I presented a workshop last night on ways to feed your family better food for less money. It was pretty well-attended but I think the message went largely unheard. People could acknowledge that food prices were up but had no interest in why. They did admit to a lot of waste in their kitchens, much coming from kids who were fussy eaters, and they also admitted to a lack of organization leading to even more waste but I don’t anybody there is likely to change their ways. The thing is, for most of us, old habits are hard to break. As food gets more expensive, I wonder if the incentive will be there to make changes in spite of that.
One of my suggestions is to keep leftovers in glass jars rather than opaque containers. For me, out of sight is out of mind. If I see it, I’ll eat it or add it to a casserole or something. If it’s invisible, it becomes a science project. Have you ever smelled three-week-old rice? Yuck! Still, I don’t think anybody is going to toss the Tupperware any time soon. I also suggest that people check multiple sources for food. Food co-ops have great prices on bulk staples but it requires a certain committment of time and energy to participate.
I save a lot of money when I use menus, buy in season and keep my kitchen organized but again, it takes some extra time and energy to do that. Part of the problem is the hangover we still struggle with from the days of being told that there was no value in the homemaking. The woman’s movement did a lot of good stuff but it ca
me with a high pricetag for families and for woman who wanted to stay home. Things are swinging back out of necessity.
We were supposed to pick my son and DIL up from the train station tonight but they got held up by the big storms out in Utah. They missed their Chicago connection so they are cooling their heals there until tonight. We won’t see them now until tomorrow night. I can’t help but wish we had invested some money in high-speed rail many years ago. One train a day from Chicago to points East is just not efficient.
I watched the CNBC piece on student loan debt last night. I was terrifying. I think it should be mandatory viewing for every family contemplating sending a kid off to school. To begin life with that kind of debt is crazy.
December 22, 2010 at 9:04 am
I have not seen the piece that you mentioned on student loan debt but they have become a huge problem. I completed a BS, MA, and Ph.D. with loans. I dream of having a small home where I can have a large garden and fruit trees and live a simple life doing work for the greater good. To make that happen, I had to take a dramatic step. In August, I started a three year contract working in Afghanistan so that I could get rid of my loan debt; without this step I would not have paid the loan off until I was in my mid-60s.
December 22, 2010 at 10:38 am
I am constantly amazed at how people balk at organization and a little bit of extra work when it comes to their food budget. It’s most discouraging to those of us who are trying to help.
I agree that high speed trains should have come by now, but it’s not important to those in power.
December 22, 2010 at 11:32 am
I read an article on a website yesterday about the price of groceries going up daily. They also said milk had gone up at one of there local stores. And the price had jumped $1 in 48 hours. Now that with the price of everything else going up is very hard to figure in a budget. So someone somewhere better be figureing it up. I have a friend that works at the local food bank. She said that people used to look at it as food for needy people. Now everyone looks at it as there grocery store. And that it is there right to use it or throw it out if they want. The other thing that she said is people do not want to take rice and beans. They want fast cook stuff. Like ramen noodles or canned noodles. So very sad. When you look at the different prices of cost and food value.
December 22, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Well, I had a whole post and it disappeared!
destabee, be safe amd come home safely!
I find the continuous raining in California to be rather frightening. Southern Arizona is in the line of the weather and we expect some storms coming through this afternoon and a good rain out of it.
It seems the weather, at least in US and western Europe has gone totally wacko in the past month, or something or someone is very angry at us! Somehow I don’t find that second possibility hard to believe … The natual world has had it with us.
peace, Shamba
December 22, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I hope your family had a good experience on the train even if they were held up in Chicago. In Minnesota we have been planning and looking forward to a high speed connection to Chicago. Sadly, the new Wisconsin governor has stated his opposition to the federal funding and this has jeopardized the entire project with $$ going elsewhere in the country. Political rhetoric before human needs here. With regard to food budgetiing – menu planning is a necessary first step. It motivates you to take a look at your stock of items and possibly use what is on hand as opposed to running to the store for more expensive stuff. Thanks for the tip on the glass jars!
December 22, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Feeding oneself and one’s family well is a skill that needs to be learned. I find it sad that people are so easily distracted from learning those necessary life skills. But good for you, Kathy, for trying to reach out! You never know how one thing you say may resonate with someone.
I second the be-safe and well wishes to you Destabee.
December 22, 2010 at 2:58 pm
As the price of fruits and veggies skyrocketed by 75% in the last 20 years, the cost of fats dropped over 25 percent. High fructose corn syrup is the cheapest food to produce on the planet. No wonder over 32% of America’s children are overweight and 12.5 million of them are so obese that they are already at risk for adult conditions like Type II diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver. What will their world — and ours — hold when they can no longer be productive citizens? Who will pay the bill?
