Since Darius turned 7 months and the book said it’s now safe to introduce carrots, (previously couldn’t due to nitrates), I quickly went to search for organic ones on 15th Feb.

Reason for organic carrots being better because I was introduced a shopping list of organic foods by Brownie from this book ‘To buy or not to buy organic‘ and it mentioned, “Carrots are so good at absorbing heavy metals from soil that they are sometimes grown as a throwaway crop to rid a field of lead or arsenic contamination, buy only organic carrots especially for children”.

Of course, this author is talking about stuff in USA and she’s just one person who has done her research on crops, but I feel more reassured feeding Darius organic ones. She also shared that potatoes especially Russet ones contain multiple pesticides.

Thick skinned fruits (papaya, mango) doesn’t need to be organic because the flesh does not absorb pesticides and certain veggies such as sweet potatoes, broccoli and cabbage doesn’t need to be organic since pesticides don’t work well on them. (Found worms on broccoli many times)

Anyway, about our search for organic shops. We know of one in the Marsiling MRT station area shophouses and bought the organic brown rice and millet from there. This time, we decide to go to the Yishun one, located in the row of shophouses just next to the Northpoint extension building. Alas, I forgot it’s Sunday and usually shop closes half-day. So we happily went over only at 2 plus and then even walk around til 3plus before finding it closed…blur sotong.

We were so disappointed as we came specially to buy organic stuff. We then asked one lady in a nearby shop where we can buy organic food and she mentioned that the Cold Storage Yishun has it. We were happy again and quickly went to check them out.

There were organic apples in green, red and yellow. There were pumpkin, chillis, some green veggies, garlic, carrots, potatoes. Quite a variety. There’s also a shelf of dried goods (seeds and grains) and I got organic dried green peas from there because I don’t know where to get fresh ones. I also noticed they sell the ‘Healthy Times Brown rice cereal’ which I bought that day at Tanglin Mall but is 30cts more expensive.

I got what I wanted and will introduce these new food to Darius for this month:

• Organic Carrot
• Organic Pumpkin
• Organic Potatoes
• Organic Green peas (if got time)
• Tofu

How I introduce the carrot or any new food:

I place some scoops of it into the bowl of brown rice porridge at the side, no mixing. I spoon some carrot puree first to let him taste it. Then, with the next spoonful, mixed some porridge with the carrot, alternating between more carrot puree or more porridge.  When he’s finally eaten them up, I spoon the rest of the carrot puree into the bowl again and mixed more into the porridge for him to eat. This is to prevent him from wasting the porridge too if he does not like the taste of the carrot. At least, he will eat the ‘non-tainted’ porridge which is the more important part of the meal.

His reaction:

He doesn’t quite like the strong taste of the carrot though I found it quite sweet and nice. He protested quite a lot too and always didn’t finish his meal.  After three days of trying, he likes it better and doesn’t resists that much anymore.

A Link to share on ‘Why organic is better‘: Why organic is healthiest choice

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