food fight

Today is grocery shopping day. I decided to ease into a lower grocery budget, so this month I am spending $600.00 instead of $700.00 (including animal feed and health & beauty items).
Next month I will see about getting it down to $500.00. I have a feeling that this amount may compromise our nutritional standards until our garden starts producing. We will see!

I will do my monthly bulk shopping today. We did pretty well last month and I only needed to stock up on a few things. We didn't eat many meals with beans, so I will use those up this month. I need to make hummus, bread, and yogurt this week also.......this week is going by so fast.

After watching Food Fight, a wonderful documentary on Netflix last night, I am re-energized about our eating. Sometimes I need a little boost to keep it up. Although it is tempting, I really don't like to buy any highly processed foods, especially snack foods. I prefer to make popcorn, bake something, or give them fruits and vegi's. The last hold outs are pretzels, tortilla chips, and banana chips.
Really the only reason I still buy these, is to pack in the kid's lunches. I plan to come up with some alternatives. We will still buy tortilla chips occasionally, but the other stuff is unnecessary. The show that I watched really emphasized that big agro-business makes the bulk of their profits in convenience foods. They cram as much cheap food into the products as possible. Since agro-business creates such a surplus of crops like corn and soybeans, that is what goes into everything we see at the big-box grocers. Organic and GMO-free processed foods are so expensive (and they should be, they are using quality ingredients), I just prefer to stay away from them, they are budget busters, for sure.
I love when I am reassured of our food choices. It gives me the strength to continue making good food. It really does take strength and conviction. It is hard to fight against an entire food system. Sometimes giving in is enticing. I will press on because I know it is the right thing to do, and our food choices are our vote.

I am just so glad that we do have choices. Making the right choice, that's the struggle.

Have a blessed and healthy day, Tami