My son recently completed a paper on childhood obesity for his Health class, and he was staggered to learn that 96% of U.S. kids can identify Ronald McDonald and 90% of American children ages 3 to 9 visit a McDonald’s each month. Only 20% of home dinners include a vegetable. The complexities of the issue are profound — economics, race, geography, heredity, neighborhood, family habits, marketing/TV, school system, government subsidies…. it makes my head spin.
In some ways, Kathy, your voice, on this forum at least, is “preaching to the choir,” affirming those who are already believers. How do you (or any of us?) convert those who look at their limited food dollars and face the hard choice between a tiny amount of organic produce and lots of processed glop? Who don’t let their children get any exercise by walking to school or playing outdoors because their neighborhoods aren’t safe? Who live in nutritional deserts because a whole-foods grocery or farm market won’t move into their lower-income community? There’s a lot of work to do, one meal, one seed, one penny at a time. Thanks for letting me vent! Donna
December 22, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Sorry your son and DIL got stuck, my niece traveling from NYC to Ft. Wayne IN missed her Chicago connection – going slightly off course she’ll arrive tonight – 24 hours late.
Food – prices will continue to rise due to many weather conditions. In SW FL we’ve already had 2 or 3 (depending where in FL) nights with freezing temps. Farmers have cited losses in strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and green beans and probably in some citrus. Remember FL produces about 90% of the oranges for juice and a large portion ripens in Dec and Jan.
I do a simple menu, and have for several years. Starting on Sunday the main course is beef, chicken, something else, pasta, chicken, fish ending with Saturday’s something else. Something else is either vegetarian entree,a soup/stew from leftovers, a breakfast of eggs or pancakes, or just planned leftovers. The sides are a starch or fruit and plenty of veggies both raw/salad and cooked. Our plates are about 3/4 sides and 1/4 entree. Cuts way down on food costs. We try to raise as many veggies as possible and are making inroads with fruit.
Picky kids are, in my opinion, raised by parents who allow their kids to be picky. My 3 boys were required to try a new food 3 times before it went on the ‘will not eat’ list. One son will not eat mushrooms, one will not eat mashed, baked or boiled potatoes, and the third won’t eat brussel sprouts – they are in their 30s now so I think it’s OK. I won’t peas, pickles or olives.
I think Donna’s 3rd paragraph makes sense but I also think the schools, who in some areas provide breakfast, lunch and weekend food, can help improve the diet of children by exposing them to good, healthy food. However, I know that the budget for food in schools is limited and often the food served is what the director knows the kids will eat – usually pizza, burgers, grilled cheese.
Student debt – having talked to several parents with kids in college recently, I found that most only applied for loans and at the college for financial aid. None seemed to know that there are scholarships and awards out there offered by many organizations, clubs, and companies. Few students seem to be willing to start at a community college where the costs are much lower, they can live at home and often can carpool, and can have a part-time job. It is even possible to have a job that is within the student’s field of choice by seeking help from the Dept. head, an advanced degree student or simply applying for a job and explaining that your major is whatever.
An article in my local paper featured the new head of one of the library branches. She loved the library as a child, decided to become a librarian, got a job in the library in college so when she graduated she had her MS and several years of work experience in all phases of the library. There are ways to lower your costs of college without sacrificing quality.
Answers to all the questions/thoughts/ideas posted are complicated. We can only hope that each of us can help get one person to make that one first step – and on and on.
December 22, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Student loans were the only way for my husband to be able to complete his education. Fortunately after he finished he was able to lock his interest when it hit an all time low shortly after 911. He now has an associates, bachelors, doctorates. We are working on paying it back and we have contracts helping us out. I think the key to student loans is having a plan and know what your are doing before signing the dotted line. Luck also helps as well.
December 22, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I have started putting leftovers in glass jars at your suggestion about a week or so ago, and I like it a lot better already. I have been tired of the yucky tupperwares getting stained and just being gross. I definitely use my leftovers more this way.
Thanks for the tip!
December 23, 2010 at 1:57 am
Sharon Astyk has a great recent article you might be interested in. It is about the home sphere (beginning to be recognized as the Primary Economy) and the role of women and men in it, along with some good comments as well:
http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/12/300_years_of_fossil_fuels_and.php
December 23, 2010 at 3:08 am
But it’s not just a low-income problem. I work (and live)in a predominantly middle class area. DH is a public sector worker and consequently most families around us have a much higher income than we do.
