A few days ago we agreed to not go to the grocery store anymore. Dan was a bit hesitant about it at first, but I convinced him to join the project on a trial basis for 1-2 months at least to see how dedicated we could get. It probably seems completely backwards and counter intuitive, but one of the big reasons I do not want to go to the grocery store is so that we can save money by not eating out as much. Why not just stop going to restaurants, you ask? Well, the way I see it, if we can’t rely on convenience (pre-processed) foods at home anymore, we will be forced to make tasty meals from scratch, and as a result, we will also eat in more often, right? Right? Other reasons include wanting to eat healthier, and not wanting to support big food manufacturers and the scary processes they put our food through.

I am not making a big deal about this change. I am not announcing it to the world. Strike that– I am announcing it to the world, just not to my oh-so-picky 10 year old daughter. The neat thing about this project is that the transition will be smooth, and hopefully not so noticeable, by design since we are going into it with a pantry full of food stuff that we had already bought at the grocery store including crackers, chips, and granola bars, oatmeal packets, mac and cheese boxes (Annie’s not Kraft), cans of tomatoes, tuna, and beans, staples like pasta, rice, and Bob’s Red Mill bread and pancake mixes. All this stuff will last us quite a while, but that’ll just make it seem more like a gradual change rather than a cold turkey rejection of the grocery store! Part of this blog will document the disappearance of the store bought goods and the challenge of creating its replacement in the form of locally grown, home made foods instead like fruit preserves, lacto-fermented condiments, sauces, and maybe even soft cheeses and yogurt if i get really crazy.

Right now we are suffering a terrible shortage of fresh produce, but we are holding out till Tuesday, which is when our first organic produce delivery from Organics to You will arrive. While not all their items are locally grown because of the season, many of them are from local farms. I am still undecided on where to get our produce, but options include companies like Organics to You, the Farmers Market, and Azure Standard (a local supplier of natural and organic bulk foods), until our share from Sauvie Island Organics kicks in. Our share will be for a 30 week season from May through December 2008.

Another shortage right now is dairy. Luckily, I have found a raw milk co-op of people who order from Dungeness Valley Creamery in WA. Deliveries right now are every other week to a location pretty close to our home. That delivery should arrive in a bit over a week’s time. Till then, we will have to make do with water, teas, and maybe some home made lemonade or carrot juice…

Long term plans also include getting 3 egg laying hens for the backyard and planting an edible garden when we do the landscaping. We don’t eat much meat, but want to talk to our neighbors who are hunters and see if they can give or sell us some bones and other parts of the animal to make stock out of. I am sure we will come up with other ways to eat locally as this challenge goes on. I am already really looking forward to the berry season and being able to go to the many u-pick farms in the area. I want to learn to can and preserve foods, so that we won’t need companies like Organics to You when next winter rolls around.

The ultimate goal of all this is to get us more connected to our food, to know where it came from, and of course to eat more locally, save money, and be healthier in the process.
I’m excited to see how this goes!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 4:40 am and is filed under thoughts in my head. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.