20 Ways to Build a Whole Food Kitchen on a Budget
Making a trip to the grocery store these days is like running a gauntlet. From one side you are assaulted by food-like substances in brightly labeled packages, some even touting exaggerated health benefits from the toxins within. From the other side, you are gouged and poked by cleverly marketed “natural” foods that are 4 times the price of conventional foods. When you change directions to avoid one onslaught, you are immediately attacked by the other.
We’re at war and the grocery store is the battlefield.
That war has been declared on us by multiple enemies with unlimited budgets, such as Monsanto, Big Pharma, Big Agri and and Big Food. What’s even worse is that they are aided and abetted by their allies at the FDA and the US Congress, administrations peopled by those who are actually supposed to be the gatekeepers that protect us from this.
What’s a frugal whole food shopper to do?
Lots of people write to me and say, “I’d love to eat the way you do, but I can barely afford regular groceries. There’s no way I could afford all that healthy stuff.”
Good food might be expensive, but as the saying goes, have you checked out the price of illness lately?
If you don’t believe you can afford to eat healthfully, consider the high price of being sick and lethargic. Calculate the cost of days missed from work for illness. Add up the price of having no energy to play with your kids or to do things that would help you to save money. Think about the exorbitant prices of medical care. Many of these things are completely avoidable – all you have to do is feed your body real food and you will be astounded at the resultant glowing health. How much money have you spent over the last year fighting ill health that could have been avoided through good nutrition?
GMOs have been proven to cause cancer, ghastly tumors, organ failure, and death. Many of the additives included in the products proudly displayed on grocery store shelves have been banned in other countries because of the health consequences they wreak. Top this with a produce section absolutely drenched in pesticides that have been proven to result in cancer, hormone disruptions, and learning problems in children.
To quote the Terminator, “Come with me if you want to live.”
We all know the reasons that we should switch to whole foods, but with the ever-increasing checkout counter inflation, how can we make it happen? Here are a few realistic tips that do not include relocating to 30 acres of prime springfed organic farmland blocked off on 3 sides by mountain ranges. Realistically, you may not be able to make every one of these things happen, but for each positive change you make, you are taking steps towards better health and you are revolting against the toxic food cartel.
20 Ways to Incorporate Whole Food into your Kitchen...
- Buy local. Ideally, you never need to set foot in a grocery store. Change your shopping habits and buy from local farmers, either directly from their farm or from a farmer’s market. You will get your produce at the optimum time, right after it was picked. As well, you can directly ask the farmer about his practices. Sometimes farmers grow organically and they just haven’t gone through the expensive and highly regulated certification programs that exist to make increase the monopoly of factory farms. (Enter you Zip Code in the search box above to find Farmers Markets)
- Join a food co-op or CSA. This is win-win, because it helps out the farmers and it helps out your family.With both of these options, you can register ahead of time (in some cases you pre-pay for the season) and then receive a box brimming with abundance from your own area. You will get to try lots of new things (this is how we tried one of our family favorites, rutabaga, for the first time) and you will get to do this at a fraction of the price.
- Buy produce that is in-season. Purchasing food that is in-season is not just cheaper, it is nutritionally beneficial too. Buying strawberries in January and asparagus in October requires that the produce be picked before it is fully ripe, and the produce begins to decompose and lose nutrients the second it is separated from the plant. Avoid the high cost of transporting your “fresh” Christmas berries and melons and stick to the items that nature is currently providing in your area.
- Grow as much as you can in the space you have. Plant a sunny windowsill with salad veggies and herbs, grow a container garden on a balcony, or turn your yard into a mini-farm. Every bite of food you grow yourself is a revolutionary act.
- Plan your menu AFTER shopping, not before. This allows you to stay on budget because you aren’t shopping for special ingredients to make pre-planned meals. You can take advantage of the best deals and plan your meals around those. This can also help by keeping those unplanned budget purchases from going to waste in your crisper drawer while you carry on with your planned menu.
- Drink water. We generally stick to drinking water. Not fluoridated tap water – we purchase 5 gallon jugs or fill them in a spring when that option is available. Water is cheaper and healthier. Beverages that you make yourself like coffee and tea are far less expensive than the soda pop and energy drinks that fill most modern refrigerators, not to mention, relatively free of the toxic chemicals that overflow in the store-bought drinks.
- Buy staples in bulk. Organic grains like brown rice, wheat berries, cornmeal, barley and oatmeal can be purchased in bulk quantities. This reduces the price to lower than or equivalent to the smaller conventional packages that are offered in your local grocery store.
