Food Dilemmas

Picture courtesy of www.daytondailynews.com

I've been having a few food dilemmas lately. I think it's probably a side result of coping with so much else (house on the market, doctors appts, sick bubbas) that my mind finds other things to worry about.

With food changes / shortages as they are, I'm finding that I have to make different food choices for our family that challenge me. I prefer to buy organic first and foremost, followed by local food. But last week, on our trip to our local organic fruit & veg grocer, I found that I couldnt buy what we needed. Nor did our local produce store have what we needed.

With Little B's allergies, I have a small-ish repertoire of fruits and vegetable choices available to me. Case in point - celery. I couldnt buy local or organic and ended up at one of the big two supermarkets and bought some there. AND it stuck in my craw. I dont want to have to buy old fruit & veg from a conglomerate - I want to support local businesses and have better access to fresh food.

How does one live seasonally if you cant eat what's in season? Deep down I know it's more important for me to feed Little B all the vegetables he can eat and I dont have the luxury of making a moral stand about where to buy his food from (though I flat out refuse to buy imported fruit & veg). Organic food is great when you're worried about toxic chemicals and being chemical free but lack of access is no reason to starve. I also completely understand that it is a luxury to worry in this way when they are people who have little or no access to fresh food full stop. 

Another thing is I like to be (read need to be) frugal, so I cant spend a trillion dollars on our food budget. Thankfully pears are cheap at the moment as the only other fruit Little B can eat is bananas (and 4 of those cost me $10 the other day).

How do you balance out your hard held beliefs with your living reality? How does an allergy family survive in such a massively changing food market / world? Obviously growing as much of our own veggies is the key but if have a bad growing season, then what?

Local is great but what if they suffer from the same poor growing season or natural disasters, then what? Too much to stretch my poor head around at the moment. But an interesting area to ponder, investigate and prepare for in our future methinks.

PS Can anyone tell I watched "The Future of Food" recently? :-)