The Start of a Journey

Part of the reason I am writing this blog is to capture the journey. When I read other blogs like Food Renegade or the Nourished Kitchen I feel so inadequate. While I have made the decision to give up processed foods and seek out a local, sustainable food supply, my biggest steps so far have been to toss the Trix and stop buying pop. But those people have arrived. They are living the dream. They are fermenting kombucha, simmering beef bone stock, and stuffing their kids with legumes and brussel sprouts. And while I am envious... I am not always inspired. A lot of that food doesn't even look very good.

Will I ever prefer this...

So while I am 100% convinced that our food supply is corrupted beyond hope and I no longer want any part of it, that's about as far as I have gotten. Oh sure, I switched to the CSA. That was actually pretty easy. I made a phone call, gave my credit card number, and now I get my meat from the back of a bus rather than Meijer. Okay, so that's not typical for your average American. But it's not that different from going to Butera, picking up 20 lbs of whatever is on sale and then going home and writing up a meal plan based on my finds.

Now that I am getting into the traditional food recommendations of Weston A. Price, however, I am realizing this is going to get hard. And I am a little at a loss. 

...to this?

It was actually pretty easy to open up the pantry and toss all the cereal, crackers, and chips. Pitch the flour, pasta, rice, and sugar and what does that leave you when hear this: "Mom, I'm hungry!" It's 3pm and even though they ate sliced chicken, cheese, and apples for lunch and followed it up with a fruit smoothie, they still want more.

Yesterday afternoon I gave each of my kids two cups of homemade yogurt (that takes a full 17 hours to "brew" mind you), a pile of carrots and a mound of grapes and they still weren't satisifed. So I filled them up with good ol' fashioned Quaker Oats. I am super mom, right? No. I found out last week that you should only eat "sprouted, soaked, or fermented grains".  You can't buy sprouted grains at Meijer. I can soak steel cut oats in yogurt, but I already have a hard time keeping up with the yogurt demand. I could order sprouted grains off the Internet, but that does not fall into the "local, sustainable" thing I am trying to cultivate. And I don't even know what it means to "ferment" a grain unless it's to make beer. I probably shouldn't give the kids beer.

So now what? I need to buy a field and plant my own wheat?! All this change is not going to be so easy after all.

And that's where I'm at. I am on the brink of planting, growing, and canning my own fruits and veggies, buying raw milk, and raising some chickens. Maybe a goat. In the backyard of my .25 acre Chicago suburb home. Any second now.

So as I figure this out which square inches of my backyard get the most sun, maybe I will inspire someone else to take a step forward in their journey as well. Maybe you? That's all I want. For us to start figuring this out. Signing up for that CSA isn't looking like such a chore now is it?