Starting the Fight for Healthy Food in our Home

in #food7 years ago

As a family on the lower rungs of society here in the US, eating healthy food is expensive... Not only is it expensive, but it is hard to climb out of the hole that our society has been shoving everyone into (ie: everything on the shelves of your grocery stores are healthy because the USDA and FDA say so). We are misinformed and disinformed about our food every day here in the US between the lobbyists for Monsanto, Sugar, Corn, Beef, and Dairy (among others) it is very hard for the casual consumer to know what is actually good for humans to eat without doing some serious digging (which is ridiculous...). It is time, however, for me to learn about nutrition not only for me, but for my family.

Here is my plan:

Step 1

Find easily accessible sources for nonGMO, organic, local farms/farmer's markets that I can afford to shop at.

Found! There is a place called the The Growhaus just up the road from me! How awesome! They even have days that you can get free food! I will report back after we take a trip there.

Step 2

Find ways of easily growing food indoors (our soil is crappy here, but we're working on it. Hopefully next year we'll be able to start up a little garden)

Sprouts seem to be the way to go for the first round.

Step 3

Find some ancient grain flour so I can make bread at home without worrying about bleach in my flour. (this may take some time to find a local provider, I will update when I find one)

Step 4

Take some cooking classes. While I have been cooking since I was 7, it has mostly been grabbing the cheapest ingredients and making them taste yummy, I would like to find a cooking class on how to cook food to maintain vitamin and nutritional value. The Growhaus looks like it has some cooking classes, I'll look into those and report back. 

Step 5

Get rid of the plastic food containers in my home. This one is going to be tough, the glass containers are a bit pricey for us but I think I can do it over time.

All in all I'm looking for a way to get my family healthy and away from chemicals that don't need to be ingested. These are my very first baby steps to a new way of thinking about food, Thanks for joining me!

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Awesome, this is the perfect path to healthy living! And you can usually find pretty cheap glass containers in thrift stores like Habitat for Humanity :)

Great tip! Thanks!

You have an awesome momentum going and it's going in the right direction. We raise grass fed grass finished beef and we know that sometimes our customers need to do some research, compare labels and shop smart. Taking control of your own food growing and cooking is fabulous and I'm sure you will be rewarded for your efforts. Congratulations. Keep us all posted!

Really great breakdown, awesome plan! Can't wait to watch it unfold:-)

So true!!! changing the eating habits here in the US won't be easy, it's now been a couple generations of crappy foods. My big gripe is the amount of corn/corn products hidden in food (or not so hidden) high fructose corn syrup is in just about everything. much luck to feeding your family!!resteeming this great info!!

Please have a look at fermenting foods as a way to preserve them and get a massive hit of probiotics for good gut health. It is very expensive to buy but you can learn to make it like I have. My family love it.

Another helpful tip my bestie taught me: find fifteen meals your family enjoys (burgers, spaghetti, tacos, soups) and do each meal once, then repeat. That is a month of meals. It helps you plan and budget and cook ahead. We buy veg from a CSA, get fruit from a nearby cannery and orchard (what they can't can, I can!), grow a small garden, buy beef in bulk, and I cut my ground beef with beans to make it go farther. It's all organic, non gmo and not totally cheap, but the four of us each three meals a day (packed lunches) for roughly $8. We eat out once or twice a month if we get ambitious. It feels good! My kids tell me it's boring - so it must be worth doing! Every year I try to learn 2-4 new recipes and rotate them in for special holidays, etc.

Here's a great recipe to get you on the right track!