Food, Inc.

On this first day of 2010, it is very fitting to have watched a documentary that will likely change many things about the way we live this year. I would very strongly encourage everyone to view Food, Inc. and be prepared to have your eyes opened. Whether the information in this film is completely new to you or something you’ve been aware of for some time, you will see things that will without a doubt compel you to do something about it. For me personally, this film is like the straw that broke the camel’s back and I have a feeling that I am now on a journey I didn’t think I would ever take.

The truth is, I have been interested in health and nutrition for years now, and despite my propensity for astronomical social bingeing, I very much desire to consume food that is healthy and good for my body. Now more than ever before, I am inching closer and closer to the edge of the slippery slope that is eating organically. Ironically, this is coming at a time when tightening the grocery budget is of paramount importance and there is little to no room for extra “frivolities” in the shopping cart. Oh, silly me. What I used to view as a fad for “those wealthy people” is now something I can no longer ignore as important for ME. What now? How can I reconcile these two seeming extremes: Grocery shopping on a shoestring budget and buying healthy, raw, organic foods?

I’m convinced it can be done, but not without considerable time and effort. It takes much planning to grocery shop with frugality in mind and I would imagine it takes even greater planning to grocery shop with both frugality AND health in mind. Laughably, I am determined to do just that. In the 3 years that I have been married and have been responsible as the main grocery shopper and meal planner, I have learned that it is never frugal to shop on a per day or per meal basis. It is also never frugal to shop in one fell swoop without planning to actually consume what you’ve purchased before it expires. The alternative to the fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants mentality is to actually sit down and think it through. Make a plan. Plot it out. Write it down. It doesn’t have to be a laborious process but it does have to BE a process. It’s a mental processing of “What would we like to eat this week? What can I make this week that I didn’t already eat 3 nights in a row last week? What’s on sale at the grocery stores this week? How can I coordinate my ingredients so that everything gets consumed and nothing is wasted? How can I configure the menu so that my house doesn’t smell like tuna fish and boiled eggs on Wednesday night when I have 15 people coming over after dinner?” (haha. true story.) After this thought processing is complete, it’s off to the store to purchase what is on my carefully collated list. And nothing more. (Purchasing additional items for the purpose of stocking your pantry or freezer is acceptable but deserves its own blog post. Next time, folks.) Now that I’ve decided that eating organically is, at least in great part, “gonna happen” I’m fairly certain my brain will be inundated with even more troubleshooting for how to make it all work in a budget friendly way.

The good news for us penny pinchers is that we really don’t need to eat as much as we think we do. Growing up, I had absolutely no concept of what was a proper portion size for a girl like me so I just ate my food because it tasted sooooo good. And then I ate some more. It has only been in recent years that I realized just how much food I was eating. In fact, I’ve come to believe that Americans in general eat far, far too much and don’t even realize that they could be slimming down and even saving money for all the food they don’t need to be eating after all. As I’ve learned about what a person of my weight and stature should be consuming, I can take heart because though it may cost more to purchase the organic equivalent, I actually need less of it to fill me up anyway.

For 2010, I’m excited to make some serious changes in the way I shop, cook and eat but I know it won’t be an easy transition, especially coming out of a Holiday (eating) season to beat all Holiday seasons. In order to help perpetuate my motivations, I plan to use this blog to write quite a bit about this subject, along with many more subjects pertinent to home life. In fact, my next blog post will be about my vastly important opinions on cereal, eggs, and bread. So good.

And since I’m out of touch with blogging and I don’t know the proper way to end a post, I will just stop writing now. That is all.