Is ugly produce your path to food budget bliss?
We all know there’s a big problem with food waste. So if you’re not the type to fuss too much about picking the perfect apple in the stack at the grocery store, a new food delivery service might be the solution for you AND for the environment. You may have already seen friends posting on social media about a company called Imperfect Produce, a CSA-style program that delivers just slightly bruised or weird-looking veggies to you. They’re still tasty, but just not quite as pretty as you may be used to.
Come the revolution: Homesteading as an act of radical resistance
We wanted land. We wanted to grow real food, and raise animals for real milk and real meat and real eggs. We wanted to sit at our dining room table without a goat jumping from chair to chair. I had enough of a background in historic agriculture (to say nothing of a full-time job doing historic agriculture) that I was willing to take the leap out of the suburbs and into hobby farming. My husband quickly jumped onboard. We are the ones who are actively resisting the industrial food systems of the twenty-first century. Are we radicals? Absolutely. Are we rabid? No. We’ve just simply assessed the way things are going locally, nationally, and globally, and chimed in with Bartleby the Scrivener: We would prefer not to. We are not alone.
You can afford better food: 10+ ways to get more out of your grocery budget
Let’s start with this: I am NOT a picky eater, but I’m choosy about my food. I haven’t always been this way: when I first lived on my own, life was full of Pizza Hut and mac and cheese and ramen noodles and nary a vegetable in sight. I thought spending 50 cents on green onions was a splurge.
The first changes in my adult eating habits happened when I read Micheal Pollan’s rules for eating. That link is a LONG article, and well worth the read, but I’ll summarize: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And don’t eat food with more than five ingredients. He goes on to say that if you’re confused, you should stick to foods your grandmother would recognize. That’s pretty simplistic. In real terms, how do you get there?
Can someone love food and still love the earth?
I just recently became interested in where my food comes from. I am willing to be more responsible about what I buy, but from what I’ve read, grass-fed beef does not always mean humane, Dole bananas are picked by slaves, tomatoes are killing the earth with pesticides, and milk is made by abusing dairy cows.
So what I’m asking is: what’s fact and what’s fiction, and what can I do!? I feel like I can’t eat anything without feeling guilty about it! Can someone love food and love the earth?
Giving up groceries: How we cut supermarkets, restaurants, and convenience stores from our diet
My husband and I gave up buying food from chains. Now we grow much of our food and buy the rest locally — and it wasn’t that hard.