If you believe in resolutions, here's my list:
Focus on eating as many raw veggies in a day as I can bear.
Move at least once a day, walk if knees are up to it.
Be more vigilant about the kids' schedules.
Smile every time I'm annoyed.
Talk less. MUCH less.
If you don't believe in resolutions, that's okay too. I know what they say about goals, resolutions and the like, needing to be specific, but the above is all I can manage today.
I'd like everyone's input on something.
If I get up and cook for breakfast, the family will usually eat it, then come back an hour later to have cereal. If I don't cook, they have cereal and don't come back an hour later for anything. I'm not a morning person, but I can get up and cook if necessary. They just don't seem to like it, and they're eating the same amount of cereal on top of my cooking anyway.
Should I cook so that the better nutrition is available to them and hopefully wean them of the cereal habit, or should I just let them eat cereal and save myself the expense and frustration?
Showing posts with label nutrition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nutrition. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Price of food
I am the kind of uninspired cook that has to have a recipe. Blair can go into the kitchen at 5 and "whip something up," but I've never had that gift. I am also the type who beats herself up about the amount of money we spend on food. There are seven of us, which includes three teenagers, so I never expected feeding us to be a low-cost venture. But I always feel bad if I leave the store spending more than the "$100 a week" some of those other big families out there spend (like I believe them anyway.)
I can spend as little as $250 to feed us for a week. It won't be pretty, though. We're talking the Standard American Diet here, which is sad indeed. Cold cereal, PB&J, frozen entrees bought on a BOGO, chips and chocolate. *barf*
Or, I can spend $350 a week and feed us well. Leafy greens, colorful veggies, lots of beans and a smattering of meat. I know that figure shocks some of you, it shocks me, too. And lest you think I'm buying "goodies," here's this week's breakdown:
Bread: $21.44 (7%)
Canned goods: $16.70 (5%)
Dairy: $30.84 (9%)
Dried Fruit and Nuts: $9.47 (3%)
Frozen: $1.79 (less than 1%)
Grains: $8.97 (3%)
Meats: $42.66 (13%)
Paper: $17.34 (5%)
Treats (crackers, a jar of nutella and a jar of PB): $12 (4%)
Produce: $161.48 (50%)
That $323 will last us close to, but not quite a week. Yeah, I could (and do!) make my own bread. The bread listed here is weird stuff like bagels and tortillas. One of our less expensive snacks is quesadillas with just a tortilla and cheese, but I can't make my own tortillas well enough. And one bagel with a topping is a whole meal. Canned goods includes canned beans and tomato products. I could (and do!) make beans from dried, but canned is an important shortcut for me when time is short. $31 for dairy might seem a bit low for a family with growing children and high for a family with allergies. That total includes soy milk for Papa and lactose-free for Blair. The dried fruits and nuts aren't a weekly expense, but this week we're having a couple dishes that include them. They go a long way and have a good shelf life, so leftovers won't go to waste.
A package of corn is all I got from the freezer section. If we want ice cream or popsicles we'll make it ourselves. Grains includes whole grains to mill at home for bread baking, some polenta and a big canister of rolled oats. I went a tiny bit overboard on the meats this week. Although we are only having three meals with meat at all, they are salmon, lamb and chicken. The lamb was just one pound ground, so that's a chunk. The chicken, too, was a chunk and on sale. But, oh, the salmon! $20 is a whole lot less than you'd pay in a restaurant to feed salmon to 7 people, and I really feel strongly about the nutritional advantage of fish, but $20 for one item really chokes me.
I'm not going to begrudge the kids for asking for crackers and nutella. We're not drinking sodas or juice, and after a week of kale and collards they'll need something yummy. I'm not going to fuss about several boxes of Kleenex when we have runny noses or the cost of toilet paper. It is what it is.
But $161 for produce?!? Yikes! That really hurts! And the individual prices hurt, too. $2.50 for a head of romaine. One tomato for $2.59. One bell pepper for $2.09. That's just wrong. How am I supposed to push fruits and veggies if they are so outrageously priced?
And how, exactly do those other large families get out of the store for $100 a week? I can only assume they're eating the SAD. Our allergies pose a problem in that so many processed foods have corn and casein and other things we can't have. But really, do they just not eat tomatoes? Ever? No salads? What? How do they do it?
