Daddy, Papa and Me

My brother gave me "The Omnivore's Dilemma
" for Christmas. Well, we drove to Utah the day after Christmas and stayed for a week (thoughts on that later, had a great time). I read the whole thing. I was intrigued by it so much, I read his later book, In Defense of Food.
The basic premise of the books is that our industrial food system is bad for our health as individuals, as a society and the planet. The first book outlines how and why, the second book outlines how we can make changes in our life. Now, there are places where it gets a bit tedious. You want him to get to the point, and though the story of the hunting isn't bad, it's overly long. The first book could have outlined the 'four meals' a bit clearer (he talks about four meals he has... one based on industrial food, one on industrial organic, one on "beyond" organic and one he hunts and gathers himself), it's a bit confusing. I found myself wondering why the subtitle was a "natural history of four meals" early in the reading. The second book overstates the case in several places (especially in dental health, I think he's wrong but I don't have solid evidence... neither did he though :).

Yet, in spite of these flaws, and found the books intriguing, fascinating and most of all, life changing. Before I read the books I agreed with most of what he says in them. In fact, over the last 5 years or so, we've made slow, steady progress in eating more like he recommends (whole food, not processed, organic is good, sustainable 'beyond' organic is best, lots of plants, meat and dairy in small amounts).

First there was the step in learning how to save on our grocery bills and save time in preparation. Planning meals, storing food, making your own, etc. I've made huge progress there. I've cut our bills by at least half, sometimes even to a third of what it was 5 years ago.

Without that step, the step to move to organic/sustainable/whole would either be really expensive or not doable. I _had_ to change how bought, planned and prepared meals and cut down our bills by at least half so that we could afford good whole food.

And we have slowly made those steps. A few years ago we started getting our produce, vegetables and fruits from a CSA. I have found, that the price is comparable to non-organic, non-local food from the grocery store (with the caveat that you cook what is given to you, you can't pick and choose like at a grocery store). We switched to whole grains long ago and I make our own bread (for the most part), broth and a few other things. I also now can most of the preserves and jams we use, tomatoes and a few other things.

But the books have solidified my reasoning and purpose, I'm prepared and now I think we can make the final leap and push to eating well.

First step... the pantry. I had been thinking this would be a good first step, and then a friend challenged us all (on a parenting board we are on) to organize our pantries, that's all I needed...