Our (mini) Food Revolution, Part 4

Continued from Part Three: The Setbacks

Part Four: The Sustainment

Fifteen months into our (mini) food revolution, despite the challenges posed by family meals, hectic work schedules, limited budgets and the universal phenomenon of positive entropy, we are, if only by a miracle, still going strong.  I have learned a lot of lessons and adapted a great deal to numerous setbacks. The lessons I have learned and adaptations I have made will help us sustain our culinary changes, healthy habits and someday (hopefully) help us embrace new ones.  

For instance:

~Because our meat is more expensive, I learned to prepare many meals with less of it and learned to use every part of the meat that I had.  One organic chicken eventually became up to three meals and from the carcass came oodles of organic chicken broth that I wouldn't have to buy.  Not even my meat loving T seemed to notice or mind.  Plus, we loved the amazing steaks that came with our cow, and they have been a great treat to enjoy every few weeks.

~I FINALLY got in the habit of meal planning (thank you, Grocery Bag, you are my saving grace many weeks).  This allowed me to survey what needed to be used in our fridge (less wasted produce), be more specific and frugal about what I bought at the store each week, and helped me avoid the panic-stricken moments of returning home from work without a dinner plan and only time-consuming raw ingredients on hand.  A few hours of prep over the weekend yielded success after success at dinner time and in the grocery check-out lane.  

~Small changes can make just as much difference as major overhauls, and probably more, because the sanity they allow fosters fewer failures and greater sustainment.  Small changes also better accommodate the natural learning curve that comes with making changes in the kitchen.  Hey, dude, if you are like me and took Intro to Islamic Art in college rather than Cooking Healthy Family Dinner 101 (which, by the way, wasn't even offered!) then we may have a lot to learn and we can cut ourselves some slack.

~There are more options everyday for buying free-range, grass-fed, organic and whole grain.  Many farms offer meat and vegetable CSA packages (CSA stands for "community supported agriculture") which offer the pricing savings of buying in bulk, but don't require you to absorb a whole half cow into your freezer at once like I did when I first bought ours.  Most require you to pay for several months up front and then the product is delivered or picked up on a monthly basis.  Also, more specialty and regular grocery stores are stocking free-range, organic and local products, and generic versions of whole grain products in response to demand and have started adding those products to their weekly price deals to attract interested consumers.  

~Bread makers are awesome, sourdough starters are needy, homemade chicken stock is amazing,  a freezer full of farm-fresh meat is a blessing, and homemade tortillas take extra time but never go to waste in our house.

NOTA BENE: Our kids still occasionally McDonalds.  We have not found some holy grail of food, our kitchen is not (and does not aspire to be) perfect, nor do I think that any grass-fed, free-range, organic, etc is without counter argument or blemish.  If you have me over for dinner, I can assure you that I will not be scrutinizing the meal, wondering what carb your meat ate, or picking out the non-organic ingredients in the casserole;  I will be so giddy with gratitude over not having to plan and prepare the meal myself that I will be the first one to have seconds, and I will be licking my plate as I get up to buss my dish.

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to both stretch myself and be realistic along our (mini) revolutionary path.  Thanks also to all of you who have inspired me and taught me your tricks (T especially thanks you).  Skeptics, remain skeptical, just keep an open mind (I am glad I did; I also think scrutiny is warranted and beneficial in many cases).  To those of you who are on the sidelines dying to get in the game, join us as we continue to take one baby step at time.  And to you, our first grass-fed cow and pig, we are thankful for the past 15 months of meals and all that God provided to us through you! 

The end,  I mean, onto plan my meals for the week.

Our (mini) Food Revolution, Part 3

Continued from Part Two: The Strategy

Part Three: The Setbacks

"Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can."

~Arthur Ashe

At this point in the story, someone needs to cross their eyeballs pretend to gag.  If you don't do it, I will.  

