9 Reasons I Don't Deserve To Shop At Whole Foods

I have a confession. It’s something that no 2015 suburban SAHM should be admitting, out loud anyway. Here goes: I don’t shop at Whole Foods. (Gasp!) And my reasoning behind this isn’t really that good. The truth is, the nearest Whole Foods is an extra 15-minute drive farther than the closest grocery store to my house. So mostly it’s just laziness that’s keeping me from this organic holy grail.

But honestly, if I did drag my three cranky kids those extra few miles to this all-natural Jessica Alba love sanctuary, I don’t think they’d let me in. Because the thing is, our household is stuck halfway between overachieving and pulling up the caboose on the mediocrity train. For example …

1. We drink organic milk, but it’s cow’s milk. Ugh, right? Milk from another animal?! Sickos we are.

2. I make my own homemade mac and cheese, but I use pre-packaged shredded cheese. Is it any better than the powdered-gonna-kill-my-whole-family-with-chemicals stuff in the box? I honestly don’t know.

3. We don’t feed our kids fast food more than once or twice a year, but we let them have cheap-ass no-name freezer pops and Star Wars fruit snacks.

4. I only buy organic fruits and vegetables if they are on sale, but we do eat some form of fruits and vegetables every day. (Wine counts as mine. Shut up, it does.)

5. We don’t drink soda, but we can put away a family-sized bag of Cheetos faster than you can say yellow dye #6.

6. I don’t own muslin-colored reusable canvas grocery bags. I let the cashiers put my groceries into old-school plastic bags, which I recycle (see what I did there?) for wrapping up stinky toddler man-poops. I’m pretty sure my kid’s rank shit causes more air pollution than land pollution anyway. (I know, San Fransisco. I know. I’m not welcome there either.)

7. I don’t use cloth diapers to contain said toddler man-poops. (I also didn’t use cloth diapers for baby poops. Or any other poops. Ever. I love my washing machine way too much to subject it to that.)

8. I use baby wipes and paper towels in embarrassing excess, but I recycle like a badass. Every single beer and wine bottle is dutifully placed into the always-overflowing glass recycling bin. We do our part for Mother Earth. (Other than the points made in #6. Or #5.)

9. I don’t buy juice boxes, but about three times a year I buy a gigantor jug of 100% apple juice if the kids are sick (store-brand, because I am also cheap as shit, even if my kid has a fever of 102).

I know I can do better, and I must! Or else the doors to chemical-free heaven, located 15 extra minutes down the road, sadly will never open for me. But honestly, it’s f’ing hard to keep up!

Remember when butter was good? Then bad? Now it’s good for us again! Soy milk was all the rage for 18 seconds before getting knocked off its pedestal by almond milk, and now coconut milk.

Come on, world! Give us half-assed moms an extra minute! I’m doing my best (sort of), and hey, at least my kids aren’t growing up in a haze of tobacco smoke and aerosol spray like I did. So they’ll be OK, right? (Sure they will, I convince myself, as I uncork my daily fruit ration…)