Long Weekending

Over the long and rather brisk weekend, we managed to get outside to enjoy some much needed sunshine…

:: Raking up all the leaves (with helpers in tow)

:: Cooking some rather yummy oat & spelt biscuits (nice with beetroot dip)

:: Digging, digging and digging over one of the veggie beds so that our faithful magpies and kookaburras can eat up the curl grubs its infested with

:: Taking our budding inventor to see the Wallace & Gromit inventor's exhibition at Scienceworks

:: And when it all got a bit too hard ;-) settling down with a nice book

Hope you had a lovely Jubilee weekend as well.

Winter Preparations

Picture courtesy of here

With the cool weather we’ve been having for most of May, I started our normal preparations for winter early this year.

We’ve had our woollen underlay’s and flannelette sheets on our beds for quite a few weeks already. But after really cold night last night, our extra comforters came out and have been pinned to our doonas and put back inside their dust-mite covers. We use these comforters as emergency evac linen during summer (they live in the boot of my car).

Our hot water bottles have been in high demand!! LOL

We’re really wary about the increased cost of utilities and having never experienced a winter in this house, we are being fairly frugal with the heating. It goes on for 2 hours in the morning and 3-4 hours in the evening and the rest of the time we turn it off or keep it set to 17 (unless Little B is really sick). So far, so good – the house doesn’t really drop below 17 degrees (yet!!)

I’ve aired out our jumpers and winter jackets, and dug out all Little B’s winter clothes. So with frugal and green living during winter in mind, it’s all about layers here at the House of B – I’m more likely to pop on a beanie or a second pair of socks than to turn up the heater.

We also have lots of snugly blankets to cuddle up with when reading, crocheting or watching tv at night. There’s definitely something romantic about snuggling up in blankets, when it’s dark and chilly outside.

We indulge in lots of warms soups for lunches & dinners, plus we've been cooking lots of casseroles and warm oriented foods for lunches. Also nothing hits the spot like a warm drink...Little B loves to snuggle and read library books over a cup of hot carob. Plus we keep warm working in the garden, baking, and playing during the day.

Finally, Mr B is going to put in some insulation batts underneath the floors of the bedrooms to stop some of the cold coming up from underneath in those rooms at night. This is a fairly expensive exercise so we aim to do it room by room as finances permit :-)

Digging for Change

There have been so many amazingly positive posts to read around the web at the moment (like here and here and here). I love that people are so excited about making changes and making a difference to “humanity” (Bec and Gavin say) as well as themselves and their lives.

Here at the House of B we have been digging for change ;-) We have been digging out a base for our new 5000L water tank, digging out and over old veggie beds and digging out and putting in the pole for our new solar tracker. We’ve been getting earthy and downright grotty digging deep in the mud. And I’ve loved it…it feels like we are moving forward to the house we’d like to live in (now if only it was on 10 acres or so).

We hope from this to have another solar source, some beds ready to plant for spring and a water tank to plumb our toilet and washing machine into.

Next up we hope to trim the tops of the trees that are blocking the sun to our vegie beds in late autumn/winter and put in 3 new vegie beds before spring...I forsee lots more digging in my future!! LOL

Local vs Organic

I had a really interesting conversation the other day regarding organic food. I was speaking to some lovely people at a bbq who believed that local food was more important than organic food. In their eyes, they would rather support our local community and economy by buying from farmers that live and grow their produce locally and those csa groups that source locally. It also meant that they went to local markets (not primarily food based) and supported these producers with their custom and as a by product the market itself.

I found their take on it all quite fascinating. I personally have been more interested in organic food but with a focus on local as well. But there is a lot of food that I cannot get from local producers organically. However, if I chose I could get this food locally but not organic.

And so which is best? Local or organic….now I know in ideal world it would be both. But what if that’s not possible? Do you pick the food that is grown a long way away (though still Australian) or the food that is grown virtually on your doorstep. And what if finances are a constraint? Finances are a constraint I think for a lot of people these days, but you still want to make the best and healthiest choices that you can.

I’m not sure I have an answer for this at the moment. For now, I’m supporting our local biodynamic grocer and trying to buy locally grown organic foods, but also trying a hybrid of the two for foods on the clean 15 lists (and hope to grow my own veggies again soon).

So which is more important to you?