In the school of 200 children, no more than 10 are entitled to free school meals I should think.
But their parents are so busy being busy (some mothers work, a few have to work to support their family, but most go to the gym, coffee mornings, shopping…) they don’t have time to even assemble a decent packed lunch for their child. Everything is individually wrapped in plastic. Fruit is in a smoothie, fruit bar or maybe strawberries, grapes and blueberries (in England in December!) Many don’t even have something like a sandwich, it’s just a collection of fromage frais in tubes, individual salamis/packets of deli chicken, potato chips, processed cheese etc.
A colleague told me how she is now picking the leftover meat off their roast chicken. To feed the new puppy. (And she is one of the few whose families is on a similar or lower income to us.) Stock from the carcass is too time consuming to even think about. Not when you can buy organic stock in plastic tubs in the supermarket…
I drive friends mad by saying ‘but you could make that for pennies’ about anything from posh sloe gin to bread rolls. But you could! They just can’t get past the mind set that domestic/kitchen work is drudgery and beneath them. So much for women’s lib. It did a lot of good, but also undervalued the wonderful job that so many women were doing by claiming kitchen slavery, rather than extolling household management as a difficult job worth doing properly.
I’ll step down off my soap box now…
December 23, 2010 at 11:29 am
I just started reading Jonathan Bloom’s book on food waste in America (“American Wasteland”) so I would have loved to hear your talk! I think a lot of people are just so overworked that they can’t even think about doing one more step in the kitchen, much less having to actually put some thought into pulling a meal together.
I know at one time I would have thought they were just unwilling to make the effort. After this past summer/fall, though, I have a little better understanding. My husband and I were so exhausted – physically, mentally, and emotionally – that our eating habits changed completely. Now that things have eased up, I’m struggling to bring sanity back into the kitchen and continually amazed at how hard it is to transition back to more planning and less waste.
December 24, 2010 at 2:24 am
I was brought up on the “waste not, want not” philosophy, but sadly, my four kids do not seem to have cottoned onto it. Nothing ever moulds in my fridge! I’ve been running a food co-op for years and I’ve been appalled at the rising food prices in the last year or so. I have noticed a movement towards self-sufficiency and preserving food, which heartens me immensely.
Thanks for your common sense approach to so many things.
December 24, 2010 at 11:19 am
Kathy, I wish I could have heard you speak! Your message is so important. It is not easy to feed a family intelligently when you are constantly pressed for time, but it is not impossible.
If I didn’t plan ahead, my family would never get decent nutrition. That was a fact before I was a full time working mom, and it is certainly true now. Cooking ahead of time is the only way. Making lists of pantry staples to never run out of, like eggs, pasta, rice, beans, and the makings for quick skillet meals. Crock Pot is a total lifesaver, I don’t know how any working mother lives without it.
A bowl of apples is our go-to for snacking. I can’t buy poptarts or lots of other processed foods, because one of our kids has adhd, and msg is not good for him (or anyone else, frankly). We don’t drink sodas. Dining on a Dime is a fabulous cookbook!
I wish I had more time for homemaking, but I figure it out as best I can, and the kids have no choice but to pitch in and help. If we do have to pick up a convenience meal, I try to make it a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, so I can stretch the meals from it.
We have a nice life
But I am conscious of food waste and can always do better to prevent it.
December 26, 2010 at 12:12 pm
We use the glass jars for leftovers as well. I’ve noticed that the quart canning jars are great for this – their height means they don’t get other items piled on them, and then they don’t get hidden.
I make stock in the crockpot, myself- an extra 24 hours on low and it’s done. Or even just cook a roast in there, then put the juices from it in a quart jar with a cup or two of the shredded meat, and you have a great base for soup or potpie. Just in case anyone wants to borrow that idea
December 26, 2010 at 10:42 pm
We tossed the Tupperware! It’s definitely do-able. Scary, though, when four Pyrex storage containers put us back almost $50. Mr. Doom carried them to the checkout carefully, saying “Okay, you have two little dishes and two big ones – if you have more leftovers than that, you’re cooking too much at a time.” And I store leftovers in old canning jars that are unsafe for processing.
DDU – “How do you (or any of us?) convert those who look at their limited food dollars and face the hard choice between a tiny amount of organic produce and lots of processed glop?” It doesn’t have to be black and white. I live in a low-income area, in a “nutritional desert” (what’s Whole Foods? American store?). My family eats on a ridiculously low budget. And we eat very well. Hmm … I feel a blog post coming on … I’ll go write it instead of taking up Kathy’s comment space!