Cost of food per person per day: $2.25. The cost of eating has fallen through the basement, thanks to our pre-paid CSAs for milk, meat and produce! I bought so little at our grocery store this month that the produce manager asked if I’d moved away!

Relevant books read or re-read: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver;
What’s In This Stuff?: The Hidden Toxins in Everyday Products – and What You Can Do About Them by Patricia Thomas;
Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens;
Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything by Daniel Goleman

Relevant movies watched: Food, Inc.

Energy Level: Moderate. My energy level is severely impacted if I spend any time in the sun, which I try to do every day. On rainy days my energy level is quite high.

Visible health improvements: For years now I have had to apply moisturizer to my entire body several times a week, and my hands several times a day. I have noticed the last month or so that I have cut back to less than once a week for my entire body, and don’t even think about hand lotion anymore at all. The skin around my fingernails no longer hardens, cracks and bleeds and the callouses on my feet no longer require my weekly cheese-grater routine. My fingernails are flat and shiny, almost like they have clear polish on them.

Not an improvement at all, I gained two pounds this month. My knees ache miserably the hours before a severe thunderstorm and I have found it difficult to get out of bed four or five mornings in June. I think perhaps I’m slipping a little in my resolve to eat properly and my laziness is showing up as increased aches and pains. I know we have forsaken the practice of having some lacto-fermented food every day, and I have cut back on the amount of homemade kombucha I’ve been consuming.

Life during the summer months is always very, very busy for our family as our teens take summer jobs for which they require transportation to and from; the younger childrens’ friends are off from school and available for play dates; fun summer activities like trips to the pool and the free summer movie program start up; and of course, there’s nearly a full afternoon at the Farmer’s Market each week! I have been lax in performing the necessary prep work for easy mealtimes, and have been caught a couple times sneaking through the drive-thru for an emergency meal on the go. I’m going to keep a closer eye on that.

Other notes: I was able to snip $15 a month off our household expenses in June by cancelling one of our trash receptacles! I noticed this new lifestyle creates much less trash, and the trash we generate is more of the recyclable nature than the non-recyclables we generated on the Standard American Diet. I already have two cavies who dearly love my salad trimmings (lettuce and carrot ends, bell pepper slices, etc.) and am considering getting my vermicomposting (worm farm) going again to reduce our waste even more.

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