No Stuff Motivation

I really love Bec's recent post on "No More Stuff Until Christmas". Over the last few years we've really tried to focus on being no more stuff kind of people. And on a side note, after having to get rid of all our belongings, it's amazing how unimportant stuff really becomes.

But stuff has risen it's ugly head again recently in of all places with Little B's physio. Physio is hard at the best of times and getting a nearly 5 year old to do it every day is shall we say a challenge. The answer I'm told is to bribe him with toys. This is heartily encouraged by both therapists and in the words of one "buy him whatever it takes to get him to do it". Now with both of them encouraging this, it would mean that I would be buying Little B 2 toys a week or 8 toys a month. Seriously, what child needs 8 new toys a month? And even if I was buying secondhand - that's still 8 new toys a month!?!?!

Needless to say I have found this attitude grating rather than encouraging and it has more than ruffled my feathers (not helped by a crankypants child who doesnt want to do physio everyday). So our answer has been to create our own reward charts. Working with Little B we have created two rewards charts - one for outdoor rewards and one for cooking rewards. Each week, he gets to pick something from one of these lists as his reward. We then alternate the charts so he picks outdoors one week and cooking the other. He chose the things on the list so that they motivate him to get through his daily exercises.

As you can see from the list, they arent earth shattering but they are things he really likes to do with the undivided attention of either or both parents in tow. He loves to cook and while this list isnt complete yet, we are already looking forward to making cattle cookies this weekend.

I'd hate to think where we would have put Little B's 36 new toys if we'd gone down that path - to be honest the mind boggles.

Solar Tracker IRL

We had a great time away. One of the highlights was seeing Lake Eildon full to the brim. People could touch the bridge as they went under it on boats :-0 I remember not that long ago when it was dry dry dry.

I also finally got to see a community project that Mr B worked on for a number of months earlier this year. He designed and installed the solar tracker and static solar as part of a Eco Living Sustainable Communities Project by the Rural City of Wangaratta. I'd seen many photos but it was really impressive up close - you can see from the pic the sheer size of it compared to Mr B. The tracker currently generates enough electricity to power 3 houses.

And my SIL's 40th was great fun. A beautiful balmy warm night, lots of fun people and my BIL has built a wood fired cobb oven by hand. And provided the most delicious home made wood fired pizzas on the night. Needless to say Mr B was instructed to take a very close look as I soooo want one of those at our new house :-)

And last but not least we noticed quite a few houses in the area from the art deco era. Which allowed us to take pictures and get ideas for the outside of the new house. Especially this roof which has the original terracotta tiles in situ. We're not that lucky but now have a colour that we can at least try and match to.

 

Now that's what I call a thoroughly enjoyable weekend :-)

Renovation Central

This is how you find me most days - engrossed in green living and building magazines that I borrow enmass from my local library. Unlike our previous renovations we are intent on doing a bunch of things before we even move in. Structural work is a given - the house is being restumped and re-roofed before Christmas (yay!) but I am also absolutely intent on doing everything as green and sustainably as possible (as much as our budget allows as well LOL).

But it's been a challenge so far. Finding a roofer was mission impossible and then finding one who doesnt use toxic products was like finding a needle in a haystack. But I'm keeping lists of the products I've found and investigated and that we want to use. Magazines such as Green Living and Sanctuary are such a great starting point for ideas. My current obsession is paint - we've tried eco paints in the past (total disaster) but I'm hoping to not have to resort to Wattyl ID paints this time around (but am cool if that's what eventuates).

I loved Gavin's post last week about retrofitting and this is fundamentally what our new house is about. We want to retrofit it to the best of our abilities to account for life now but also in the future. We are starting with double insulation in the roof cavity after the roof is fixed. Then come the ceiling fans in the bedrooms. The rest will come as our budget allows but we hope to get underfloor insulation pretty quickly, then solar hot water and a wood heater installed into the fireplace.

And since we lost all our stuff from the old house, we are also trying to kit out the house as sustainably and minimally as possible. Friends and family have given us some 2nd hand furniture and I've found some friendly secondhand and vintage stores who understand about my mold allergy and let me know when they have found a "clean" item for me to see. And since the house is art deco we also want to make sure that the house has a vintage feel to fit in with the period pieces that it has.

