“Real Food” Baby-steps for Your Kitchen and Your Budget

By Justyn Lang, Contributing Writer

Our “real” foods journey started less than a year ago, but I can’t imagine going back to what we used to eat. I can clearly remember how overwhelmed and confused I was by all of the new terms and the information that went against what I’d always been taught. “Soaking grains?”, “butter is healthy?”, “raw milk?!” It was like a new language. What I really needed were some easy, basic baby-steps I could take. Although I wanted to immediately incorporate everything I was learning, it was just too much to do in one fell swoop.

For those of you who are now at the place I was in January, I’ve created a baby-steps guide. Find where you are in each category and see if you can move to the right the next time you shop. Your goal is to get to the underlined items for each food group. I know that most of us can’t afford to just trash all of the “bad” stuff, so I suggest that you finish up what you have and then replace it with something better. The only ones I strongly recommend just tossing are hydrogenated oils and vegetable oils, as well as artificial sweeteners. These are so detrimental to our health that it just isn’t worth saving a few bucks by using them. (By the way, I took back some unopened vegetable oil to Wal-mart without a receipt, so you might be able to get your money back!)  

• Fats: hydrogenated oils and vegetable oils –> butter, coconut oil, lard, tallow   
• Meats: processed and lean –> full fat –> no antibiotic –> no growth hormones –> free range/grass-fed 
• Dairy: skim, homogenized, pasteurized –> full fat –> non-homogenized –> low-temp pasteurized –> organic/grass-fed –> raw
• Produce: canned –> frozen –> fresh –> organic
• Grains: white, highly processed –> whole grains –> organic –> sourdough –> soaked/sprouted
• Sugar:  artificial sweeteners –> white –> organic –> raw honey, rapadura/sucanat, grade B maple syrup

When I first started switching things over, I thought that there was no way we could afford to eat like this! A bottle of vegetable oil is so much cheaper than grass-fed butter or organic coconut oil, right? I’ve found that when we quit buying all of the processed foods (chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, store-bought yogurt, etc.) we had plenty of money to cover the healthier items on my list. In fact, I recently learned that, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, we are in the “thrifty” category when it comes to our food budget.

If you’re able to buy in bulk, there are tons of wonderful places on-line to order enough of something to last you an entire year. Per ounce, the cost is often comparable to the bad stuff from the store (such as a bucket of coconut oil as opposed to 20 bottles of vegetable oil). You may also be able to find amazing deals on local items at www.localharvest.org where you can type in your zip code and see all kinds of farms, farmer’s markets, health food stores and co-ops in your area. Some things can even be ordered on-line, now. You can even search for a specific item, like local raw honey or grade B maple syrup and pick it up. Again, this is a wonderful way to buy in bulk, so carefully consider your food budget and see if you can buy one item in bulk each paycheck or month.

I know we’ve all heard it before, but try to buy in season. Our store just got some fresh organic cranberries in, so I bought several containers and plan to freeze them for the holidays. I know from last year that they will be gone long before Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’ll have to pay quite a bit extra to buy the ones that aren’t even organic.

My last tip for shifting your budget to “real” food is to ask around about raw milk, free-range eggs and meat that you can buy directly from the farm. Every week we make a special trip to what we call “the farms” where we pick up our raw milk, chicken and duck eggs (only $2.50/dozen for organic, free-range eggs! Try to beat that at the grocery store!). The farm we get our eggs from also sells us a half a pig, whenever they butcher them, chickens, lamb and sometimes produce. We will be getting half a cow (to split with my parents) in a couple of weeks from another farm. It will be $4/pound, which is a steal for grass-fed beef around here!

Some of the categories may be quite a bit easier for you to switch to the next best thing than others, but just keep working on making forward progress. If you’re stumped about something, leave a comment here or ask us about it on Facebook.

Justyn and her hubby have been married almost ten years. She has an adorable three-year-old, and is planning a homebirth for her second baby in November. She recently began blogging to share what she’s learning about her passions, which include “real” foods, herbs, natural living, gardening, crafts, homeschooling and anything else that grabs her interest. She sees all of these things as ways God gave us to live creatively and would enjoy sharing her journey with you. Come on over for a visit at CreativeChristianMama.com or on Facebook.