I've been trying to trim our budget lately, and the easiest place to do that seems to be our grocery bill. So I've been turning back to the stores I used to frequent before I started going green, namely Wal-Mart and Aldi. I was a little disappointed in the organic selection at Wal-Mart. I wasn't looking for a HUGE organic section, but I was hoping they'd have a few more items than just apples, carrots and ketchup. After seeing Wal-Mart's selection, I was shocked when I went to Aldi the following week and found...organics!! I never guessed I'd see anything organic at Aldi. They had organic milk (Organic Valley, only 2% and it wasn't any cheaper than I could get the Wal-Mart brand of organic milk, but still-it was there!) and organic pasta sauce, spaghetti, olive oil, some kind of fruit snack and diced tomatoes. I was there on a Saturday afternoon, and it was really busy, so I was doing my best to keep my eyes open for anything else they had that was organic, but I didn't really see too much, oh except for the yogurt. That was organic too. They now have bread without high-fructose corn syrup, a recent development, since last time I was there. I was so excited to have these options at such a cheap price! I'm so proud of you, Aldi, for making the jump to organics. I think that speaks volumes about America's growing organic movement!
However, when I got home and checked the ingredient labels, I was a little disappointed. While the products are certified organic, they're not as natural as I would hope. For example, StoneyField Farm's is my preferred brand of organic yogurt. I love their oikos greek yogurt. I buy the plain variety. The ingredients are milk and active cultures. Two items. I like that. I know what both of those things are and that they're necessary to make yogurt. So when I looked at the ingedient list of the Aldi brand organic yogurt and saw how long it was, I was a little concerned. I didn't buy plain yogurt, since it's for Caden's lunch and he's not a fan of plain, so I was expecting some additional additives to give it that vanilla flavor, but there were other filler items in there that bothered me. "cultured pasteurized organic grade A low fat milk.organic dried cane syrup, water, organic corn starch, organic inulin, organic natural flavor, organic rice starch, organic locust bean gum, pectin, citric acid." Why do you need all that stuff to make yogurt?!?! What's with all the starches? Why does it have to be so hard to just make FOOD?!?! Why do I feel like I have to be a detective for everything I buy? I just want to feed my family healthy food! Even an organic label doesn't seem to guarantee that. It's so frustrating! I realize that StonyField yogurt is about 3x the price of what I paid for the Aldi organic yogurt, and you get what you pay for, but I was hoping that I had found a way to keep feeding my family organic, healthy food, at a lower price. Which I guess, I did, not at the same quality I had hoped. Oh, well, I guess I should at least be glad that there IS an organic alternative at Aldi. Baby Steps, America. Way to go!
If you have a Trader Joes in your area, their TJ brand yogurt is secretly StonyField, and it is MUCH cheaper. Good thing to keep in mind :-)
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