I love the promise that a new house brings and have to say love the idea of renovating (until the actual work begins - then I'll be the first one moaning about how much I hate painting LOL - ironic considering I'm always the wall painter in the house, whilst Mr B is the fixer of all things fixable!!)

Sustainable Table

  

"Up to 60% of our personal eco-footprint is embodied in the food that we buy".

"Every dollar we spend is a vote for the type of food system and earth we want to be a part of" - The Sustainable Table

What can I say - this really is an incredibly interesting book. It mixes interviews with a wide range of people (chefs, transition groups, kitchen garden schools etc) with predominantly vegetarian recipes. It also has a fantastically detailed section at the back about shopping and eating sustainably.

And I think it's put in such a way that it is accessible to so many different people.  Plus even though I knew a lot of the info inside, there was still enough to make me re-think how I shop and cook. Sort of refining my system - it made me realise how I had fallen into the habit of going to the mainstream supermarkets to buy organic items like pasta and oats, when I really should support smaller Australia businesses (like Four Leaf Organics).

And the two quotes above really resonate with me. So often you come across people who say that how they shop cant possibly make a difference. And it's this sort of book that you want them to read, that you want to inspire them to change they way they shop and cook and eat.

I've now added this to my gift giving list for Christmas. I always like to give things that inspire change or make people think. For example, if I dont know someone very well I generally give them a porcelain reusable cup and / or a reusable shopping bag.

Ride to Work Day

"Today over one hundred and fifty thousand Australian workers are expected to join the commuter revolution and ride to work" - Bicycle Victoria 

Mr B decided to take part today in Ride to Work Day - an event instigated by Bicycle Victoria. As part of his job at a large public health organisation, he organised for many staff members who already ride as well as those new to riding to take part as well.

 

So how did Mr B get to work this morning?? By recumbant trike of course :-) Mr B borrowed a Greenspeed Glyde from a friend to promote this event rather than use his normal everyday bike. This is one cool little machine and stands out in a crowd. 

So last night Mr B and Little B sat inside it for some faux driving. We then watched Mr B do some riding on a small side street. Little B adored it and made me promise when he is big enough that he can graduate from his training wheel bike to one of these LOL. Mr B is a big fan too - he already has the chassis and has it down as a future project (aahh the joys of being married to an engineer and bike/scooter/engine enthusiast).

" So you know the benefits of riding to work (saving money and time, getting fit, staying healthy, green travel…the list goes on), but maybe you don’t know where to start. Ride to Work Day is the perfect opportunity to have a go" - Bicycle Victoria

Checking out energy suckers

Having had solar panels before (albeit for a very short time), I know how effective they can be at decreasing your electricity bills if you are also watching your usage. But this time around I've been having more fun checking out what makes the dial go forward rather than backwards (ie what is an electricity guzzler since we want the system to feed back to the grid).

And it's been an interesting few weeks. Some things have surprised me and some have just been a confirmation of the obvious...

* the slow cooker uses hardly any electricity and the dial goes backwards when it's on

* the dial spins crazily forward whenever anyone uses the kettle :-0

* the dial moves forward when the microwave is on standby (which it never is because a) I already know it's an energy sucking monster and b) I hate EMF's).

* the fridge obviously doesnt impact much as the dial goes backward when it's on

* we are currently only using 1kw a day (and that's without making any changes really)

So what changes to make?? Granny B would like an ecokettle as it allows you to only boil what you need and thus reduces energy usage. But Mr B and I have preferred to use a little gas hob kettle we got from the op shop in the past. It's currently being used by Little B to dress up as the Saucepan Man from The Faraway Tree but will go back to the kitchen when we buy a house :-)

We already do all the obvious things - keep things switched off at the powerpoint to avoid vampire loads, wash in cold water, use sunshine rather than lights when we can, have laptops not computers, have gotten rid of anything electrical that's main job is to be a power sucker (read answering machines, cordless phones). And obviously when we arent living here and Granny B is working all day, there will be nothing on to compete with the solar feeding back into the grid!!

So in the meantime, I cant wait to see what happens with Granny B's first bill :-)

Hello Solar Panels :-)

What better way to celebrate this gorgeous early spring weather than to welcome Granny B's solar panels??

