Here is an interesting article at Mercola.com today. Hershey is skimping on the cocoa butter, adding vegetable oil, and still calling it chocolate, AND charging us 11% more for their watered down product. Their complaint is that the price of raw materials has gone up 45% this year. Yeah, we noticed, Sherlock.
I've posted about how I grocery shop before. (I heart Sun Harvest and April Groceries Summary as well as My Grocery Receipt from March 98.) The article above should motivate you do buy no processed foods! Stick with raw materials, and cook. This is the only way to beat the rising food costs.... and they HAVE gone up 45% or so since January. Hershey's is right. My flour has gone from $6 to $10. My strawberries were $1.17 a lb, and now are 1.66. I used to average about .57 per pound for my fresh produce, and it's creeped upwards to .76 per pound. Shop the loss leaders and plan your menu around it. Do NOT plan a menu and then go to the grocery store to "find the best deal" or just pick up the items on your list. NO! Go to the store and purchase the loss leaders- in abundance. Then go home and plan your menu around what you found at the store. Then DO NOT LET ANYTHING go to waste. When your family is finished eating, scrape all the leftover veggies into containers in the freezer and make soup with them all on Sunday.
I still personally believe that one of the best things we can do for our world, and our budgets and our health, is to cut the meat out of the diet. Save it for special occasions. And watch it, don't turn everything into a special occasion. ;)
4 comments:
On the whole topic of getting the best product at the best price, definitely doing it yourself is the key! The question is how much is your time worth? For me that is what I am paying for when I buy packaged foods. I choose clothing. Mostly because cooking bores me. If I get too excited/creative with cooking we end up with something inedible. LOL! My kids do have some very nice, organic and specialized clothing. You should see Tegan's little cowgirl jacket lined with organic French terry! Also, I prewash all the fabrics so that all our clothes (save for wool) can be washed together w/o sorting!
I seriously considered making my own laundry detergent, but chickened out and bought a 5 gal bucket of Charlie's Soap! haha!
OK, well, you know we differ in the meat department. However, I agree with everything else you've said here!! I simply have never understood the mentality of "make your menu plan, then shop to the menu." That seems so backwards to me. Of course, then, you know just want you're going to make every night, which would certainly save me some brain energy 'round 4:30 every afternoon. But, with our restricted diets, we're already spending a ton on food; I can't imagine spending more just so I can make a menu.
Instead, I find out what's on sale (even better if it's on sale and I have a coupon), then craft my menus (roughly) from what's cheap.
And, I typically buy from up to five stores a week, depending what's on sale where, and what I need.
Like you, I make virtually everything from scratch. 98% of the time, packaged food is just way, way, way too much money.
Totally agree on the less meat idea. I think that the idea of eating meat at every meal is downright decadent on our budget ($150 for two weeks). Even if I could stomach it, there's no way I could do it. The costs (in finances and damage to the world) is just too high.
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