I will admit it. I love food. I think, read, dream, and talk about it every day. I love to watch documentaries, read books, magazines, and blogs all about food. It captivates me. I try to be healthy (although I have MANY downfalls and weaknesses like my addiction to Dr Pepper that I am currently trying to break). I'm not perfect. I don't sprout my grains or buy grass fed beef. Being healthy is a process and I'm trying to make better choices every day. Sugar and chemical laden convenience food is hard to quit when that's what you've grown up on, but I'm trying. I go to the farmers market when I can. I make the best choices I that I know of at the regular grocery stores. I buy local raw honey. I cook a lot from scratch. I'm making progress.
However, today I went with my mom to a local health food coop grocery store and about passed out with sticker shock. You see (this may not come as a surprise), but I am very cheap. I love to save money and spend as little as possible on the highest quality items I can find. I was raised this way. I can not be any other way. So when I saw that a gallon of Organic Milk was $7.99, I almost had a heart attack right there in the store. I just couldn't bring myself to buy it or even pick it up. I went down every aisle and passed up a lot of things on my list because it was too much for me to spend. I bought a few bags full of things that I thought were decently priced, but I don't think shopping there will become a regular occurrence for me. Eating healthy and being a good steward of my body is a very strong value in my life, however I have to be able to do it on a budget and do the best I can with what I have. At this point saving money is also a very strong value and I will have to find a place of balance. Don't get me wrong I think the coop grocery store is a good resource and I'm glad it's available, but its so hard for me to spend that much on food. (We don't have any chain health food grocery stores here.) So it is my prayer that I would make the best choices that I can with the resources that I have available to me and continue to learn and improve on my journey to a healthy, balanced God glorifying lifestyle!
Linked at Raising Homemakers
I can so relate to wanting to honor God by doing your best to take care of the body God has blessed you with versus the monetary cost of doing so. In the past year I have started to consider how I need to make changes to my diet, (more cooking from scratch, cutting out food with preservatives, etc.). I would love to have grass fed beef, free range poultry, organic fruits and vegetables, and so on, but oh the prices! Like you, I do not live near a chain health food grocery store. I keep meaning to watch the documentary "Food, Inc.", but I know once I do my terror of what I am daily consuming versus the practicality and cost of making changes to my diet might be a bit overwhelming, so I continue to avoid actually watching it. Ultimately, we need to pray about this, make the changes we can, and find peace in the fact that we are attempting to glorify God through our food choices even if they are sometimes less than ideal due to budget constraints!
ReplyDeleteYour sister in Christ,
Hollie
Hi Hollie, thanks for the comment! I'm so glad you can relate! Changing our eating habits is such a hard (and sometimes expensive) process. I've thrown around the idea of getting chickens for eggs and I KNOW I'm planting a garden next year. Anyways, its good to know other people are going though the same things as me!
ReplyDeleteGood Morning - I found you through the Raising Homemakers linkup and just had to comment! As a foodie on a budget myself, I share your pain! One thing that has worked really well for me that I wanted to share was finding local off-the-map suppliers in your area. I've had good success getting raw milk, pastured eggs, hard wheat and local honey for excellent prices directly from local farms and that has cut our grocery bills dramatically while letting us enjoy real food. Check out the Weston A. Price Foundation webpage for their list of suggested farms by state, or see if your local health food store makes their supplier list available (many do), and try contacting them directly. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHi Jamie! Thanks for the tips! I will have to check it out! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post. I slowly have been adding more organic things to our diet. We still have a long way to go, but I feel a little progress is better then none at all. Our firt switch was milk. At my grocery store I pay a little under $6 for a gallon of milk. While its triple what I would pay for non organic milk, my girls were drinking soy which was that per gallon..now we just have the added cost of my hubbie and I drinking it as well. Try doing small changes here and there..and cooking from scratch is a big step also.
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