Entry bubble Grow Your Own Food

By: Joanne | July 22, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

wet, red tomatoLast week I stared in disbelief at the grocery store cash register. With the way prices are rising, I feel like all my disposable income goes to gas and groceries. I’m sick of the price of food going up, up, up and all the while it seems like there is constantly some sort of warning or recall about certain foods in the grocery stores. I know that the USDA and FDA are doing their best to keep things safe for us, but I think that this is the nature of industrialized food production in our country.

That’s why I’ve been making an effort lately to grow my own food and buy locally produced foods when I can. Even if you don’t have a big garden, there’s still a lot that you can do. We’re entering the height of summer produce season, when our farmers markets are full of beautiful, fresh fruits and veggies.

Preserving your own food gives you control over safety, quality and overall tastiness of your food.

I canned pickled beets from the garden this weekend, and we’ve got 30 jars of wild black raspberry jelly and 10-15 raspberry pies and cobblers in the freezer. Do you know how wonderful it is to have a fresh-baked berry cobbler in January? I do : ) Sweet corn’s just coming into season and soon I’ll have a giant pot of corn chowder on the stove that I’ll freeze and we’ll enjoy all winter long. When my garden is overflowing with tomatoes I’ll make tomato sauce and can whole tomatoes.

See? There’s really not much to it, but giving it a little effort pays a delicious return later. Give it a try. In the long run, you’ll save money on groceries and have wholesome, convenient food at hand, too.

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Entry bubble Paper or Plastic? Cloth or Cardboard?

By: Joanne | March 25, 2008 | Category: Home and Family

paper grocery bags

The next time you’re at the grocery store stocking up on fruits and veggies, consider the question, paper or plastic? Shopping bags, especially the plastic ones are handed to us almost every time we buy something. We’re so used to it that we don’t even think about it any more, but we should.

A friend recently sent me a link to an eye-opening multimedia presentation on the topic of grocery bags. I’m not going to throw a mountain of data at you because when you take a moment to think about it, you already know that it takes a tremendous amount of resources to even produce that bag you take for granted at the store. We’re either cutting down trees or importing fossil fuels to make these things and that’s just the beginning. There’s a costly manufacturing and shipping process and the truth is, that most of them go from our hands directly into the landfill.

I’ve been making a gradual transition to using cloth bags. Every now and again I spend a couple of bucks on a reusable cotton bag. They’re easy to find – your grocery store probably sells them. If I’m not buying much, I ask for no bag at all (a request that has earned me many strange looks from cashiers!) or I keep my handy cotton bags in the car and bring them into the store. You also might want to use a cardboard box – they’re reusable, recyclable, and if your store doesn’t already offer the option, you probably only have to ask because they’ve got lots of them in the back of the store destined for the dumpster. So remember it’s really only a small change of habit to reduce, reuse or recycle that paper or plastic bag!

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