Grass-fed, free-range meat, organic fruit salad and homemade tortillas all sound great until we wake up to find ourselves in our real world of screaming toddlers, tight budgets and crazed schedules, right?  Id est, would someone please remind the good lady that she is one, a medical student, two, a mother of two toddlers, and three, making meals for a family of four on a very tight grocery budget (thank you, federally-set resident salaries) ?  At a certain point along our revolutionary journey I found myself in each of the following rather exasperating scenarios:

By a few months into our family food revolution,
I frequently found myself on the warmer end of this scale....

- Home from work at 7pm with no dinner ready, two crabby toddlers, so hungry I could eat my fist, and LIVID that I had no preservative-laden boxed dinner to make and no ideas how to use the wheat flour, week-old oranges and frozen ground beef that I had on hand (at least it was grass-fed ground beef, right?).

-Driving around to three grocery stores on a precious Saturday afternoon trying to find the best price on organic produce that was too darn expensive at the first store, totally unavailable at the second and, SHOOT ME NOW, even more expensive at the third.

-Staying up until midnight reading blog after blog about the dangers of GMO's (genetically-modified organisms), the merits of grinding one's own flour and eating only raw foods, why I should only make sourdough bread, and why I should have been soaking my grains all this time.....only to lay awake until 2am worrying about whether I really needed to do those things and, if so, how I would find the time.  Please just breathe.

My mother has an affectionate term for the crazed individuals she encounters in life: "gerbils on crack."  She most often and most appropriately uses the term to refer to her justifiably neurotic yorkshire terrier, Tinkerbell.  I will appropriately use the term to refer to myself, especially during the above-mentioned periods of our food revolution.  There must be a better way.

And, slowly but surely, through each situation, I found that there is.

Last spring, T forwarded me an article from ABC News entitled, "How to Eat Well on a Food Stamp Budget" (I later posted my thoughts on the article here). The AP had asked two chefs and the editors of one of my favorite cooking magazines to plan out 7 days of meals for a family of four within a food stamp budget.  Although we are fortunate enough to not qualify for food stamps, I felt both validated in my struggles and fascinated by how much organization, education and work goes into family meal preparation. Even the experts noted how much advance thought and work went into planning the menu, shopping and preparing the made-from-scratch meals they proposed. They acknowledged that this would be a hard thing for many families, especially with two working parents, erratic schedules, tight budgets, or less knowledge about home cooking.  

Balance is key in many situations, such as family food revolutions, for example.

So, I had to be real with myself:

Grass-fed, free range meat is expensive.  Our budget does not allow for unlimited amounts.

Organic produce may be expensive or unavailable.  Our budget does not allow for unlimited amounts.

I will not be able to make everything from scratch.  

I do not want to make everything from scratch.

I am not able to grow my own produce.  We live in a city in a home with no garden space.

Every alarmist internet post is not certifiable scientific evidence that must be followed or face imminent human peril.  It can be hard to know what is best for us to eat.  There may not be a right answer, we are mortal, and we are all going to die someday regardless of what we eat.  

Thank God for the food that you do have, the money you have to buy it, 

and any faculties you have to prepare it.

Just as important as the setbacks were the lessons I learned from them and the ways I (*sometimes*) adapted to them.  Which brings me to how I have not only survived but am learning to thrive in our post-revolutionary kitchen.

Next:  Part Four: The Sustainment

Our (mini) Food Revolution, Part 2

Continued from Part One: The Setup

Part Two: The Strategy

"Food is essential for life.  Therefore, make it good."
~Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-a

The last time I bought meat at the grocery store was October 2009.  

I still remember the first dinner I made after T and I finished watching Food Inc.  I made a pork roast, one that I had proudly purchased as part of a buy-one-get-one-free deal a few weeks earlier.  While the kids munched happily on their dinner, T and I picked at our plates.  Although we are both committed omnivores, we had both been affected by the scenes of industrial animal farming methods.  I am ok with an animal dying to provide food for people to eat.  But, I suddenly felt that my purchasing power was supporting some industry practices that respected neither the lives of animals nor the people that raised and processed them.  If my dollar could support better farming conditions, less antibiotics & disease spread, healthier animals & more nutritious meat, that seemed to me to be the way to spend it.

