Old Fashioned Common Sense

And now a note from the other blog participant :)

Lately I’ve been spending more time reflecting on ultimately what living in today’s world means. Last week I saw a family movie that referenced the Great Depression... and when I paid attention it was another confirmation of my personal feelings that we’re not in a recession but another ‘Great Depression’. Sorry CNN and DC experts galore... we just are.

I have always wanted a small farm and I’ve always wanted to preserve some of my own food...but lately I hear people talking about it for financial reasons. Backyard chicken raising is back with a vengeance. People talking about gardening and canning/freezing. You’d think we’re in some sort of revolution, but if you look back... these are same questions our great grandparents asked in the 1930s.

Only frankly... many had to learn skills (or relearn) but they started out with a whole heap more than the average family has today. And there were more people who still had gardening/preserving/animal care experience around to help.

You would have thought we’d have learned a wee bit after the Great Depression...but no, as soon as we were able as a society we charged back into buying everything all shiny and packaged. In that charge we shed our ability to provide anything for ourselves... started building bigger and grander homes on farmland... permanently changing our ability to get basic needs met locally and relying on food being brought into our supermarkets AT THE PRICES decided on by the corporations providing the food. As the food was processed into pre-made items (pizza, chicken nuggets, chili, soups, chicken pot pie, broccoli with cheese sauce).... we even lost skills on HOW to make these items.

I can’t tell you how many people in the past year I have coached in making a roast chicken. Shocking.

Frankly we’re not unlike the cattle at the feedlots. Eat what you are given from the man in the truck.

Cutting coupons... thrifty shopping... this is BIG business these days. People who can coupon with the best of them are making entire livings out of showing people how to stack coupons and save.

But it’s like putting a band-aid on a surgical wound... might cover the slice but it won’t heal it back together and eventually you’re going to end up with a putrid mess and death. By raping our farm land for houses we’ve put ourselves in a position to be 100% dependant on those grocery stores and coupons.... plus making people who figured out how to work the system of coupons rich.

And what are those coupons for? For processed packaged foods. Rarely do you get a coupon for a plain cut of meat (not marinated and processed and therefore at a premium). I don’t see a coupon for celery, onions, garlic etc.

The coupon still is directing us exactly what to buy and it is still at a price set by that manufacturer. You might have gotten it for less than your neighbor but you still had to pay dearly for it. When money is hard to come by, most of those coupons are not giving you the best bang for your buck.

So we waste hours trying to make a grocery list affordable.

But the food we buy... if already processed to a ‘serve on a plate’ level... we just essentially overpaid for that food, lost control of the flavor and lost control over using leftovers in any fashion we choose.

Of course we live a busy, fast paced life. As much as I may dream of going completely out of the system... that is just not practical. Processing is going to be in most of our food in one way or another. Rice, flour, sugar... all processed. Even a fresh turnip coated in wax to preserve it is processed. BUT minimal processing means I can turn all of those into whatever finished product I wish.

For example...I have no problem in making our lives go faster by purchasing a taco kit... I just provide the ground meat and veggies... this way I can take that leftover meat and veggies and use it easily (season pasta sauce for example). Can’t do much with that frozen package of frozen tacos.

I could get into health issues, oil issues, factory farming issues.... but I won’t. I know nothing I’m saying is new or novel. But it’s what I think about and the more reading I do on the Great Depression I realize how perfectly reflective our life is now, but our foundation for recovery is 100x worse.

For my friends who are budget crunched I ask to you step back and look at the big picture. Without struggling or a ton of effort I feed the three of us for 12.00/day (ave. since Jan 2010) and since that is our grocery money that includes most of our cleaning supplies. I had some coworkers surprised and assuming we were eating a lot of junk food.

Um... NO. I refuse to throw out food. And between the humans and animals in the house with minor creativity we throw out very very little. Last week the only thing I threw out was left over salad we forgot that had avocado in it and therefore too risky to feed out to the parrot or rabbit.

In future posts from me you’ll see me post about supporting your local farmer... our adventure with our CSA (community supported agriculture)...and seasonal eating (very, very important) but enough already.

So... for the people who are interested.... here is the last week in review. You’ll see plenty of processed foods, again, I’m realistic. I will buy supplies of nukeable rice if I get a good deal for those nights we’re pressed for time and I’d rather avoid fast food..... but you’ll notice the 90% of the processed options were not table ready by just reheating and could be reused.

We start on Saturday.... three chicken leg quarters in the crockpot... save stock....

Saturday night.... some of the chicken + rice sticks, peanuts, half a cabbage, egg & sauce = Pad Thai

Sunday... eggs & cinnamon rolls (premade by pillsbury), lunch/dinner out at Bobby & Mandy’s... made pasta salad. Late night snack of leftovers from fridge for all three of us.

During the week breakfast: Person dependent – mix of cereal (cold and hot), hard boiled eggs & sunflower seeds

Monday... lunch bologna sandwich & fruit (strawberries/banana). Dinner... left over pasta salad, left over chicken from leg quarters.

Tuesday... lunch bologna sandwich & fruit or leftover pad thai. Dinner ground turkey tacos & cold slaw (other half of cabbage).

Wednesday..... leftover tacos for lunch and cold slaw. Dinner pork chops, brown rice, snap peas. Wednesday night I took the stock from cooking the leg quarters, the very last scraps of the chicken, 2 carrots, lentils and spices... big pot of creamy, yummy, lentils.

Thursday.... Lentils for lunch. Dinner is apple sausage, eggs and sweet potato pancakes.

Friday.... Lentils for lunch, with some of the left over sausage. Dinner out (hey it’s Friday!!)... slow cooked steel oats for Saturday breakfast (steel oats, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, honey, salt, milk)

Saturday.... Breakfast... oatmeal.... lunch... leftovers.... the week full circle...

Food still to be used in the fridge from this week... sweet potatoes and sausage from Thursday.