Fast food without the fast-food costs

Here is my confession: In four day’s time, my family ate three dinners of pizza. Blame it on one part laziness of a mom expecting company while getting ready for a business trip that same weekend, one part dealing with a sick husband, and one part $4 Papa Murphy’s pizzas. Toss in some veggies for a side dish, and we rode that pepperoni pizza wave.

On most days though, I’m hesitant at best about putting fast-food in my family’s mouth. It’s costly, often laden in salt and fat, and frankly isn’t nearly as good as what I can make at home.

Not that we don’t suffer from our chaos. The 30-minute window between getting the kids home and when we leave for soccer or scouts seems to fly quickly by. Sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be much time to even whip up spaghetti or quesadillas. But we do it anyway.

Taking the long route to putting food on the table may not be easy, but for almost all Americans it remains a choice, and if you can drive to McDonald’s you can drive to Safeway. It’s cooking that’s the real challenge. (The real challenge is not “I’m too busy to cook.” In 2010 the average American, regardless of weekly earnings, watched no less than an hour and a half of television per day. The time is there.)
- Mark Bittman, New York Times, Sept. 25, 2011

Yesterday’s New York Times asks “Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?” and answers a resounding no. Bittman cites the costliness of his local McDonald’s, where a meal for a family of four could easily top $28. Here in the Midwest, take the simplest of meals, the kids’ meal, for each of us, and I’m out $12 to $15. That buys me on the busiest of days a rotisserie chicken, a package of microwave rice, and veggies to steam, with room for a gallon of milk. (Cooking time: Five minutes.) And there's likely leftovers for lunch, as well as the makings of chicken broth later.

Sure, my children clamor for the thrill of Happy Meal toys, but they know that eating out is a treat, not a right. It’s reserved for special occasions, and we leave it there. As Bittman writes:

Children, after all, are born without bad habits. And yet it’s adults who must begin to tear down the food carnival.

Green on the Cheap: APLS Carnival Round-up

Welcome to the revived APLS Carnival! This month's theme was "green on the cheap" - in other words, balancing sustainability with smaller pocketbooks. If the recession's got you down, no worries! We've got some great ideas to get you motivated again.

Speaking from experience.
Several APLS'ers shared openly how their family overcame or averted a financial crisis by simply living more frugally.

Abbie at Farmers Daughter shares her evolution in going greener and living more frugally, giving three easy ways to pare back expenses and live more sustainably. Read her post to see how she saved $7,000 last year alone! Impressive!

Heather at Simple-Green-Frugal shares her life of voluntary simplicity and how she got there. "I believe it is in times of crisis that we discover what we're truly made of," she writes. Read on to her comments - she's so simplified her life that she could make a move with only her compact car - taking one trip! I'd love to hear more about how she was able to pare down - our family has a long way to go!


Another Heather, at Heather's Homemaking, offers simple ways her family was able to live more frugally so she could stay at home with her children. I think I'm going to have to figure out how to make the cloth napkins - what a great idea!

Steph at Greening Families shares how her family overcame debt by following the three R's. "Anything that broke or wore out was examined for possible other uses and most of the time there were multiple possibilities," she writes. As an example, she shares ways to get new life out of old pants.

I come clean on how my family's financial crisis has impacted our lifestyle choices and admit to wondering whether I'm being good somedays simply because I must. "Like a dieter who’s craving chocolate, I think about the things I want to buy but are simply out of reach at this time."


Spending smart.
Perhaps any future problems will be averted just by watching how we use the resources we have.

At the Green Adventures of a Big City Girl, Heather cost-comparisons shopping while cutting coupons with buying locally from CSAs and other local vendors. "I was a big coupon clipper. I mean BIG. Like I had a big binder filled with baseball card sleeves of thoroughly organized coupons," she writes. "I had no idea I could do this and actually NOT spend more money than I used to on groceries. Cheap, unhealthy, processed, full-of-pesticide-and-fake-ingredients groceries. And I'm really enjoying the process of learning about new vegetables and introducing them to my family. Dinner is an adventure every night and so much fun to be trying new things."

Kellie at Greenhab shares the challenges of greener birthday party planning when the guest of honor thrives on Chuck-E-Cheese. "I decided to stop hanging my head in shame when my son's birthday came up, and to put my money where my mouth was. Or...put my money back in my wallet and put my conscience where my mouth was. Something like that," she writes.


The Conscious Shopper at the Green Phone Booth admits to her green envy but realizes that prevention can be the best policy when it comes to waste. "Going green can be expensive - at least in some ways - but sometimes the greenest path is also the cheapest," she writes. "And once I realized that, my green envy subsided, and I was able to get creative with what I have."

Lisa at Retro Housewife Goes Green talks about the toughest lesson of learning to be more sustainable: That buying less truly is more. "Green has become so mainstream everywhere you look is some new product telling you how it will help you be more green when most of the time we don't need it," she writes.

Beany at the Middle Way, who admits to "being a tightwad when it was uncool," waxes on how we've put our money where our mouth was and what morals our economy has supported. "I think a strong evaluation of the new American values is long over due. I think people do need to think long and hard at what it means ...when one can zip 100 miles to a job with no consideration of that mode of transit is doing to the environment that surrounds us. Who benefits when one can buy apples for $0.10/lb from Guatamela. Why does one have to maintain vigilant eye on what product is currently the subject of a salmonella outbreak?"

CRSTN85 writes about how you can help the economy and the environment at the same time. "It should be second nature to check in with neighbors to see if they could use something you're getting rid of, and if not, it should be donated rather than left by the curb where hopefully someone will take it before the trash pick up date," she writes.

Thanks to those of you who participated in this month's carnival! Look for September details to be posted shortly on the APLS blog.

8-20: My apologies to Jenni at Web of Life! I'd forgotten to include her in the initial post. Check out her tips on being green while saving green, from thrift-store shopping to investing in microfiber cloths. "Basically, I spend next to nothing to keep my house clean. Now if only I could get somebody to clean it…" she writes.

Fighting recession obesity

I read an interesting article the other day on "recession obesity." In other words, people stock up on the high-calorie, high-fat foods that seem to be cheaper instead of things that are healthier options.

Reuters reports:

They fear that as people cut food spending they will cut back on healthful but
relatively expensive items such as fresh fish, fruit, vegetables and whole
grains in favor of cheaper options high in sugar and saturated fats.

"People . . . are going to economize, and as they save money on food they will be eating more empty calories or foods high in sugar, saturated fats and refined grains,
which are cheaper," said Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Nutrition Sciences
Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.

I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of the same mentality. When my husband first lost his job and we had no unemployment, I avoided eating lunches, instead eating the snacks that were brought into the office. It wasn’t good for my physical or mental health – the ups and downs of blood sugars, particularly when you’re diabetic, or the fogginess that results when you’re just not filling your body with foods that are best for you.

Fortunately, I was quick to come to my senses before I did too much damage to my blood sugars and my waistline, which I admit is still far from perfect. But there are many things you can do to be more mindful of your dollars and your health.

Most of it involves common sense. For the $1 for a can of salted, limp, washed-out green beans, you can almost always find a bag of frozen green beans, which retain more nutrients, or fresh green beans on sale. (Or, if you're really motivated, a pack of seeds to grow your own!)

For the $3 for a bag of potato chips, you can buy three to five pounds of potatoes, which in a pinch can make loaded baked potatoes for dinner or hash browns or latkes for breakfast.

For the $5 spent on flimsy hamburgers for your kids off the $1 dinner menu, you can buy at least a pound of hamburger and some buns to make burgers with some taste on your grill. Or, if you’re more motivated, you can stretch that pound of burger into pasta dishes or other meals where the meat is an accent, and not the main emphasis, of your meal.

Home-cooked meals don’t need to be time-intensive. For the time it takes to have a pizza delivered, you can easily cook most meals. It’s a great way to keep your kids involved too. My daughter has been cooking with me since she was a year and a half. Even little ones can tear lettuce or snap beans, and they love to be helping in the kitchen as well. (The youngest ones can always sit in a high chair with a few measuring cups and some dried cereal to “measure” or munch on.) You may think that having kids in the kitchen makes things worse, but to be honest, they love it, and I’d rather control what messes they are making!

The other piece of the puzzle is exercise. While diet and nutrition is important, so is taking time to take care of yourself. If your gym membership or your child’s participation on a soccer team are casualties of this recession, fine. It’s days until spring, so take advantage of the weather for your exercise. Go for walks or jogs. Bike around the neighborhood – or to work. Play outside with your kids instead of on the Wii.

Yes, these times may force us to use some creativity, but in the end, it’s worth it.

Staying local, supporting neighbors in an uncertain world

More than 200,000 of my neighbors are out of work, the state of Indiana says. It's a headline that's easy to shake your head at if you're not directly impacted.

But you can do something. What is you could make a difference and help ensure one person's job? Or keep dollars in your local economy? Would you do it?

Touching lives one person, one job at a time is one great benefit of supporting local agriculture and local vendors. Obviously there are taste, environmental and wellness benefits involved too. Food is shipped shorter distances and hasn't lost the nutritional value from sitting on store shelves.

In the end, helping out the little guy is a big part of supporting local food producers. It's a reason why I started going to farmers markets many years ago. I knew who was bringing me my Kansas corn - it was the guy outside of town. I met the people whose lives directly touched mine in a way we think so little about.

Truthfully, it's easy to shop locally. You've likely done it. If you've taken your child to the pumpkin patch or an orchard, you support local growers. If you go to a Christmas tree farm or a farmers market, you support local growers. I encourage you to find one opportunity to do it again, even if it's researching online and making a note of when next year's markets open.

We don't know what this economy may bring. Some say things will get worse. But what if we can make a difference, look someone in the eye and, together, make a mutual decision to have a healthier life, a healthier land and a more sustainable economy, just by shopping from the farmer around the corner.

Related posts for Indiana readers:

• Home Grown Indiana: A Review
• Waiting for Winter Farmers Markets
• Eating Local: Indy Southside Secrets
• My CSA Experience (2008)

The name of this CSA, one of the oldest in Indianapolis, was deleted from this post on January 28, 2009. I have been falsely accused of libel by this CSA and will no longer promote them by using the name of the organization.