Michael,

You couldn't have said it any better. I learned this lesson with one of our kids.

Our youngest was born with several alergies - peanuts (still is), wheat, eggs, milk.... The "regular" doctors wanted to load him up with tons of medication. No way. We just kept him away from those things and gave him totally natural foods (as natural as you can get these days), most of which we made ourselves. He was on goats milk and different soy products for two years. We kept him as far away as possible from those nasty things we have all grown up with. He is now 4 and strong as an ox.

Here is the trouble though. With seven kids, we are definitely on a tight budget. Finding foods that are not filled with cr*p and fillers and flavors etc is not an easy task on a small budget. My wife and I did a days worth of comparison shopping. With $100 we were able to get almost twice the amount of the "usual" food as compared to "better for the body" food. Strange concept - the food that is worse for you is cheaper, the food that is better for you is more expensive. How do we compete? Most people can't and end up buying the cr*p.

Sometimes I wish we lived in the old days when things were so much simpler. You could go to the local market and get bread, real bread. You could get veggies and get real veggies, not some scientifically grown stuff.

Dennis