We Need a Food Revelation!

 

     It's obvious from my posts that I'm a thrifty gal (scream, pennies, scream!) and I've groused about how food in the stores is tooooo expensive - it's ridiculous.  Today, I want to expound, because really I believe sometimes just speaking up can start a ball rolling.  And we definitely need something to move in our economy!  
     For too long, our culture has had a pricing attitude that is not right, fair, or just.  It's a "whatever-the-market-will-bear" attitude.   Get as much as you can while you can.  How fleshly can you get!?  It reminds me of a song that Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, "St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store."  There is something morally wrong when food (the fuel for our greatest resource) is so expensive that shoppers have to put back fresh produce and choose lower quality processed food (if it can rightly be called that).
    Truthfully, this "whatever-the-market-will-bear" mentality produces a "bear market" - a turn-down in sales, basically.  I think of it as people saying, "I'm turning down the sale."  And they do this because they don't have enough and/or the product is too much.  In other words, America has been pricing itself out of work and getting poorer all the while.  This is a weak foundation for business, including food and farming.  (Were you wondering when I was getting back to gardening?)
     We need more reasonable pricing for fresh foods, especially organic-type foods.  It's the right thing to do and it will have a positive, significant impact on health and wealth (personal and community).  We need more locally-grown foods, as in you drive right past the fields where you can see the food growing that will be on your table.  We need more home gardens where running to the store means slipping on your flip-flops to pick tomatoes out back and leaving your car keys and pocketbook in the house.

     Families (including households of one) can increase personal wealth by hundreds of dollars, if not thousands - yes, that much - by growing and preserving food at home.  Even those who don't grow their own food can preserve and reduce the waste of what they buy.  For example, I buy oranges and other citrus fruits because they don't grow in my climate.  Not only can I squeeze the juice or eat the fruit, I can use the rinds to make a natural vinegar cleaner,  dehydrate and powder them for home-made vitamin C powder to put in smoothies, kefir, and yogurt, or grind to mix with pepper for seasoning.  As another example, the liquid from straining tomatoes can be used for tomato juice, reserved to use in recipes, or to make that vintage favorite, tomato aspic.

     Realistically, I wouldn't expect that very many people will grow even half of what they eat.  Still, a conscious and conscientious effort to move food production closer to one's kitchen will make a significant difference in both the quality of food and the wallet of someone local.  If it's not your wallet that benefits, why not make it a neighbor's wallet?

Can I get an Amen, brother and sister?

Well, hello, stranger!  AGAIN!

Welcome.....
New technology has come into my hands - thank you, Mr. Okra.  Once again, I can wax pepper poetic (or just mess up the English language) doing longer blogs.  Better still, I should be able to post pictures again! There is big-time catching up to do on the image front.  In fact, instead of blabbing on this time, how about if I show you some of what's been growing on? (In no particular order.)