And yes that is Mr B installing them. New legislative changes meant that engineers had to be electricians if they wanted to work hands on with solar installations of any size or kind. So last year Mr B went back to school to become a sparky.

Pretty handy if you ask me :-)

Multi-Chopper / Mouli

Just for interest, Aldi is selling stainless steel multi-choppers this week for $20. Similar to a Mouli food mill and great for manual food processing :-)

The Great Disruption

"It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable. The Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological change like the melting polar icecap. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version  1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our plant's ecosystems and resources." 

- from The Great Disruption: How the climate will transform the global economy by Paul Gilding

I've read this book twice recently, with Mr B and Granny B in quick succession. It is quite simply a fantastic book that is eye opening, scary, and strangely enough uplifting all at the same time. So much more positive than Requiem for a Species by Clive Hamilton.

I'd seen Paul Gilding quoted in some G Magazines and in a few articles by Thomas Friendman, so was eager to borrow this book from the library. Paul Gilding wrote this book to tell us how to fight, and win what he calls 'the One Degree War'. And I have to say all 3 of us found it very inspiring but also drawing comfort in the sustainable simple lifestyle path that we have chosen to follow and believe in.

And after reading it, you suddenly start to see even more of what he is talking about in the world around us. I read the newspapers online or open a magazine at the library and their are articles prominent in mainstream media about The Great Disruption (like the latest Time article on food shortages). This isnt some idea about some far off future, it's about now.

And like Nick at MakeBelieve, you cant help when reading but think about what this kind of scenario means to me and my family. Not only in the obvious personal sense (re being prepared) but also in an activism sense (being part of the change we need to see in the world). Not only will Mr B and I see this in our lifetime (hey we are seeing it now) but it will have a huge impact on Little B and just enforces our belief that the life education we are giving him is of massive importance (think how to grow food, fix things, be resilient in all sense of the word).

One of the best quotes out of this book is "we are their children's children", a term which has been in use since the 1960's & 1970's. 

I heartily recommend that you read this book!! 6 thumbs up :-)

I heart...

I am so loving this little Kids Konserve thermos right now.

Little B takes his lunch to preschool twice per week and sandwiches just dont always cut it in this cold weather. So he's been taking along some hearty stews with rice, vegetarian pasta or home-made mini gozlemes or calzones to eat. 

Growing up a thermos was always part of lunch for my brother and I when we went to school. Granny B made noodles or soup, and it was so nice to eat when we were freezing our butts off at school. Plus I have to say with low gi protein in Little B's lunches, he comes home a happy boy (compared to the crazy grumpy monkey if he doesnt eat his sandwich). Bonus!! :-)

No Food Waste

With the world looking decidedly like it has the potential to go to hell in a hand basket financially, now seems like no better time to reflect on minimising food waste as part of frugal cooking. With food becoming so expensive and costs only expected to rise, it simply seems a shame to waste anything.

The most obvious thing to do is to grow anything you can (even as simple as herbs or lettuce - if that's what you eat). For us this winter it's only been garlic and snow peas - but I planted a years worth of garlic!! I'm using our snowpeas in at least 3 dinners per week (for only 5 plants). We also have oranges growing on our orange tree. But not everyone either wants to grow their own food or has the space to grow things.

So the other key thing is to not waste the food that you do buy. Make sure you use everything up. Old vegies can be used in soups / stews / or grated into old muffins. Old fruit can be frozen for smoothies or used up in desserts or muffins. Aim to use the whole item - if you have a pumpkin, use the flesh but also toast the seeds and make pepitas (a really nutritious snack).

Cook from scratch. It seems so obvious but can also be so simple. You cut out the costs of processed food and it's easier to use things up when you have whole food on hand.

Meat free days - we have 4 meat free days per week and when we do use meat, I cut the amount of meat in half and pad out with lentils or beans. For example, 250g lamb would feed Granny B, Mr B, leave a spare adult meal and two mini meals for Little B. The rest of the dish (generally a stew) includes green lentils, lots of vegies and is served with rice.

We focus a lot on low GI as it keeps tummies feeling fuller longer. Quinoa porridge (pre soaked) with a little fruit makes a powerhouse protein breakfast for Mr B before a long physical work day or for Little B before a long preschool session. Look at old filling favourites...oats become porridge for breakfast, bring down the GI in muffins and can be used for desserts. Sago pudding is a big fav here for desserts because it is filling, gluten free and easy to make. I make desserts these days to fill up Mr B and Little B but ensure they are nourishing and nutritious.

