Support Food Day October 24, 2011

Fix America's Broken Food System.
Eat Real. Sounds really simple, but unfortunately it's not. Tastes great; but it takes some effort.
Effort? Yes, effort. Effort to walk away from an easy to heat up and quickly-ready-to-eat processed meal. Effort to buy whole food ingredients, take them home and cook them. This is what being real means. Buying food that looks like food. Cooking. I've said it many times: Cooking is not a spectator sport.

By not buying fast food or processed food we are not promoting industrial farming, which is producing GMO's, which are being used as ingredients. By not buying into the advertising campaigns we are not promoting 'factory farms' that pollute our water, soil and air.

We need to appreciate whole foods and love the ingredients for exactly what they are and what they can create when their individual tastes are combined. Again, Cooking Is Not A Spectator Sport.
Support Food Day which is coming up on October 24, 2011.
Support it but not just for that day, incorporate it into your life.
www.foodday.org

How do you save money on healthy food?

Stock up on fresh produce whenever it is available. Local markets usually state on the sign in the produce section where it's from. Farmers markets are filled to the brim at this time of year with locally grown, organic produce. Utilize your freezer and freeze as much fresh produce as possible. Be sure to get a good variety. If you know how to can, make jams and pasta sauce and pickles.

Support your local CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. You will get a bounty of fresh produce weekly from local, organic farmers that need the support and the quality is fantastic. There is so much care going into CSA's that it's amazing to watch. They even have newsletters with recipes for produce that you might not be unfamiliar with.

Find out about local farms and orchards in your area and support them. Contact them to find out if you can buy produce in bulk from them and stock up.

If you can, grow your own. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to grow a garden. It's late in the year now, so plan for next year. Measure for a raised bed garden. Plan to grow herbs in pots. Decide where you're going to get your seeds from. Look at all the different fruit and vegetables you might want to grow.

If you're meat eaters, contact a local butcher that has access to farmers who care about their livestock. Buy a certain amount of meat that will fill your freezer.

Buy from the bulk section of your market. Organic whole grains, flours, nuts, beans, legumes - it's all there without the packaging. Prices are much lower and quality is the same, if not better.

When you take steps to buy in season and stock your pantry, it won't feel as daunting to buy fresh organic milk and cheese that is more costly to budgets.

It takes forethought to eat quality food.  Every step we can take is worth it.

Organic Foods vs. Food Budget

I've been researching a lot about organic and sustainable farming. On the flip side I have also been reading about how to make it on a minimal food budget, of which I have experience. When you're on a budget, there really is no being choosy. Unemployment is at an all time high, not including many people not counted because they are not getting an unemployment check but not employed. On the flip side again, we are having to pay for things we never had to pay for before: satellite t.v., internet access, cell phones. Our quality of life in the kitchen has been on a decline, tragically.

We are constantly being bombarded through advertising that we need things to make our lives easier; that we can save time by buying premade, processed products - telling us that these things will make us feel better about ourselves.

There is a sense of urgency in the contradiction of low budget vs. consumer awareness in our food world: It is to find the balance. Make food quality a priority in our life while making it affordable? Realistically, good quality food is affordable; we are just not used to buying it and taking it home and preparing it and cooking it - because that sounds like a lot of work. Who wants to work, right? Wanting to use our kitchen as a place to make meals from whole foods is a challenge. Realising home cooking is not a chore and homemade meals are soul nourishing as well as healthy is worth the effort. Try going into your market and buying only whole foods; Only Whole Ingredients to make a meal. Just try it. Taste each ingredient as it is in its natural form before you begin to cook it with other ingredients. This is how it should be. And its easy and affordable. We just have to get used to it.

The fast food industry has taken over our grocery stores and farming industry. But there are things we can do - and it's our awareness of these other things that will bring us away from the corporate food world of 'instant gratification'. By learning to appreciate that good food takes time - to grow and to cook - we can do it. Once we can smell it and taste it and feel it in our soul. And know it came from our own kitchen.

Starting Out

It's not rocket science cooking at home. It does take a while to adjust your taste buds to your own cooking when you have a taste for a fast quick burger or pizza on the way home from work.

In starting to cook meals at home, it's wise to start cooking with just a few ingredients to create each dish. Dishes that you know you can make. Then begin to pan out by adding an additional item or a new flavor to create an adjustment or a totally different dish. This is cooking. Cooking is an experiment and a constant development. Taste as you go along and adjust to your liking.

Menu planning helps. Cooking one dish should make leftovers for 2 lunches and 1-2 dinners. This cuts cooking time as if you have a main dish to heat up, you may only have to make a side to go with it. Leftovers are a wonderful lunch to take to the office.

Make a start somehow, someway to cook from scratch with whole food ingredients for 5 days of meals out of the week. Then go to 6 days, then where you might go out once or twice a month