Processed Food Better Than Fresh Food? Good Luck, ConAgra.

Frozen, processed food sales are down, according to ConAgra, and they mean to "educate" the public about that.

Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for our health, the local food movement has been gaining a hold on people's minds and they are now eating fresher, healthier whole food to themselves and their families.  This affects processed food sales negatively, but instead of following the concept of free market economics (funny how the value of free market economics is touted, but never followed unless convenient for corporations and banks - staring right at you, Wall Street).

If ConAgra actually listened to consumers and heard that they want fresh, organic, local food, they could move beyond hyper-corn-infused microwave dinners and actually provide us with frozen food we would be tempted to eat.  The reality is that we are busy and we do not always have time to make supper or lunch from scratch, but we do not want to fill our bodies with limp pasta and tasteless sauce that required four minutes and 30 seconds in the microwave anymore.  The questions now in consumer's minds are "Where did my food come from?" and "How was my food made?".  If we aren't able to make it ourselves, we want it to be nearly as nutritious as if we had.

Alas, this is not the tack they wish to take.  Instead, they want to "educate" (ie. sell) the public on the benefits and healthiness of their food.  They want people to be convinced that processed, microwavable dinners are somehow better for us than the fresh produce from the farmer's market.  They have expressed concern that processed, frozen food has received a bad reputation.  Deservedly so!!  These so-called microwavable "dinners" are barely food in the proper sense in the first place.  The public is still convinced to a great extent that eating food with the words "low-fat" on it are healthy.  Yet, study after study shows that low-fat foods do NOT help people lose weight.  Our brains aren't stupid; they want their proper fats to function and will make us eat and eat and eat to get it.  I could go on about low-fat foods, but I will stop myself here and leave that for another post.

The truth of matter is that these overly processed foods are not good alternatives to a home made meal.  Does that mean that all frozen food is terrible?  Of course not.  There is an entire section of the frozen food aisle dedicated to frozen vegetables and fruits.  They include in their ingredient list that fruit or vegetable and THAT IS IT.  Nothing else weird and unpronounceable is necessary because it has been frozen in its simplest state.  Now, if they would go down the road to organics, that would be even better.  I have read the studies that state the nutritious quality of food is not compromised if it is sprayed with herbicides and pesticides.  Perhaps not.  But that doesn't mean I want my body and my air filled with toxic chemicals, right?  And it would be nice if my food was not GMO because I do not want to be Monsanto's personal lab rat (as we have been with wheat and look at all of the gluten allergy people now!).

At the end of the day, corporations like ConAgra need to start listening to consumers instead of trying to shove their sad idea of "healthy" down our throats.  Because if they get their way, the only healthy thing is going to be their bank accounts.

$21 Per Week

One week before Christmas, I was driving along highway 628 on my way home from work sans children, since James had a meeting in St. Albert and could pick them up on his way home from work.  Part of this road becomes a dirt road and I began the usual courtesy of driving in the middle of the road, then hugging the edge as best as I could while passing someone.  I looked ahead and saw oncoming lights, so I moved my Ford Escape to the side, except that my vehicle did not want to move over; it wanted to fishtail on the ice.  It is difficult to remember exactly what occurred, but I think in my attempt to stop the truck from swerving, I hit the brakes and my truck swung around, hurtling toward the snowbank at 80 km/hr.  At this point I realized there was nothing I could do, so I relaxed and just started to mutter "No, nononononono..." repeatedly, hoping that this ordeal would be over soon and I would live through it.  The SUV hit the snowbank and, as SUV's tend to do, promptly bounded onto the passenger side.  Shaken, but okay, I managed to crawl out of the driver's side door with the help of the on coming driver.  The end to this story?  Happily, a retired guy who was looking to tinker on a truck bought it for $2000 and we were left wondering what our next vehicle would look like.