As for time, presoaking grains makes them cook quicker. I soak our porridge oats / rice / quinoa overnight which means they cook on the stove within 5 mins in the morning. A slow cooker means I can come home or wake up to dinner cooked, and I just need to add rice or pasta. 

I find slow cooker stews and soups the key in using up vegies. But making your own dip works well too - I steam up vegies then puree them with beans or nuts and add whatever spices or flavours we like. This is great as an afternoon snack or as a spread on toast / bread / rolls. Mr B loves sweet potato and cashew nut dip. Little B loves a vegie bean dip that is made from brussel sprouts (which you cant taste or see).

Leftover casserole or soup can be pureed up and made into sausage rolls or calzones. Nice hot pocket lunches with no chemical nasties!! :-) A fab side benefit is your family will eat more vegies than they know LOL.

Whether it's minimising your food waste or focussing more on frugal cooking because you want to cut down your shopping dollars, I think every bit of effort in your kitchen and at home can really count both financially and nutritionally.

Breaking Free

You know there is something quite cathartic and freeing about getting rid of all your possessions. Reading blogs like Miss Minimalist, you can see that living minimally can be really positive.

The hardest things I’ve had to let go (in no particular order): my wedding dress, some flamenco dance shoes made for me in Spain, a couple of paintings which had sentimental value. I will admit to having shed a tear or two for my books – not a huge collection but a well read lovely jumble of novels (fiction and non fiction). Funnily enough, I only intend to replace a few of these books and will continue my practice of borrowing books from the library.

Initially the thought of throwing out or recycling our entire house was really depressing. Probably because it was a shock not a choice and also because it feels overwhelming. But you can look at as a form of reinvention. So often we work with what we have accumulated over the years. Now we have a choice about how we wish to represent ourselves.

I personally have found the positives outweigh the negatives. My wardrobe is miniscule and I don’t have a huge urge to increase it. Other than the odd “need” like a winter jacket, I am happy with my small repertoire. Not having belongings means that we are thinking hard about what we do or don’t want at our next house.

We have managed to get some groovy secondhand furniture from family – currently we stand at a brilliant old wooden dining table, an antique meat safe (I think this would look great in a sewing room LOL), and a side table which is made from an old singer sewing table.

We have a handful of precious items that will be sucked down in plastic, double taped into a plastic box and stored at my MIL’s. These include Mr B and my first teddies, Little B’s first t-shirt and socks, and some important personal docs that we cant get rid of (like our degrees).

But overall, this process now feels liberating, refreshing and like a renewal of life after such a slightly challenging period in our lives.

Decisions, decisions...

Well now that we have seen the back of the current House of B (well almost), Mr B and I have set our sights on the future. We are extremely keen to regroup in a new house and move onwards from the last 14 month challenge . So we have been keeping our finger on the local market and checking out houses along the way.

Now comes the dilemma.....our ultimate aim for quite a few years has been to slowly upgrade to an acreage (finances permitting). The luxury of where we live is that you can still be sort of urban but feel like you are living out amongst nature without the acreage. Currently there is nothing (read zero) that appeals and those that have appealed to us have turned out to have serious mold problems (or landslip issues...eek!!) :-(

But we have found one gorgeous little 1920's cottage that has been renovated some time in the past (badly..read: not period). It is big enough for us (so small to most of the general population) and has the obligatory garage fr Mr B and some fab areas for Little B to play and me to to garden. Drawback - it would have to be in the most suburban area of the Hills. Very very 'burban' as we would say. But you cant see the neighbour's too much and the roof is perfect for solar (couldnt be more perfecter).

It is also a fairly flat block, a house with no stairs, and I can park very very close to the house - why is this important?? Because we still dont know how extensive my arm and leg damage is, whether it will continue or whether it will get better. I had my first fall recently due the weakness in my legs (all I can say is ouch!!) so this is at the forefront of my mind as we search.

So the question is do we settle?? I know I'm answering my own questions here but after our quest to buy acreage it feels a bit weird to look at something so suburban when we have spent the last 6 years moving heavily away from that. I know deep down the answer is yes...we can obviously only work with what we can find within the parameters of our life at this moment.