I was so spoiled by our CSA program. It was a challenge coming up with ways to serve what I got before it went bad, and I'll confess, the radishes, okra and one of the eggplants went to the neighbors. But paying up front for it made it seem like it was "free food" and that made it a lot easier to swallow than buying at grocery store prices weekly.
I need to figure something out for sure, because when we eat well, our food budget surpasses our mortgage payment.
I can spend as little as $250 to feed us for a week. It won't be pretty, though. We're talking the Standard American Diet here, which is sad indeed. Cold cereal, PB&J, frozen entrees bought on a BOGO, chips and chocolate. *barf*
Or, I can spend $350 a week and feed us well. Leafy greens, colorful veggies, lots of beans and a smattering of meat. I know that figure shocks some of you, it shocks me, too. And lest you think I'm buying "goodies," here's this week's breakdown:
Bread: $21.44 (7%)
Canned goods: $16.70 (5%)
Dairy: $30.84 (9%)
Dried Fruit and Nuts: $9.47 (3%)
Frozen: $1.79 (less than 1%)
Grains: $8.97 (3%)
Meats: $42.66 (13%)
Paper: $17.34 (5%)
Treats (crackers, a jar of nutella and a jar of PB): $12 (4%)
Produce: $161.48 (50%)
That $323 will last us close to, but not quite a week. Yeah, I could (and do!) make my own bread. The bread listed here is weird stuff like bagels and tortillas. One of our less expensive snacks is quesadillas with just a tortilla and cheese, but I can't make my own tortillas well enough. And one bagel with a topping is a whole meal. Canned goods includes canned beans and tomato products. I could (and do!) make beans from dried, but canned is an important shortcut for me when time is short. $31 for dairy might seem a bit low for a family with growing children and high for a family with allergies. That total includes soy milk for Papa and lactose-free for Blair. The dried fruits and nuts aren't a weekly expense, but this week we're having a couple dishes that include them. They go a long way and have a good shelf life, so leftovers won't go to waste.
A package of corn is all I got from the freezer section. If we want ice cream or popsicles we'll make it ourselves. Grains includes whole grains to mill at home for bread baking, some polenta and a big canister of rolled oats. I went a tiny bit overboard on the meats this week. Although we are only having three meals with meat at all, they are salmon, lamb and chicken. The lamb was just one pound ground, so that's a chunk. The chicken, too, was a chunk and on sale. But, oh, the salmon! $20 is a whole lot less than you'd pay in a restaurant to feed salmon to 7 people, and I really feel strongly about the nutritional advantage of fish, but $20 for one item really chokes me.
I'm not going to begrudge the kids for asking for crackers and nutella. We're not drinking sodas or juice, and after a week of kale and collards they'll need something yummy. I'm not going to fuss about several boxes of Kleenex when we have runny noses or the cost of toilet paper. It is what it is.
But $161 for produce?!? Yikes! That really hurts! And the individual prices hurt, too. $2.50 for a head of romaine. One tomato for $2.59. One bell pepper for $2.09. That's just wrong. How am I supposed to push fruits and veggies if they are so outrageously priced?
And how, exactly do those other large families get out of the store for $100 a week? I can only assume they're eating the SAD. Our allergies pose a problem in that so many processed foods have corn and casein and other things we can't have. But really, do they just not eat tomatoes? Ever? No salads? What? How do they do it?
I was so spoiled by our CSA program. It was a challenge coming up with ways to serve what I got before it went bad, and I'll confess, the radishes, okra and one of the eggplants went to the neighbors. But paying up front for it made it seem like it was "free food" and that made it a lot easier to swallow than buying at grocery store prices weekly.
I need to figure something out for sure, because when we eat well, our food budget surpasses our mortgage payment.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Community Supported Agriculture
If you're at all "green" or interested in nutrition, you've probably heard the pleas to eat seasonally and locally. Ah, a noble endeavor, but not easy for a city girl to accomplish!
Or so I thought, but nothing could be further from the truth. Do a web search for "community supported agriculture" or "CSA." You'll come up with several sites, probably including one or two that will help you find a CSA co-op near you. Here's mine.
