Food Inc - must see documentary..

Earlier in the week, Molly from the Cross Roads blog posted about a movie called Food Inc -
http://doing-it-naturally.blogspot.com/2009/11/food-inc-informative-concerning-eye.html

It's about where our food really comes from, and let me tell you, it's eye-opening. While American-based, I'm sure a lot of the same practices would go on in Australia. It's based a lot on a book called Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser that I read a few years ago and made me more aware, but this movie made more of an impact on me. I'm not sure if it was the visual aspect of it, or the fact that I'm in a different place in my mind & life this time around.

The first thing I'm going to change is to stop buying my meat from the stupidmarket, and buy it direct from the farmer. I've found one website that delivers to the Hunter Valley - and the prices look quite reasonable. Can anyone recommend a company?

Go and watch the videos while you still can - 2 of the 10 parts have already been forced to be removed from YouTube. I'd love to know what you think.

Wish me luck - I'm going in!

Yes, today is the day. It's time to go into the frozen wastelands and find alien life forms - or in domestic terms, I'm off to clean out the freezer :)

I've been running down the stocks in the freezer and using up the containers of things that I'm always sure I'll remember what they are when I freeze them, but never do! It's made for some interesting meals!

Next week I intend to do a monthly shop - I'm attempting to go from fortnightly grocery shopping to monthly. It'll be challenging I'm guessing!

End of $21 no-supermarket challenge

4 weeks ago I set myself a new challenge - to stay out of the supermarket for the next 4 weeks.

"So my challenge is to not go to the supermarket for 4 weeks. I'll be using what I have at home, and if I need anything else I can only buy it from local shops. So I can buy from the fruit & vege shop, butcher, and the small independent servo."

Well I did it. And I learnt one big thing - they don't call them "convenience stores" for nothing! That was probably the biggest hassle - having to go to different places to pick things up. I hadn't realised how much I relied on being able to go to one spot to buy things.

So where have I been shopping? Lots of places:

* local butcher - as well as great quality meat, he also sells eggs from a local egg farm and bread
* the local service station - I was able to buy bread & potatoes there
* the Organic shop - for the very first time I did some shopping at our local organic shop - I bought some fruit & veges, and shampoo
* a bulk goods place - I stocked up on cases of tin fruit, tin pineapple, sugar and a big bag of flour (that didn't come out of the $20 I had!)
* roadside stall - I found a wonderful stall outside someone's home on the way back from swimming selling bags of homegrown tomatoes. They are so nice!
* community garden - I "rediscovered" a community garden in Maitland selling eggs and produce from the garden. We got 1 dozen wonderful eggs (you could see the chooks that they came from!) and a pumpkin. I had stopped there previously many years ago, but it's on a busy highway and it was too hard while Billy was a toddler to be juggling produce and holding on to him. It's a viable option now though.
* local corner store - snacks for our trip away.

I learnt a lot by doing it - I tried new places and found some gems. It was probably more expensive to do it though - I tried to pick things up en-route to other places, but there was more running around and the prices in small local shops are more expensive. I was supporting local business though.

I'm certainly not ready to boycott the supermarkets forever, but I will be changing the way I'm shopping. Doing this in conjunction with reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle" has really opened my eyes.

My next challenge is to try and ferret out as many local producers as I can - but I'll save that for next month. I have Billy's b'day party to get through first!!

Extreme $21 - final update & No Supermarket for 4 weeks challenge

A final update on the extreme $21 challenge - we did it! I'll review the recipes tomorrow when I menu plan for next week, but it went well. It cleaned the freezer out of lots of bits & pieces, and got me being a bit creative especially by the end of the fortnight.

And now for a new challenge.

On Friday I ordered a bulk meat pack from our butcher - I'll pick it up on Wednesday. I'm "borrowing" the money from our bill account (there's enough in there to cover it) and will pay the account back each month. I went shopping today and spent $80-odd on staples - flour (16kg!), cheese (1kg), butter (1.5kg), a couple of whole chickens, some fruit & veges etc.

So my goal is to stay out of the supermarket for the next 4 weeks. I still have about $20 that I can use to top up with fruit, veges, eggs & milk if I need them - I can get the fruit, veges & eggs at the fruit shop, and the milk at the servo so I shouldn't need to go near Bilo or Aldi during the time.

Does anyone want to join me?

Getting back to normality

A day of running around today - we had to go down to Newcastle so made the most of the trip.

