What is your food Really costing you? It is now April of 2012 and our food budget has not increased one cent. Some weeks it even decreases! What's the key?? LOCAL FOOD. Period.
Oh, and we don't eat out. Well, once every other month or so we'll stop at a local restaurant that serves locally grown food for a family treat. That saves lots of money:-) It is amazing to me to see what people drive, the electronic gadgets they have, the shopping trips they can afford, the several vacations they can take each year, and then they have the nerve to say "how do you afford to eat healthy!!??" Hmmm...:-) It's all in your perspective. Americans are such "have it now" people. They don't count costs, they don't prepare for the future, they don't invest in the little future's running around under their feet, they don't value their resources, and they think everything should be free!!
Free ALWAYS has a price. History has always deemed it so. If it's free it's not worth having. Free means that someone other than yourself is paying the price, AND a high one at that. So the next time you complain about the rise in grocery store prices, fuss at yourself for being so greedy, lazy, and government -dependent.:-)
Change your thought processes and decide that paying for what you use and consume is a morally right and morally ethical way of doing things and that if you are a Christian, doing so will please God! He always blesses those who do right! We are a one income family and God has always made a way for us to eat healthy and to keep our family healthy! He always makes a way, but He doesn't always drop it right in our laps:-) He does expect us to get up and get going! So get up, get going, get out there and support your local food farmers and their endeavors to fight these corporate giants who are trying to kill, maime, and dumb down every human being alive.
There is a great place to go to and get started on this adventure of paying for what you need....Columbus/Tryon Farmers Market! It's now open every Saturday from 8:00-11:30! Get there early because some farmers sell out by 10:00 -10:30! Lots of fresh food grown CLEAN just for YOU! Expect to buy a bag of lettuce for $3 and a delicious quart jar of truly raw and healthy honey for $8!! SOOOO much cheaper than the junk in the store and you're paying the flat rate! No subsidies!!! No hidden costs!!! No toxic chemicals that will give you cancer!!! Nothing is fertilized with human excrement and the meat didn't come from an animal that died insane!!
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| Local sausage/bacon fresh ground wheat pizza!! |
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| Fresh produce from a trip to the Columbus Farmers Market last year! |
Another day this week I hope to post a picture of my garden:-) It's a big one!! lol! So many new things will be growing out there this year and I'm so very excited about it! I'm trying companion planting this year with my vegetables and herbs and I'm even going to be beginning to grow a Carob Tree! Now that will be a longer project but it will be fun! There is nothing like doing all the work and then watch God breathe life into those dead little seeds and a beautiful plant pops up from the soil! Amazing!
Stay tuned!
Posts
Hi - I read your guest blog post on A Living Sacrifice yesterday (on herbs). I really enjoyed what I read and am really excited about reading more about how you eat healthy. I've been trying it here and have found our grocery bill to be much smaller when buying locally grown foods. I'm especially interested in the picture of wheat pizza as I'm wanting to use whole wheat flour but not sure how it will affect recipes that call for white. Have you found a difference?
ReplyDeleteAmanda - the flour I use is freshly ground from wheat berries here in my house. I have a Country Living Grain mill http://www.countrylivinggrainmills.com/grain-mill.html
ReplyDeletethat I have motorized to run cool so I can grind my grains and keep all the nutrients! whole Wheat flour in the store is flour that has been processed in the same way as white flour (stripped of all nutrients) and then had chemicals and components added back in to make it look like whole wheat. When using fresh ground wheat, you use it just like you would use any other flour because it has all the necessary components to act properly...ie...rise properly, even texture, not dry, etc... Whole wheat in the store is not something I would use if I had to buy store flour. I would stick with unbleached all purpose:-) It's been processed, but it has not had additional chemicals and components added back in that really cause more problems in the digestive system. Don't waste your money buying those little bags of "organic" ground flour either. It's the same thing, just costs way too much...lol! ALL flour goes rancid in three days after being ground, so chemicals have to be added to stabilize the flour to keep it from being bug infested. Oftentimes though that doesn't always work and you'll end up with a bag of flour that little critters come crawling out of and feed on everything in your pantry:-) When I grind my flour, I do it at night, soak the ground flour overnight, and then make the bread the next morning. I hope to do a post on "soaking ground flour" next and you can also use this for store flour to add in some nutrients to make it more digestable.
In my baking, I have found that using freshly ground makes everything taste 100's better and when I bake cakes and such, I use a soft white wheat berry to give the flour a very very fine texture. I also use raw honey when baking so that adds extra moisture and makes the end product turn out very well! I am glad you enjoyed the post on herbs and I hope to do more posts on that as my herb garden grows and I'm able to show what I'm doing! Thanks for reading!!