Apparently there are some videos going around Facebook right now about beef production. I haven’t watched them. I’m chicken and I just can’t do it. But, the point has been made from the resulting discussions, and I’m going to try to make some changes around here.
I’d already decided this was going to be the year that we’re going to have a garden, that I’m going to try to stop buying as much pre-made food as possible.
The garden is in the planning stages. I’m intimidated but cautiously optimistic. The big obstacle is going to be the fact that right about prime garden establishing time is pretty much new baby time, so it could be a little trickier than I had hoped.
I’m doing fairly well with the buying of less and making of more, but there are some weeks when exhaustion wins out and I cheat.
The next big project is going to be trying to get our meat/egg/dairy habits changed. Right now, I buy meat from the store without much thought about it. I am aware it probably isn’t the best, but [I thought] it was all that was available. I found out about some websites from a friend and checked them out tonight. Through EatWild I found out that there are several local ranches that sell their beef, and there is one that sells in a local store. Next trip into town I’m going to check out the beef and see how well it will fit into our current grocery budget. We don’t eat a whole lot of beef, so I think that I can probably manage to switch to organic for that. The milk and eggs thing is a little iffier. I’m fairly positive at this point that it’s going to have to be a choice we make, and honestly, if I am going to go this route, if I’m acting in the interest of my family, we’d go with organic milk and eggs before I would switch to organic meat. We consume a lot more milk and eggs than meat, and while I dislike the fact that the practices of these meat packing plants are so awful, my priority will always be my kids and family first.
Farm fresh eggs should not be hard to come by, and if you buy them directly from the farm then you should be able to get a good deal on them. I’d check with local farms and see if they feed their chickens a natural feed or one with added chemicals and steroids. And honestly if your city allows it, why not just buy a couple of chickens? a little coop and get your own eggs, Chickens are easy to raise, don’t need much and don’t cost much once you are set up.
Milk on the other hand… good luck, I’m still trying to figure that one out myself, organic is so expensive.
Jake says no chickens. I keep trying, I only want a couple. Maybe if I got some farm eggs for him to tase he would come around. So far I can’t find any farms here for eggs.
When I go to town on Friday I am going to ask around.
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