After dropping Pete at work, we went to Officeworks for printer paper - and go me, we only walked out with printer paper :) Officeworks is a very tempting place for me, I just love all that stationery!

Then off to the chiropractor (the reason for the trip down) - he has restored my "natural healing powers" (in his words) and I'm set for another 6 weeks. He noticed I had a bad cold and gave my back a bit of a pounding massage - it was bizarre, I could feel it in my sinuses. Boy it loosened the gunk though, and it's been much better this afternoon. I love my chiro - I've had others when he's been away, but he just seems to know what to do to make me feel good. Not surprising I guess when I've been going to him for about 7 years. I'd run away with him if we both weren't happily married lol.

Then to Jaycar for cable to rewire the tv stuff in preparation for moving rooms around. Speaking of places where I could happily wander for days - yes folks, I admit it, I'm a nerd!! Hopefully Billy will be similarly corrupted so I have an excuse lol. We had a discussion on laser beams and how the doorbell was triggered by people walking through the beam, while we waited to get served.

Off to the shop outside the fish markets for fish, calamari & chips for lunch, then inside the fish markets to buy some fish. Finished the day off at Aldi to do a monthly shopping. Boy it was busy in there - I don't usually shop on Fridays so I don't know if it's normally like that, or if it was because of school holidays, or why. The lady behind me at the checkout remarked that it looked like I was feeding the scouts - rather than explain that I was shopping for a month (while busy throwing things onto the conveyor to keep up!), I just smiled and said "Yes, it feels like it too" :) So she probably thinks I have a horde of kids now lol.

I've been slack for the last couple of months and have just been grabbing stuff without doing a "proper" shop - I haven't been keeping track of finances either so I have no idea how much it has cost me. I made myself sit down last night and make up a menu plan for the month, grocery list and now hopefully that will do for October's shopping.

So here's my now full "stash" shelf in my pantry (or part of it anyway, you can't see the rice, pasta etc), and the freezer above Pete's beer fridge (filled with flour & bread!). I still need to buy a couple of roasts, but other than that, total has been:

* $41 on fish
* $112 at ALdi
* $14 at IGA yesterday

Quick shop

At the chicken shop today, I managed to get 3 whole chickens for $4.80 each & slightly over 1.5 kg corn-fed breast for $12.6 ($8 / kg). All up $27 - not a bad haul!

We then called into Aldi where Billy amused a few people by declaring loudly "We like specials! We only buy things on special" :) I'm teaching him well lol. I spent $36-odd for enough to do us until I can do a proper shop sans child. A few things were pantry fillers - eg 2 packets of sugar - 1 to use, 1 spare; 3 boxes tissues, 5 tins tomatoes etc.

I'm going to see how long I can stretch it out before I do a real shop. Most importantly I took the excess money OUT of my wallet - it has a tendency to jump out and spend itself on incidentals if it stays there :)

Monthly grocery wrap-up

I haven't done a major shop for 6 weeks! In fact the Homescan people rang me yesterday to find out why I hadn't been scanning stuff! Unfortunately I've been picking things up over the last couple of weeks as I was doing the party shopping - a jar of peanut butter here, butter there etc. I totalled it yesterday and I've spent $60 already! (There was 3L of olive oil - ~ $25 - in that total though).

I was planning on doing a major shop today but all of the lollies & chips etc that Billy has eaten recently have kicked in & he's an absolute nightmare atm. I'm not taking him for a major shop in that mood!! We need to go near the chicken outlet shop today so I'll call in there & see what we can get, then I'll just call into Aldi for the necessities on the way home.

Farmer's Markets

We went to the Kurri Farmer's Markets yesterday morning. It was a bit smaller than I was expecting with only 2 or 3 fruit & vege stalls. There were lots of other stalls with jams, pickles, sauces, soaps etc so had a pleasant time wandering around anyway.

Prices for the fruit & vege were quite reasonable - I picked up 2 kg Pink Lady apples for $6, a lettuce, tomatoes, a cucumber, capsicum, snow peas & a toffee apple for Billy for $12.50. As nice as the jams, pickles etc looked, I kept thinking "I can make it for much less than that".. I have to admit to being suckered into a packet of guide biscuits from the Girl Guide's stall though - I was involved in Guides for so long that I have a soft spot for them (not to mention the biscuits lol).

I'm hoping the fruit & veges were local - I've been a bit cynical since I saw a roadside seller (who I always assumed sold stuff from his garden) pull up early one morning with a trailer load of fruit & vege from the nearby markets!!