I was told the other day by some mum’s that I have set an almost impossible mission for feeding my family. Our current guidelines for food shopping are:
1. First and foremost, allergy friendly,
2. Failsafe
3. Organic and if possible seasonal
4. Sustainable
5. Frugal (no more than $50 per week), and finally,
6. Fair-trade.
To be honest, the hardest ones of these are to be failsafe and seasonal. Little B can eat so few things (keeping failsafe) that to buy fruit and vegetables in season can be very hard at times. I solve this now by buying what I can in season and freezing it. Its yet another reason I want to get into canning and preserving.
But the rest are fairly easy. Allergy friendly is just the norm for us now (and I cook the majority of our food from scratch), we are blessed to have a very cheap organic and biodynamic grocer 5 minutes from home (which solves organic and frugal), and have a variety of places nearby to buy sustainable seafood (butcher for Lakes Entrance flathead and Aldi for canned red salmon).
The suburb we live in has a strong community feel and heartily supports fair-trade in a number of shops, so again this is a no-brainer. I think part of where we live contributes to the ease of what we buy but also because we aren’t willing to compromise on our guidelines.
It did take me a while to find an organic grocer that didn’t cost the earth. I now spend the same as if I didn’t buy organic, because this grocer believes in making organic food accessible to everybody (eg $2.75 for half a dozen free range eggs).
I dont like to think in absolutes - in my mind nothing is impossible (within reason - no Little B you arent a puppy). I'd rather work on ways that I can achieve what my aim / goals are. I guess after talking to these mum's my aim was to open their eyes to the possibilities, rather than give up at the first hurdle - real or perceived.
Please note, this message will self destruct in 10 seconds….. ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment