Real Food Wednesday today asks, “How has learning about, finding, budgeting and shopping for, preparing, serving and eating Nourishing, Traditional Food affected our family?”

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We are still at the start of our journey with nourishing, traditional food, so many of the effects are yet to be seen. But this journey is already beginning to change us.

We are more connected to the community. From going out into the farmer’s fields and talking to him about his growing practices, and meeting “my” chickens, to getting to know the source of our raw milk and grassfed meats, we have been making friends and meeting neighbors other than the checker at the grocery store. I’ve always been a loner, and this experience is getting me out of my home and connecting me with those that produce the foods my family eats.

My grocery trips are more frequent. Those locally grown, organic fresh fruits and veggies don’t last as long as the super-processed frozen “nukeable” foods we used to survive on. I am going to the store once a week for a large trip, twice a week for fresh produce, and then making a couple mini-trips for raw milk, fresh eggs, and other items we don’t get at a regular store.

My grocery list is shorter. I’ve noticed my grocery list contains fewer items. The recipes I use to cook our meals contain fewer ingredients as well. These fewer ingredients cost about the same as the larger list I used to carry, because the individual ingredients tend to cost more.

Cooking is a continuous activity. Instead of an hour of cooking followed by a half hour of eating, I find my food prep tends to go for days. The sprouts for Wednesday’s salad have to be soaked by Sunday night or they won’t be ready in time. There’s a continual preparation for the next few days’ meals. I don’t mind this because most of the advance work can be accomplished in four or five minutes between other activities. It also cuts down on the temptation to call for pizza. One evening I might be a little low energy, but if the beans are ready now, we will eat them. If the beans weren’t ready, we’d probably take a short cut to the drive thru.

Budgeting is in flux. In these early days, I’m relying on the availability of higher-priced foods at the grocery store as I transition to locally available sources. Paying $10 a pound for coconut oil is painful. But it is an item high on my priority list and I am highly motivated to find alternative sources.

I am running out of room in the fridge! We only have one refrigerator and freezer, and it is full to the brim with quart jars of raw milk products, lacto-fermented veggies, homemade salad dressings and all the other necessities. It’s time to watch Freecycle for some used appliances for the garage.

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