My Own Experiment

While my Scouts were away this weekend, I watched about 30 hours of Netflix and Hulu. It was nice because dh wasn't here sighing over my choices and the boys weren't thinking they have a "right" to the computer. I just watched what I wanted to watch.

One of the programs I watched was the documentary, No Impact Man. I'd read Colin Beavan's blog while he was doing the project. While I completely disagree with most people who do things for the sake of the environment, I found the project completely fascinating. They lived in NYC for a year without using motorized transportation (except for the trains they took to upstate New York to meet some farmers), they created as little waste as they could, and went 6 months without electricity. The documentary was just as fascinating as reading his thoughts had been.

The thing that I was most impressed by, was how their eating habits were changed. They only bought food that had been grown within 250 miles. So they bought fresh, seasonal produce. They did not eat meat, because (they said) cattle emit too much gas into the atmosphere. At the beginning of the documentary, his wife admits to being addicted to fructose corn syrup and other processed foods. She did not know how to cook. They usually ate take away food from restaurants. She had had some blood work done and found that she was pre-diabetic. By the end of the project that was reversed.

I have been thinking a lot about food. We eat a huge amount of processed food. While we are generally healthy people, I do have a thyroid condition. My numbers show me as being hypo-thyroid, but my body looks hyper-thyroid. I have never been to an endocrinologist to find out all the deatils, but I imagine that it has to do with eating habits. They're bad.

Every morning, I have one large cup of coffee or two small ones with cream and white sugar. No food. Around 10:30 am, I am usually very hungry and I will eat some left-overs. Then, I might eat snacks until supper. Snacks would be chips, pretzels, microwave popcorn. Oh, and soda, dh and I drink a lot of soda. Supper is the only meal that I actually cook. Most of the food we eat is processed. Last night we had what we call burger pockets. I made stuffed hamburgers (with colby and jalepeno) and put them in refrigerator bisuits. We had waffle fries as a side.

The other side of the food thing is money. We hear over and over that the poor can't buy helathy food, it's too expensive. I just don't think this is true. I think that healthy food can be purchased at a regular grocery store for as little as processed food.

The reason we buy processed food is convenience. It's fast. Stuffed burgers could be done with homemade, whole wheat biscuits (ok I don't think whole wheat biscuits exist, but you know what I mean,) but it would require more time on my part to prepare dough.

So, I'm going to do my own experiment. One month at a time.

I'm going to try to buy local, in season produce as much as possible. There is a farmer's market up the road. I will not limit us to that, though, I will also buy produce from H.E.B. (a Texas grocery store chain.) I will educate myself on what is in season and try to stick to that. We will not be going vegetarian. But I am not going to buy any more processed meat. I have been wanting to learn to make sausage, so this is my chance. We are going to eat kosher (no pork, shellfish or non-scaled fish). Not because I think we have to, but because if it was God's idea, there must be a reason.

I'm going to make our bread products. and when I say I, I mean to have the boys learning to use the bread machine and I think they will enjoy using the grinder to make sausage.

I am going to find a more healthy way to consume coffee.

And I intend to show that it doesn't cost more. The hard part is going to be getting dh off Dr. Pepper. Or at least not have it in the house.

I'm going to try to replicate my last grocery bill. And compare it to the next grocery bill. I will post websites and recipes that I use. I think the first step is going to be to use up all the existing food in the cabinets and fridge. I buy every two weeks and so it is usually low by Wednesday before payday. Today is Tuesday and it's not so low.

Next post last grocery bill. That should be fascinating reading.