Market Farming

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost AT riseup.net>]

We explain this to some of our customers: cooking basic foods from scratch
can actually be cheaper (and healthier) than buying those prepared and
processed "fake foods" and starches in the store. All those boxed and
canned items are "value added" - in other words processed and packaged for
convenience so they can bring a higher price - with a lot of nutrients
lost. 

 For those on a very tight food budget, beans, potatoes, whole grain rice,
carrots, and some cooking greens can furnish a fair diet at low cost - IF -
and I stress IF - they get them without the processing. Rice, beans, flour,
and potatoes are still affordable in bulk, and furnish real nutrition.
Fresh carrots aren't too expensive if you avoid the bagged, trimmed, or
baby carrots, and if you don't have them every day. Some greens for cooking
are fairly cheap long as you're not buying fresh salad greens. But canned
vegetables are a total ripoff. And pound for pound, little boxes of white
rice or fake mashed potatoes cost at much as the real thing in bulk, and
aren't nutritions anyway. Hamburget helper and RiceaRoni are no bargain.
Nor the mile of frozen vegetables, meats, dairy, and deserts. More "value
added". 

For so many, part of the problem is they never learned how to shop and
never learned how to cook from scratch. We've been shopping with other
people who just push a cart down the aisle and start tossing things in the
cart, too rushed to even notice prices. Of course most stores today don't
ring up the sale price. Nobody else catches the ripoff. When we stop the
checker over it they blame the computer. But it NEVER rings up the sale
price. The line waits while they get a manager to approve the sale price
for us. We also watch other peoples' carts in the grocery checkout. It's
amazing how much junk they can pile on that has little or no food value.
And almost none of it is good, cheap, unprocessed food. 

And cooking? My partner mentioned flour prices to my daughter in law, who
then asked her "but what can you do with flour"? Get that. Cook with flour?
How? 

Our grandparents knew how to make tasty meals from the simplest things in
the pantry. Not many of us have a pantry today. What about making and using
stock? Easy gravy? Homemade bread isn't rocket science. Well, I'm lucky.
She learned long ago to make good meals from whatever's on hand, like many
of our ancestors. 

Sometimes our customers see our Delicata or Lakota squash and look puzzled.
Barb explains you just slice in half, throw some butter on them, and bake.
Makes a meal, almost. Or a desert even. Or other veggies, cooked simply.
It's amazing how people appreciate the simplest recipe and come back to
tell us it was great. We've found kids actually like real vegetables. It's
easy to cook and eat cheap when you start with real food. 

paul tradingpost AT lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

>And so, lots of these folks live on ramen noodles, rice, beans, peas?and
>store brand mac and cheese, corn bread, biscuits, gravy. Maybe there will
>be
>a can or two of some fruit or vegetable thrown in every now and then as a
>treat.