I decided we would finish all the conventional store-bought meat in our refrigerator and freezer (no reason to be wasteful on top of everything else), but my next purchases would be free-range and grass-fed.  Why did I think that would be better for our family?  My analysis went something like this:

Nutrition and Benefits of Grass-fed Meat

Grass-fed Beef	Grain-fed Beef
Low saturated fat levels, similar to chicken breast	Saturated fat levels 3-4 times higher.
2-6 times higher levels of omega-3 (most often found in fish).	Grain-fed cattle lose nearly all omega-3 during their time in the feedlot.
3-5 times the level of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), a possible new defence against cancer.	As CLA comes from the grass itself, low levels of it are present.
Reduced exposure to E.coli bacteria.	E.coli is a constant risk and growing concern where animals are overcrowded.
No risk of BSE (mad cow disease), since cattle are not fed animal by-products.	Cases of BSE have been confirmed in this country among conventionally-raised beef.
Ecologically friendly agricultural practices.	"Factory" production requires significant energy, chemicals and gasoline.

From Anderson Farm: http://andersonfarm.us/benefits.html

I was won over by the information I found at well-respected sites like EatWild.com.  Additionally, I was impressed with the way I was able to confirm the information I was reading about grassfed beef and free-range farming with primary scientific sources.  For instance, claims that grass-fed beef results in a reduced exposure to harmful E. coli bacteria are based on a major study published in the 2000 Nebraska Beef Report (check out pages 39-4, it's a long document).  The 2000 report confirmed previous study findings that even short-duration hay feeding reduces acid-resistant E. coli populations (read: bad E.coli) in cattle feces by over 99% (page 41).

While the daily health benefits might have been enough to make me switch, the farming families I met while searching for our cow and pig were the icing on the cake.  I found several great grass-fed and free range farmers in our Minnesota area and I loved that my dollars were directly supporting their families, their organic, sustainable farming methods and their animal treatment.  While I could buy free-range and grass-fed meat at certain specialty stores in town, I found that bulk buying from family farms was tremendously cost-effective.  Here are some of the farms that we have purchased from:

Grassfed Cattle Co. : I purchased our first grass-fed beef 20 lb. starter pack from them and loved it.

Anderson Farm:  Soon after, I bought my 1/4 pig and four chickens from the Andersons, located in WI.  It took us nearly a year to finish our 1/4 pig.  Their meat is outstanding, competitively priced and they have regular farm open houses with cooking lessons, tastings, animal viewing, etc.  I love getting their emails; you can sign up on their website.

Sunshine Harvest Farm: I later met the Brauchers at a local farmers market and was won over by their chicken prices when I had just run out.  They have another great farm raising grass-fed beef & lamb and free range pork, chicken and eggs.

Shepherd's Hill Farm:  Another outstanding grass-fed beef farm in MN, managed by a great family.

Before I knew it, our basement freezer was full of grass-fed, free range meat.  It has taken us 15 months to go through a 1/4 pig, 10 chickens and a 1/2 cow that we split with my parents. 

Following our transition to grass-fed beef, I made several other, less dramatic changes to our fridge and pantry: 

*High fructose corn syrup: I started looking at labels and stopped buying products containing high fructose corn syrup.  I posted previously about that decision here.  I was amazed how omnipresent HFCS is (in everything from the yogurt I was buying to the pancake syrup and tomato sauce I used) and grew increasingly concerned by studies correlating adverse health effects to its omnipresence in our diet.  Thankfully, my changes were mostly cost-neutral, as many vendors or grocers carry items that use cane sugar in place of HFCS.  Bonus, none of my family members seemed to notice or care.  By way of update, I have since noticed that several of the brands I previously stopped buying due to their use of HFCS have since changed to sugar.  Perhaps our votes are counting?