At the beginning of the year, I plunk down a nice chunk of change as a deposit. I also make monthly payments for the growing season. Next year I'll probably plan better and be able to pay it all up front. The farmer uses that money to prepare and plant his fields, and each week I get a "share" of my investment in the form of freshly picked, locally and organically grown, seasonal produce! I get regular reports from the farmer about what's being put in the ground this week, or what's being harvested, and recipes to use the fresh produce in.
We got our first "share" last week and it was so delicious. We had baby beets (the size of my thumb) roasted in a salad that were so good hubby even ate them! We had leafy head lettuce that was juicy and fresh. I steamed the Russian Kale and beet greens together and tossed them with some dried cranberries in a sweet and sour sauce.
But I couldn't bear to do anything to the strawberries other than eat them whole, fresh from the plant. Look at the luscious color.
You won't find strawberries with this color or flavor in a grocery store, I guarantee you. I haven't tasted a strawberry this delicious in...18 years. Yup, it was 18 years ago I had a tiny garden with a little strawberry plant that would produce maybe 10 strawberries each May.
My "share" costs about half of what buying the same amount of the same produce in my grocery store would cost. It's a great investment in local agriculture, nutrition and flavor! I can't wait for my next share of strawberries tomorrow!
Or so I thought, but nothing could be further from the truth. Do a web search for "community supported agriculture" or "CSA." You'll come up with several sites, probably including one or two that will help you find a CSA co-op near you. Here's mine.
At the beginning of the year, I plunk down a nice chunk of change as a deposit. I also make monthly payments for the growing season. Next year I'll probably plan better and be able to pay it all up front. The farmer uses that money to prepare and plant his fields, and each week I get a "share" of my investment in the form of freshly picked, locally and organically grown, seasonal produce! I get regular reports from the farmer about what's being put in the ground this week, or what's being harvested, and recipes to use the fresh produce in.
We got our first "share" last week and it was so delicious. We had baby beets (the size of my thumb) roasted in a salad that were so good hubby even ate them! We had leafy head lettuce that was juicy and fresh. I steamed the Russian Kale and beet greens together and tossed them with some dried cranberries in a sweet and sour sauce.
But I couldn't bear to do anything to the strawberries other than eat them whole, fresh from the plant. Look at the luscious color.
You won't find strawberries with this color or flavor in a grocery store, I guarantee you. I haven't tasted a strawberry this delicious in...18 years. Yup, it was 18 years ago I had a tiny garden with a little strawberry plant that would produce maybe 10 strawberries each May.
My "share" costs about half of what buying the same amount of the same produce in my grocery store would cost. It's a great investment in local agriculture, nutrition and flavor! I can't wait for my next share of strawberries tomorrow!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Fourth Floor Nurse's Station
One of the distinct disadvantages to having a large family is when illness strikes.
We have two bugs going around our house right now. One is a nasty tummy bug that gets worse, then better, then worse, then...you get the idea. I've had it for 12 days, my personal cut-off time for allowing myself to get better before calling in the guns. Hubby's had it for about seven days and Blair for about two. Seeing a pattern here? Like a 5-day incubation period?
The other bug is like a cold, but not so much with the sniffles and sneezing, and big time with the cough. Rosie caught it first, today is her ninth day. She was better yesterday and I let her go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. But you can't keep a seven-year-old sitting down in fresh air and sunshine, so she was up and playing a lot. Too much. She's having quite the rebound today after not sleeping well last night for all her coughing.
Kate is in her sixth day of the coughing fits. She is pretty perky and healthy-looking during the day, but at night she keeps us all (and herself) awake with the hacking. And poor hubby's allergies have been making him crazy at night, with his head packing in after being laid down for 30 minutes or so.
Of course, they all sleep better with their heads slightly elevated, which means they all sleep in the living room. And the insomniacs make them crazy with their trips to the bathroom and kitchen until 2AM when Blair finally zonks out and starting again at 4AM when John gets up for the day!
Rosie finally gave up and crawled in bed with me this morning for a little peace and quiet. Bless her heart. She's a snuggler, though, and breathed all those lovely germs right into my face until I managed to drag myself out of bed.
