Real Food

I have a plan.  Well kinda.  It is more of a vague idea.

I want to be healthier.  I want to teach my family to be healthier.

To this end I will slowly empty my home of unreal foods and build it up again full of only good wholesome healthy foods.

By emptying I mean slowly consuming in a pantry challenge of sorts.  Using up what we have, maybe even selling some of the items we cannot consume in time.  We will implement this new real food regimin at the beginning of lent. I hope.

Being the person in the home who creates most of the meals this should actually not be too hard to implement. However, our problem will come when confronted with inexpensive grocery options. Often during the winter we will purchase/acquire food from three main places:

Church
Free food distribution
Ruby's Pantry

Our church always has several boxes of bread - day old stuff from the area grocery. It is 80% white breads, 10% muffins/doughnuts. Occasionally there will be rye or wheat breads, but it is usually full of the usual suspects, white flour and sugar. This week I tried to only grab items that contained at least a little whole wheat or rye in them.

Our county fair grounds has a free food distribution day. The wait is 30 minutes - 2 hours and they load your car with stuff. Sometimes it is only tomatoes, potatoes, and onions, and other weeks I am stacked high with boxes and boxes of food. This last time I brought home a carton of soy milk, a carton of super-chocolate milk, and salad dressing, and baking mixes, and cheese-its and lots more. Some fresh foods usable in a real food diet, but some items not.

Ruby's Pantry is this awesome group that buys food in bulk and distributes it to groups for $15 per lot. We usually come home with two laundry baskets heaping full (one lot). Very often there is fresh fruits and vegetables, yogurt, and other real food. There is also overly processed foods. I would have spent more at the grocery if I had only purchased the yogurt I received this last month.

There is a new place I am going to try this week - I will report back

My main problems with real food is our food budget.
I read this blog 100 days of real food, and this post in particular is nice: Real food on a budget. However their limit during budget was $125 per week. We try to limit our food budget to $200 per month. We grow alot of our own food, but during the winter I like to hit Ruby's Pantry and Free food distribution days. Now I am endeavoring to have real food. I am not sure how we will do.

I know I eat mostly real food, but I need to help my family completely break the habbit of Junk.

More to follow.