probably cancelled out by the occasional trip to Chick-fil-A or the 2 cases of  Girl Scout cookies sitting in my pantry. But still. We’re trying to make better choices and one of our New Year’s resolutions was to eat “real” food. Because after watching Food, Inc. we discovered that we really weren’t eating much in the way of actual nutritious real food. Even the “healthy” things we were buying were full of…crap.

So, we started reading labels and buying organic. We found a source for organic local grass-fed beef (though we’ve cut red meat out of our weekly diet and only eat it on the weekends now) and we started avoiding everything with high-fructose corn syrup in it. We bought Food Rules and started following as many of them as we could. And for both health and financial reasons we stopped eating out. Almost completely. Which is pretty huge for us since we’re often guilty of just picking up something cheap and easy during the week.

And a funny thing happened. Despite the fact that we’re not cooking flavorless low-fat food we felt healthier. Then the other day I stepped on the scale (for my monthly moment of torture) and I’d lost 10 lbs. Without even trying. I am totally attributing it to the fact that I’ve stopped filling my pantry with garbage and I’m so excited about making this change for me, for my husband, and for my kids.

My reason for not doing this sooner was always the cost. Because real food is expensive. Amazingly, though, our grocery bill has stayed pretty much the same. The only difference is that we’re spending our money on things that are good for us and cutting out all of the extra crappy snacks that we shouldn’t have been eating in the first place. We do have to go to more stores to get everything we need. Whole Foods is our primary source, but when we find something for less at another store we make the trip to pick it up there. And this summer we’ll have a big thriving garden in the backyard to save us on our produce costs. Now if only I can convince Thomas to let us get a goat…

In the interest of sharing some real food sources I thought I’d share my favorite sites for all things whole food related:

- If you’re interested in starting a backyard garden to feed your family The Dinner Garden is a non-profit organization that will provide free seeds to those looking to get started.

- Raw Milk Facts provides answers to all you’re questions about raw milk as well as a directory of where to buy it.

- Jo-Lynne at Musings of a Housewife started her real food journey a while ago and has some great information compiled on her site about prioritizing what changes to make and eating “real” on a budget. There is a wealth of practical information there!

- My friend Georgia Natural Mom has been a big inspiration in this whole journey, too. She’s a great resource for recipes and tips for eating real and making your own healthy food. Plus, she’s a super cool person in real life and you should totally check her out!

So those are my favorite sites that are helping us as we are on a quest for real food. Do you have any to share?