In a large family, you have two sickness scenarios:
Everyone gets sick at once. That works fine if Mama stays healthy and can fetch and carry. But in 27 years mama-ing, that has only happened to me once. I find it's much more likely for Mama to get sick right along with everyone all at once. The upside to that would be everyone convalescing together, watching movies and eating soup together and no one hollering about how badly THEY need to go to the library. The downside? This Mama tends to get illnesses rather heavily, so while the children are sniffly, I come down with bronchitis and pneumonia. And do the cooking and cleaning and tending, not resting and napping, which makes the bug hold on all the longer.
Everyone gets sick, one at a time. Ah, the nickel-and-dime-you-to-death scenario. If you assume 10 days from first sniffle to last cough, times seven people in the house, you're talking a whopping two months of care-taking without a single trip to church, the movie house, or the mall. Then consider there are two "cold and flu seasons" in a year and suddenly a twelve-month year becomes one-third shorter and less efficient!
Homeschooling helps. Our public-school-attending friends are sick much more of the time than we are.
Back, five or six years ago, I took a phenomenal herbal medicine course. I learned how to make tinctures and elixirs, syrups and teas, how to grow herbs to make medicines, how to diagnose and dose, the whole nine yards. And the knowledge has served me well. I still use that information frequently. But I'm beginning to see that I need a different approach.
I am currently studying nutrition as a disease preventative. Good to know the remedies for illness, but I'd rather avoid the illness to begin with. And I'm sure it helps quite a bit, as shown by our only two small bugs a year. Oh, but I'd so like to avoid those two bugs as well.
We have two bugs going around our house right now. One is a nasty tummy bug that gets worse, then better, then worse, then...you get the idea. I've had it for 12 days, my personal cut-off time for allowing myself to get better before calling in the guns. Hubby's had it for about seven days and Blair for about two. Seeing a pattern here? Like a 5-day incubation period?
The other bug is like a cold, but not so much with the sniffles and sneezing, and big time with the cough. Rosie caught it first, today is her ninth day. She was better yesterday and I let her go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. But you can't keep a seven-year-old sitting down in fresh air and sunshine, so she was up and playing a lot. Too much. She's having quite the rebound today after not sleeping well last night for all her coughing.
Kate is in her sixth day of the coughing fits. She is pretty perky and healthy-looking during the day, but at night she keeps us all (and herself) awake with the hacking. And poor hubby's allergies have been making him crazy at night, with his head packing in after being laid down for 30 minutes or so.
Of course, they all sleep better with their heads slightly elevated, which means they all sleep in the living room. And the insomniacs make them crazy with their trips to the bathroom and kitchen until 2AM when Blair finally zonks out and starting again at 4AM when John gets up for the day!
Rosie finally gave up and crawled in bed with me this morning for a little peace and quiet. Bless her heart. She's a snuggler, though, and breathed all those lovely germs right into my face until I managed to drag myself out of bed.
In a large family, you have two sickness scenarios:
Everyone gets sick at once. That works fine if Mama stays healthy and can fetch and carry. But in 27 years mama-ing, that has only happened to me once. I find it's much more likely for Mama to get sick right along with everyone all at once. The upside to that would be everyone convalescing together, watching movies and eating soup together and no one hollering about how badly THEY need to go to the library. The downside? This Mama tends to get illnesses rather heavily, so while the children are sniffly, I come down with bronchitis and pneumonia. And do the cooking and cleaning and tending, not resting and napping, which makes the bug hold on all the longer.
Everyone gets sick, one at a time. Ah, the nickel-and-dime-you-to-death scenario. If you assume 10 days from first sniffle to last cough, times seven people in the house, you're talking a whopping two months of care-taking without a single trip to church, the movie house, or the mall. Then consider there are two "cold and flu seasons" in a year and suddenly a twelve-month year becomes one-third shorter and less efficient!
Homeschooling helps. Our public-school-attending friends are sick much more of the time than we are.
Back, five or six years ago, I took a phenomenal herbal medicine course. I learned how to make tinctures and elixirs, syrups and teas, how to grow herbs to make medicines, how to diagnose and dose, the whole nine yards. And the knowledge has served me well. I still use that information frequently. But I'm beginning to see that I need a different approach.
I am currently studying nutrition as a disease preventative. Good to know the remedies for illness, but I'd rather avoid the illness to begin with. And I'm sure it helps quite a bit, as shown by our only two small bugs a year. Oh, but I'd so like to avoid those two bugs as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
