Smart Food Etiquette

Buy local.  Buy from local farmers, either directly from their farm or from a farmer’s market.  

Join a food co-op. You will get to try lots of new things for the 1st 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.  

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.  Apartment dwellers can have shared access to garden space close to their home buildings.

Plan your menu after shopping not before. This allows you to stay on budget. You can take advantage of the best deals and plan your meals around those.  

Drink water. 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 soda 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.

Buy some meats frozen instead of fresh.  Some butcher shops freeze meat that isn’t sold immediately and sell if for a lower price.  Look for deals on frozen chicken breasts, frozen fish, and frozen turkey breast. Fish is often cheaper frozen.

Buy meat in bulk.  Look into buying beef in quantity.  Check out the prices at local farms for a quarter of a cow.  You will pay slightly more for the lesser cuts but much less for the better quality cuts.  It balances out to a much lower price for meat farmed in the healthiest way possible.

Stop eating out. Even the least expensive meal purchased outside the home can cost between over $20.00 for a family of four.  Delivered pizza for a family of four is also over $20.00.

Get into the habit of bringing a cooler with you.  If you active and not in your own home throughout the day, prepare a cooler filled with healthy snacks, meals & beverages.  Inexpensive, healthy and does not consume your day with finding food to eat when you get ravished.

Don’t buy anything with an ingredients list greater than 5 items. The more items on the ingredients list, the more likely you are consuming additives, preservatives, food colourings & artificial food flavouring.  None of which add to your health.

Cook from scratch.  May sound time consuming but if you organize yourself in your home kitchen, much of the preparation can be quick & easy.  

Some conventionally grown foods are okay.  I'll post the 'Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen' in my next post. Some foods have a fairly low pesticide load, even when conventionally grown.  Organic produce, while the healthiest are expensive.  If your budget does not always allow for organic foods, invest in recipes that use the 'Clean Fifteen'. 

You will actually eat less when you feed your body. Healthy eating leads to more nutrients coming into your cells.  When our cells receive the nutrients they need, our body's require less food to stay healthy & energized.

Pack your own lunches.  Preparing your own lunch, snacks & beverages when working outside the home leads to a healthier, more energized you.  As well, it's much less expensive.  And less time consuming in the long run.  How many lunch hours have we all waited in line in restaurants, gobbled down our meals and then rushed back to the office.  Packing your own lunch allows us to have a  wholesome, tasty meal while at work.  Any extra time you have, you can take a stroll outdoors, socialize or run errands.

Preserve food.  Whether you grow it yourself, rescue it from the 'last day of sale' rack at the grocery store, or buy it by the bushel from a farmer, learning to preserve your own food allows you to buy in bulk and squirrel some of that delicious food away for the winter ahead.  Canning, dehydrating, and freezing are all methods to help extend the summer harvest for use later in the year.

Eat leftovers.  When you put aside small amounts of leftovers in a freezer container, you can make 'soup' for a meal that is basically free because it came from items that would have otherwise been discarded.  Use larger amounts of leftovers for lunch boxes or a buffet style meal for the family.

'Shop' from nature.  You might be surprised to learn how many edible plants are growing wild in your own neighbourhood.  Even those of us in the city can often find things to forage.   

Have fun & feel better for it.