I draw inspiration from blogs such as Bec and her Urban Homesteading, from cittyhippyfarmgirl and her adventures as well as Amanda from Soulemama who was more 'burban' and has now realised her dream of a farm. This sweet little house we are looking at obviously has like minded owners as it already has a decent size veggie patch, water tanks, and 4 fruit trees. They also used to have chickens.


It's early days yet but maybe this will our next house LOL.

Backyard Ovens

Hmm we are still without an oven (long complicated story involving retail stores) but I'm still enjoying the experimentation that it brings. Rather than putting off cooking things as I was, I'm attempting them in the Weber.

We've made muffins, cakes and even tried out our first batch of gluten free bread (still a work in progress). It takes forethought to get the coals going early and getting them nice and hot but well worth the effort.

I read an article in Country Living recently about a family with a wood fired oven and they said "we have no mains power, we chop our wood and I have to start thinking about dinner at 5pm so the stove is hot for cooking and there will also be enough hot water...for baths" (p36, Issue March 2011).

Now I have no intention of solely relying on a wood fired oven as my main cooking source (yet ;-) but love the idea of it as another option in my repertoire.

So I've been eyeing off these books

Drooling at these pictures

and with a new house on our horizon, Mr B and I are contemplating putting in an outside wood fired oven sooner rather than later :-)

Time for dinner

 Good morning hot lunches

Tricia at Little Eco Footprints wrote a post yesterday which really resonated with me. How do you make as much of your own food from scratch but not a) fall in a heap, b) get resentful & give up or c) resort to a paper plate mentality LOL.

There are times I feel like I spend half my life in the kitchen cooking. Probably because I do :-) Do I have days where I resent this? Actually no....tired - yes, resentful - no. The 2 key reasons are I like cooking and secondly because I'm really committed to our food choices and lifestyle. I prefer to view this positively, because I could just as easily say I have no choice. As the parent of a multiple food allergy child, I cant go out and buy many things off the shelf anyways, so why make it into a forced negative idea??

So what do I do to make life easier? I cook in bulk if I can for some things. For example, I use the slow cooker overnight to cook 4-5 days of hot lunches. I also use the slow cooker twice a week for dinners. That means come dinner time, I just need to add some rice.

If I cook soup, I make enough for dinner but also for a lunch or as the base for veggie sausage rolls. When I make said sausage rolls, it makes enough for Little B for about 6 weeks. Make two batches of muffins at once and freeze half. Always make sure your dinner makes 1 more meal and freeze.

Try to get a repertoire of tasty quick meals. Nothing too fiddly or time consuming during the week - I find this makes me cranky. We do a lot of vegetarian meals but also some meat. Things like stirfries, pumpkin & chickpea patties, lamb stews etc. My main priorities in a meal is it must be nourishing, tasty and chockful of veggies / beans / legumes.

Future sausage rolls

Make cooking fun - listen to your favourite music, involve the family. Little B loves to do playdough or colour at the table and sing along with me while I cook or do the dishes. We also use this time to listen to children's audiobooks (current faves are The Magic Faraway Tree & More of Paddington Bear). I leave weekends to try out recipes, make more fiddly meals and stock up our pantry by making jam.

One night a week is leftover / freezer / premade meal night. For us it is Wednesday. I love Wednesday as its the middle of the week and it breaks up the cooking. Mr B & I have leftovers and Little B has lentil sausage rolls or veggie bean pattie burgers. All meals on this night are home-made.

Also I cant say enough - meal plan. I have a 2 week rotation of meals. I just follow these 14 days straight but you could have the 14 and pick from them willy nilly. I prefer more structure as it means I dont have to think about dinner too much and it makes food shopping and stockpiling easier. Plus it means the rhythm of the kitchen and cooking just flows for me.

I change the meal plan around a bit according to the season, the weather and food availability. But cooking a lot of vegetarian meals makes this really easy.

Now I'm currently a SAHM but I'm also studying on campus at night, spending the other half of my life at doctors and hospitals, juggling a 4 year old and helping out in Mr B's business. Up until last year, I worked outside of the home in a stressful job and still did this much cooking. I believe it can be done by anyone...you just need to find the groove or pattern that works for you and your family.

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? :-)