Bark

I'm afraid Julie might become hyper-organic. I can understand the benefits of eliminating some of the food additives from your diet. No one wants to eat preservatives made out of floor cleaner or otter fetuses or whatever. At some point, though, you have to look at the $6.00 potato and realize that an all-organic diet means your healthy body is home to a crazypants mind.

It's about choosing your battles, isn't it? For instance, we now buy organic milk, but we do so because it lasts way longer than the regular stuff. I'm not sure why that is, but we're throwing away less milk, so yippee. Likewise, if there's something organic right next to something that's processed in a mad scientist's bathtub, and the prices are comparable, then it makes sense to buy the organic.

And high fructose corn syrup, now I can understand why you wouldn't want to ingest that stuff if you didn't have to. No high fructose corn syrup and no meth: good rules to live by.

Which brings us to baby food. I know what's behind Julie's recent organic kick: it's anticipating the kind of baby food we'll buy. We saw this machine at Williams-Sonoma that allows you to make your own baby food. Toss in a few sprigs of asparagus, press on, and in seconds you have pureed asparagus for your baby's gagging pleasure. Your baby's food can be all natural, as pure as she is.

That's fine, but there has to be a line. If Lyla rides home with a friend after a chemistry club meeting and they stop at McDonald's, then Lyla needs to at least know what to do. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson, but I only eat organic food. My mom already packed me some tree bark in this reusable Ziploc bag." She'll be a social pariah.

Really I'm more worried about myself. "Daddy, are you eating fudge-striped cookies? Don't you know they contain cocoa processed with alkali and traces of trans-fat?"

"Thank you, honey. Now eat your tree bark and give Daddy some peace."