EAT REAL FOOD - Today's Produce Picks

E A T  R E A L  F O O D - Because the latest craze of eating *all natural* is actually how our ancestors lived all along!

Years Ago ...

 

Source: Better Homes and Gardens (link)

 
To feed their families, women (and men) hunted game in their forests and gathered fruits and vegetables from their fields.  Much time, in both planning and preparation, was necessary just to feed their families and communities.  Thus, it was a main occupation of nearly every man and woman. 

Today, we have jobs like accountant, professor, police officer, etc ... and farmers are much less prevalent and far different from years past.  Most of us just don't have the time to cultivate food like our ancestors used to.  As well, many of us do not have the desire to do so.

What this has created is today's reality of over-processed, under-nutritious foods.  You know, the stuff that comes in boxes, bags, or plastic wrap with lists of ingredients too long and too foreign to study for long.

I live in an apartment.  And although I would LOVE to have my own fruit and vegetable garden and would sell a kidney to have my own chicken coop (!), that's just not possible for me and my current situation.  However, that does not mean that I cannot eat REAL food.  Delicious food.  Fruits and vegetables that are ripe with flavor and nutrients, while still NOT being a terrible burden to my wallet.

So here's where my Today's Produce Picks segment comes in.  As a habit, when I get home from the grocery store/farmer's market, I wash all of my fruit and veggies and leave them on the counter to air dry.  Once they are dry, I put them away in the fridge or elsewhere until they are ready to be eaten.

From now on, I will take a picture of the bounty and share it as a blog post, along with a breakdown of food costs for that shopping trip.  I should note that I try to buy organic when I can, however I would rather consistently eat wide varieties and great volumes of real food (non-organic as it may be) than drive myself nuts over price and availability of the really good stuff.  It's something I hope to remedy in the future, when I will be able to supplement my own garden with organic produce.

So here's what I picked up from the grocery store on October 28th (even though this blog post will go up about a week afterward - sorry!) as well as how much I paid:

Garlic -                                  $3.49/lb x 0.23 lbs = $0.80

Orange bell pepper -             $1.50 ea = $1.50

Red bell peppers -               $1.25/2 = $1.25 (marked down due to blemishes)

Grape tomatoes -                  $1.50/pint - $1.50

Gala apples -                        $0.98/lb x 2.42 lbs = $2.37

Golden Delicious apples -  $0.98/lb x 1.49 lbs = $1.46

Pears -                                  $0.98/lb x 2.33 lbs = $2.28

Spaghetti squash -                $0.69/lb x 2.27 lbs = $1.57

Total for all of the above = $12.73.  (FYI - This shopping trip was from the grocery store, so I have indicated sale prices in bold.)  Not bad, I'd say!!

I hope you enjoy this and the posts to come on this subject.  I love real food ... and am off to eat my spaghetti squash right now!

Until next time, 

Rebecca