Answering Your Questions

Turns out, we're not just sending our mishmash of highly provocative thoughts out into space. A few of you are reading them. And better yet, are moving to the sustainable, local, organic lifestyle. Let's take a moment and cheer!

We've had some great questions come up on (1) how to make the change to this new lifestyle and (2) how to make it work. Specifically,

1. When you switched over, what did you do with all the "bad" food already in your fridge?
2. Are there any brands at the "normal" grocery store that you still buy?
3. What foods are most important to buy organic? Specifically, which fruits and vegetables?
4. How can I make this diet work if I'm feeding only one or two people? Won't the food go bad before I eat it all? Is there a lot of waste?

EXCELLENT questions. And by the end of today's show, we'll have answered them all and leave you with a menu/shopping list/recipes for a week of cooking the lifestyle with minimal waste. Let's get at it.

What did you do with all the EVIL food you had when you switched your diet?
Wasting food is bad no matter what type of food it is. Use up what you have. Somewhere an animal gave up its life to become your meal and you need to respect that fact, no matter how the animal got to your fridge.

That said...I'd be a big, fat liar if I told you I didn't throw away my chicken and ground beef.

If we're talking packaged foods, that's a different story, and leads me to the next question...

Are there any brands at the "normal" grocery store you still buy?
Brands are an interesting question...if the food you're buying needs a brand, then think twice before purchasing it.

We've whittled down what we buy in packages at this point to some key staples I don't have the patience to make myself. Rice (I mean have you ever tried to make rice from scratch, it's tough), beans, pasta, grains, cereal, etc. We still do some dairy from the grocery store (though we get farm eggs and butter), but will be moving to all dairy from the farm by spring. A little internet research and you should be able to find a farm supplier, especially if you're near a major city. I assure you, the restaurants you frequent have farm connections. Talk to them.

Any packaged good goes under extreme scrutiny by me. The ingredient list is your new Bible. My two biggest rules for dealing with packaged food:

• The fewer the ingredients, the better (I try for no more than 5 ingredients)
• I must be able to recognize each ingredient as an actual food

Again, are we hard and fast by this? Ask Michael how his cheddar cheese/jalapeno potato chip addiction is coming along...the fact is moderation is key. You don't want to be continually feeding the monster that is manufactured food. If it's something you can find a recipe for...try to make it at home, but if you NEED packaged macaroni and cheese pick Annie's over Kraft.

Which brings us to a frequently asked question...

What foods are most important to buy organic?
Lately, lots of media is dedicated to this topic. The ultimate concern, of course, being cost. Piece for piece, organic food is more expensive than its non-organic counterpart. So, two points before I give a REALLY long-winded response to this question:

• Shopping organic can be affordable in the short run and IS cheaper in the long run
• Simply eating organic is not the answer (*GASP*)

I've probably mentioned this one or two THOUSAND times before, but if you buy in season, organic can be a very affordable lifestyle. I'm guessing I'd have to pay you a lot more money to jump in the ocean in the winter than in the summer...because season matters. Well that's sort of how it is when you ask a strawberry to grow in February v. June.

In the long run: if you consider health care costs (doctor's visits, cold remedies, time missed at work, chance of disease, etc.) and environmental costs (which you'd be naive to think we don't pay for that); organic is way cheaper.

Theory aside, here's my take on organic v. non-organic foods: if you eat a lot of it, buy organic. I don't care if you eat the peel, don't eat the peel, wash it a thousand times or stick it up your nose. If you are putting a fair quantity of ANYTHING into your body, you want it to be the most nutrient rich and absent of any added chemicals humans shouldn't ingest.

But MORE IMPORTANTLY, we buy locally. And many small, local farms are not designated as organic. This is for two main reasons (1) they're not. They use a handful of chemicals (far less than corporate farms) to help avoid major crop failure or (2) they're not big enough for the USDA to send someone out to designate the firm "organic"--a government term.

There's the long-winded answer. Buy smart. If you can, buy organic. If you can, buy local. Buy in season and it will be affordable.

And speaking of affordable...

In the next day or two, I'll add a link to this post which will provide you with a week-long menu, grocery list and recipes for living the sustainable, local life. It will outline all you need for a delicious week of fresh food with minimal waste.

Enjoy!