Food for Thought

Lately we've developed great hopes of buying our own place, so we've been trying to stick to what is turning out to be a pretty modest grocery budget of $400/month-- including things like nappies and hand cream and shampoo and cleaning supplies. And while it might see like a lot of money to stretch between three and a half people it really is turning out to be rather tricky. I had no idea we were spending quite so much on food until I tried to set a limit and discovered that we really weren't being very careful at all.

Now I'm kinda torn about this because I really do want to make healthy eating a big priority in our lives-- mostly because I'm quite picky and I like what I eat to be delicious, varied, and filling, as well adding up to all various requirements a pregnant woman needs. I'm also rather concerned about making things from scratch with natural and healthy foods as opposed to highly processed substitutes (you know, butter vs margarine, home made soup vs tinned, tomato and cheese sauces from scratch) . But I discovered that even when I cut things down to the very barest of necessities--minimal meats and fish, plain cheeses (nothing but cheddar), and only the absolute staples in fruits and veg and grains--I am STILL having trouble keeping things under budget. And the very frustrating part is that, as a housewife, the only really creative job that I get to do on a daily basis is cook, so it kinda sucks when we have to limit my materials.

But the other problem is that I really would like to buy local and organic for reasons of health and social responsibility. Organic oranges aren't really all that necessary for our health because you peel them, but if you buy organic you're supporting farms that don't dump chemicals on the heads of their workers. Or we could skip oranges altogether because they come from too far away and bringing them out to the west coast of Canada is bad for the environment. But then HOW are we going to make sure we get enough vitamin C??

There are SO many issues involved in food choices these days. We're both blessed and cursed with the abundance we have in the western world. We have so much, and yet we don't even know where half of it comes from and if we tried to make both healthy and ethical choices it would be prohibitively expensive. And if we COULD afford it-- the question would be where did we get OUR money from and why aren't we giving more of it to charity. It's a vicious cycle.

I have already done everything in my power to keep us under budget. This includes not only giving up organic food and cutting our meat consumption down to a minimum. I also meticulously plan my menus a week in advance, with separate meal plans for Theo in case he won't eat what we're eating. On top of this, I buy in bulk, build leftovers into the week, and never ever experiment with new recipes lest I have to buy a lot of things I don't normally keep in the house or I mess it up and end up wasting things. I ration everything and strictly regulate what's permitted for snacking on. I probably spend over 3 hours hours every week on planning and working out the menu-- not counting the time it takes me to prepare the food. And if I don't keep strictly to the rules I've made for myself we'll go over our budget in a heartbeat. I don't even know what Lent is going to be like.

Now the Bible clearly states that it is what comes out of our mouths, not what goes in, that defiles a man. And with all this rigid planning I already feel like I care way too much about food to even TRY to shop in a healthier, more ethical fashion. Lent is approaching and it brings it's own set of cooking and budgeting challenges. And being pregnant puts another spanner in the works. I often feel that Orthodox Christians can be caught up in food ethics, not just when it comes to fasting, but also when it comes to buying and eating in a socially responsible way. We can so easily be tricked into caring far more about food than we should.

So while I think it's important for us to keep these social and ethical concerns in mind when we go out to the shops, personally, for the coming fast, I'm going to do my best to just be grateful for the abundance this world offers me and try not to over eat. God knows it can be harder to just be grateful for the gifts I have.