*Whole wheat and complex carbohydrates: whether pasta, bread, tortillas or goldfish crackers, I began to stock the whole wheat varieties of the carbs we ate.  I started experimenting with other complex grains and adding legumes to our diet too.  The result was greater satiety and a lower glycemic index for my family.

*Selectively organic:  I also previously posted on this transition here.  I became convinced of the adverse human health and environmental effects of certain pesticide use on our produce.  In an effort to maintain a rational cost-effective organic approach (I needed to prioritize because organics can be expensive) I started using the "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides," which you can find at Foodnews.org.  Summer farmer's markets, freezing when fruit is on sale and shopping around (Midtown Market Produce Exchange is the BEST!) has helped me keep my costs in check.

*Make it homemade:  The best way to know what my family is eating is to make it myself.  Over the past 18 months I have learned to make pita bread, tortillas, crackers, frosting, salad dressing, granola cereal, granola bars, irish soda bread, sourdough starter, beef, chicken and vegetable broth, oxtail soup, macaroni & cheese and countless other foods myself.  I started making all our bread in our bread maker, because buying wholesale oats, whole wheat flour and yeast was much cheaper than buying multiple fancy, healthy loaves at the store every week.

I should emphasize that I made several of these changes gradually, not all at once.  Many articles like this one in Time Magazine on the high price of cheap food renewed our resolve along the way.  However, these changes took some trial and error.  And in the interest of full disclosure, our revolution was not without setbacks.

Next: Part Three: The Setbacks....

The Johnson Food Revolution

Next week I will be finishing the last of the meat from our grass-fed cow and free-range pig.  This has been a 15 month journey for us.  It represents a milestone of sorts, as this cow and pig were our first venture into the land of free-range bulk meat.  In honor of our first, beloved, grass-fed, free-range friends, and because I have received several requests for more information about where and why we buy our grass-fed meat, it is high time I shared the whole tale.  In our family's culinary transformation we claim neither originality nor fanaticism.  But, because the last 15 months have been filled with big changes in our shopping and eating I feel justified in entitling it The Johnson Family (mini) Food Revolution.

Our story begins with two skeptics, T & B.  Not just skeptics but self-confident skeptics, which is truly the worst kind.  We were both raised in great families with mothers who are exceptional cooks, and, being of average healthy weight and (oh, bother) in medical training, we thought rather poorly of the organic, Whole Foods, anti-fast food crowd.  Sure, in our daily professional lives we were awash in the medical complications of the very real Obesity Epidemic.  But surely the problem is really just one of failing to observe moderation, right?  After all, aren't those "wholesome" grocery stores just for food nuts and trendsetters who are more concerned with the fashion statement of their grocery bags than putting meals on the table?  Aren't organics just snobbery -- more expensive and elitist versions of the fruit we commoners could afford?   Who cares if my apple came from Bloomington or Brazil?  And what self-respecting, freedom-loving American would forbid other citizens the occasional, convenient, and cost-efficient pleasure of a Big Mac?

And then, in October 2009, we, the skeptics, viewed the documentary Food Inc.  The tag line promised, "You'll never look at dinner the same way again," and we scoffed.   But, as the documentary brought us through America's industrialized food system and it's far-reaching effects on our health, environment, economy and workers rights, our scoffing slowly softened and gave way to disbelief.  We were able to see connections between the American food production industry and our daily experience with obesity, infectious disease, other diseases and preventative health.  We bristled at the catch-22 experienced by many rural farming communities which looked remarkably like towns we lived near growing up.  But, in the end, we felt hopeful and empowered in our ability to change both our family's eating habits and the system, because after all, as the documentary pitched, when it comes to food we all vote three times every day.  We were ready to cast different votes.




Next: Part Two: The Strategy