James, never one to spend more money than he has to, suggested that we quit "f---- around" and just buy the vehicle we want...brand new.  Me, who will happily spend money on whatever, didn't need much convincing.  New vehicle it was.  After many budgets later to see how much we were spending on a vehicle and what our monthly payments would look like (I like spending money with money I have; I hate owing), we bought a 2013 Subaru Impreza in Cherry Red (which is "maroon" to the insurance people who do not recognize the term "Cherry Red").

More expenses followed: I wasn't going to drive the highways without winter tires again, et cetera, et cetera.  Next thing we know, February is looming and the credit card is looking crazy.  If there is a financial rule we adhere to like it was from the Bible is this: we pay off our credit card amount in full, every month.  This ensures that we neither overspend, nor that we incur ridiculous interest (again, I like spending money, but I don't like giving away money to large banks for no reason).  So we had to start to find pockets of money in various places until we realized we were about $500 short.

I had just read this article: http://www.chatelaine.com/living/budgeting/could-your-family-live-on-21-a-week-for-groceries-take-the-challenge-and-save-thousands/ a few days before and realized that we could possibly do this.  A household of six people, four adults and two children (we have renters), would have to live on a highly restrictive food budget for one month.  Considering we normally spend approximately $700 per month on groceries, this was going to the extreme.

Lucky for us, I tend to hoard.  When I buy groceries, I buy everything in bulk because, God forbid, should I run out of something right when the inspiration hits for me to cook with that particular food.  James constantly finds my treasures in various pockets of cupboards and wonders why on earth we have three different bags of bulgar various stages of emptiness.  The first thing I decided to do once we were both on board the crazy train was to go through our freezer, pantry and fridges to ensure that if we could not afford to buy another thing, we would at least be able to eat broccoli and rice for a week.  

Initially, it was difficult to imagine only spending $21 in one week.  It forced us to prioritize our food and our food intake.  I am not sure why it was surprising to me, but most of the money was spent on soymilk.  We go through soymilk in this house so quickly, it occurred to me that someone might be just dumping cartons down the drain.  No one is, but we do have six people living here with large appetites, so I guess buying 30L of soymilk in one month shouldn't have been the shock that it was.  

It really helped that I wasn't on maternity leave anymore.  During mat leave, I could easily go shopping; finding reasons to spend money, especially in the grocery store.  Because it is food, right?  Food is a good excuse to spend money guilt free.  Except that from now on, it won't be guilt free for me because there is so much food in my house that I can't bring myself to buy more than I NEED for the household to function, rather than stocking up for the next nuclear war.  

Lesson learned?  Yes.  Buy shopping consciously, and taking Chatelaine's idea of maintaining a $21 week once a month, we can save about $200 per month in our house.  That is $2400 per year.  How much will you save?  

Early Spring Means Spinach

You know it is time to plant spinach in Edmonton when the temperatures start to hover in the just above zero range and the sun has actually melted some of the snow from your soil.

Starting your garden early (this year I started mine at the end of March) without fear means that you can actually start to see and use fresh veggies by the end of April/beginning of May!  Spinach, and a few of its cold weather happy friends, respond well to these cooler temperatures.  They do not do well in the summer months; last summer I experimented just to make sure that the expert advice was right and my spinach was sad and wilty.

We have a lot of wild rabbits running around our neighbourhood, so I thought that they would take full advantage of fresh spinach sprouting before them; alas, they are not interested in it all.  Happily for me, I can safely plant my spinach in my south facing front yard and in the bed that runs along the west facing side of the house without competing with the rabbits!

We don't want to live on spinach alone, so there are some other vegetables that can be planted right away.  Try radishes, lettuce, and onion.  It is possible to be able to have a couple of months of these veggies before it is too hot.  To ensure that you always have fresh produce popping up, practice succession planting.  Start by planting your cold weather seeds now, then do another row in two or three weeks.  Repeat one or two more times, when you start to notice that it has become too hot and the plants are coming up bitter.

Enjoy your early veggies!