Pages

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Some Scary Numbers



In the last post on this page I wrote about how lack of cooking was part of the problem of people not eating well. A recent article by a mom who knew and practiced healthy eating and lost the ability to when she lost her job gives another piece of the puzzle. Read the article here.

As part of that article she references the numbers associated with the SNAP program that provides food assistance to people. Those numbers are truly scary. Not only because of the amount provided to help feed a family, but the sheer numbers of people needing assistance and their growth over the last three years. Consider:


  • In 2008 there were more than 28 million people receiving SNAP assistance. Two years into the Great Recession that number increased nearly 43% to more than 40 million. 
  • In 2008 the average monthly benefit per household was $226.60. Two years later, that benefit increased about 28% to $289.61. At the same time, most likely the number of mouths to feed in a household increased with kids coming home, people doubling up, more job losses and so on. 
The challenges of eating healthy on a budget are real. And they are most likely going to be with us for the foreseeable future. So being as creative as possible, stretching budgets, reverting to canning, bartering and growing some portion of our diets are all needed. More ideas are needed as well. 

Our parents or grandparents made it through the Great Depression. We need to relearn those skills and attitudes and muscle through our Great Recession. Maybe we can come out stronger, smarter and more compassionate on the other side. 



Friday, August 26, 2011

Beer Tour

The beer tour started last Sunday and will wrap up tomorrow so things have been pretty silent on this page.  Will be back to posting next week. In the meantime, you can check out what's happening on the Beer Tour page.

Friday, August 19, 2011

The $5 Challenge

I've long believed that the idea that eating well couldn't be done on a budget was somewhat incorrect. Certainly if you had no access to healthy food then no matter how much money you had, it wouldn't matter. But assuming you have the access to choose healthy over not healthy, it seemed that the bigger issue was the perception that there wasn't time to cook, or perhaps, there weren't the skills.

To cook - like many other things in our Western culture - is a choice. If we don't "want" to cook or "like" to cook we don't have to. It wasn't always that way and still isn't in many other parts of the world (and truthfully, in many parts of the US as well.) To live is to cook...or if you eat only raw foods, at least to prepare them if not alter them with heat. Yet in the last 30+ years we seem to have left cooking to others, too busy with "important" things to do it. But maybe the tide is shifting as "cooking" takes on a new chic face with shows, competitions and attention by marketers. Yet, at it's heart, cooking is about sustaining life, building community among friends and family and - at least for me - it's a meditation on the amazing variety, taste, aroma and beauty of all the ingredients as well as the finished product.

How we view cooking - as drudgery to be left to others or as something that doesn't fit into a busy day -  has consequences. Both financial and health related. And the money we spend on it doesn't have to break the bank to be tasty or more nutritious. Slow Food, the movement that began as a reaction against "fast food," has set out The $5 Challenge to encourage cooking and reeducate us that eating well doesn't have to be expensive. In the process, hopefully people will begin to rediscover there is a joy in cooking (a tip of the hat to Irma Rombauer...) and in the results. Even if things don't work out quite the way the recipe shows, unlike with other mistakes in life, with cooking most times we can really eat our mistakes :-)


Thursday, August 18, 2011

Farm Subsidy Myths

Farms subsidies are good things, right? They help farmers and we all need to eat so we should continue to provide subsidies, right?

No. Not really.

Click here, to read about farm subsidy myths busted.


Friday, August 12, 2011

Separating out the cream

I grew up next door to a dairy farm in Southern Indiana and routinely found myself in the milking barn and the room where the big chiller held all the milk til the tanker trucks came to take it away. Early on my family's milk was delivered in bottles (I don't know if it was from the farm next door) and it was whole milk (not 2% or skim) that I drank with my meals and my mother cooked with. Over time we got our milk in cartons and they said "pasturized"  and "vitamin D added" and these were perceived to be good, healthy things. Now they are called into question.

There has been growing interest in using raw milk. Yet as recently as the 1930's tainted milk products were the largest source of food borne illness and so the move to pasturize them was perceived as a health boon. Does using raw milk make sense now? I admit I've used it to make cheese (I can no longer drink whole milk of any kind because its just too rich) and enjoyed it. And know of parents whose children drink it to gain weight for sports. Yet, as in all parts of life, risks are out there and there are people who have suffered from it.

The website Real Raw Milk Facts is one source of information. Raw Milk Facts is another. (Perhaps the former was a "response" to the latter?) There are probably lots more. Like many important things, the solution is probably not a simple black/white issue. These websites may or may not support your views on the topic, but at least they identify themselves in the debate. What is right for one person may not be right for another, however becoming more informed seems to be a good thing for everyone.



Thursday, August 11, 2011

If they only knew...

Back in the 60's the movie "The Graduate" had a famous line where the word "plastics" was used to signal a future of bright opportunity for the hero. It was a field that was held out to be full of promise (even though the word "plastic" was simultaneously a code word for everything youth of that day decried.) After decades of growth in use in almost everything imaginable - that promised bright future - we come to a discussion of some of the darker side of plastics. Not just the trash aspects, but now there are potential health issues too as use of plastic bottles has begun to be considered as a link to obesity and other health issues.

For more, see the full article at Supermarket Guru.

It seems that every day the world of my parents and grandparents - gardening, canning, re-using and being all around frugal - just makes more and more sense. It always did make sense to me, but now its a cry to arms against things that may be doing us irrevocable harm....




Friday, August 5, 2011

You Get What You Pay For

Much has been written about the cost of food on all fronts. That it will cost more as the price of oil goes up. That is is artificially low in this country thanks to subsidies, and that food grown without chemical fertilizers or herbicides costs more because it is more labor intensive, or small scale, or both. 

In the August/September issue of Mother Earth News there is a short article in the Green Gazette column with a headline "Choose Local Food and Save!" It cites research - several studies - that show that at least some, if not all items are less costly at farmers' markets. They are also likely much fresher and more nutritious. And because the money goes directly to the grower, they are helping boost the local economy as well. Rather than growers selling mass quantities of produce in bulk and getting a small percentage of the retail price, selling at a local market allows them to get more fully compensated for the risk, the work and the results. 

As consumers we can choose to pay a lower retail price (and possibly a higher one in terms of our nutrition and health) or a higher price (and improve our nutrition and health). As they say, you get what you pay for.