Common Cuisine |

In light of my recent recommendations to spend smart, I am trying to put my own words into action. I have a responsibility to be a good manager of my household budget, and to provide a nourishing menu for my family at the same time. But I have got to tell you, as I try to become more conscientious about both nutrition and cost, I am encountering a bit of a pinch. Actually, quite a serious pinch. Nutritious, “real” food just costs more.

My first foray into nutritious cooking came about the time my first child began solid food. At first it was simple enough to buy a bag of dry peas, cook them, freeze them, and feed them to her. What you could buy in a jar for 60 cents, I could feed her for 10 cents.

At this point I was not even into organics. I began to spend more time around the edges of the grocery buying produce, dairy and meat, and less time in the center buying box mixes and prepared food. When I do shop in the main aisles, I conscientiously check the labels of crackers, cereals and the like, for protein, fiber, whole grain, and other nutritious features. I try to limit sugars, eliminate certain fats, and the like. In so doing, I now just buy known brands instead of whatever is on sale. But do you know what happened? Food began to cost more.

This past year I finally got on the bandwagon with organics. For those of you that still don’t get the big deal about organic food, see my thoughts on the matter. Now that I have added organic milk, butter, eggs, flour and apples to the lineup, I have increased my bottom line by about another $60 a month. All this in a time when food prices are rising at a faster rate than they have in 18 years, so all the other things I buy are now taking a bigger chunk of change than even a year ago. Yikes!

I have come to the point that I am ready to take back my grocery money. I need that money for other things! So I am developing a plan. Time will tell if it is a good plan, but you may come along with me on my journey.

Step One: Coupons
Yes, I am joining the ranks of coupon clippers. Don’t know exactly how well it will pay off for me, but I am going to give it a try for at least four weeks. Maybe another 8 after that, depending if I get any momentum built in the first four weeks.

Today was my first day of using coupons. I spent probably about three hours over the course of the past week, between collecting four weeks of papers from the local newspaper office, clipping, sorting, cross checking with the weekly circulars, and making my shopping list. I visited three stores: the two local groceries, and CVS. I could have visited two other stores, but had a toddler with me so I decided to limit myself.

I tried to purchase only things I would need within the next four weeks, that were on sale, and for which I had coupons. I purchased my organic milk at the further grocery, in full gallons instead of the half-gallons I usually get at the closer store. Saved almost a dollar a gallon. Got four boxes of name brand cereal for $1.25 each; that was great, too.

I used a couple of coupons at each grocery, but did better just buying things on sale with my shopper card. By the time I was finished I had saved 50% at one store. My usual average is 10%. But at the three stores combined, I spent an amount equal to my biggest stock-up shopping weeks. So I may have gotten a lot for my money, but saving money? Not this week yet.

So far I have a few conclusions. First, toiletries are the best item for coupons, and CVS is a great place to use them. CVS rotates pretty much all toiletries on sale sooner or later, so you can get what you want if you are patient. Plus they will have items for sale that give you credit back for spending in the store on a future visit. It is a self-perpetuating cycle. How cool is that? So I will definitely keep that in mind when it’s time to stock up. I believe some of the other major drugstores have this same program.

Second, I can do pretty well just by making my list from the sales circular. I am going to have to do that more often, coupons or no. I did very well today with focusing on sales. I bought 9 pounds of chuck roast for $18, it regularly would have been almost twice that. Convenient, since I am having a barbecue tomorrow.

My third conclusion is that coupons and sales are part of the answer, and it is worth my time to go through the coupons and make a plan to shop from the sales flyer. But they are not the whole answer. My organic and other quality brand choices are still important to me. This leads me to the second part of my strategy.

Step Two: Farmers’ Market
I am fortunate to live in the southern part of the US, where there is a Farmers’ Market year round. I have yet to make it to one, but I have been told that the prices are at least fair, and produce lasts much longer than grocery store produce.

I was unable to attend our local farmers’ market last Saturday, so I am eagerly awaiting this week’s occurrence. I also discovered that there is a store called “The Farm Patch” in the next town, that sells local produce and whatnot. I’ll get up there as soon as I can to check that out, but there is a limiting factor that frames both parts of this strategy.

Step Three: Go Green
All of this smart shopping means more driving. We live out in the country, and driving is a huge part of shopping. At the moment I do not have the option of switching out my vehicle for another that would hold my family and also be more fuel efficient. But with the rising awareness of my environmental responsibility, I have to evaluate both the cost and the impact of my intended course of action (save money and give my family better nutritional value).

I calculated that I spend $2.50 in gasoline every day when I go pick up my daughter from school, six miles away. The closest grocery is another four miles, with the above mentioned Farm Patch another 7 miles beyond that. I believe the gas cost would work out to about $6 for that trip. I really have to have a strategic plan in order to inclusively a. save money; b. buy fresh; and c. be environmentally responsible.

Can I do it? I hope so. It almost seems easier, with such a limiting set of parameters. I know I have lots of room for improvement in all three areas. Wish me luck. Any suggestions would be welcome as well.

Last week I discussed the problem of rising food prices and how they have developed out of an imbalance in the global food economy. The question is, how do we at home survive the global economic balancing act? With an ever increasing demand on our resources, we face greater pressure to protect our own bottom line.

One powerful answer has an entire problem-solving movement named after it. Conservation primarily involves lowering consumption of resources; and promoting use of alternative resources that don’t do harm to the ecosystem that produces them. I see three valuable ways of applying conservation to my grocery shopping.

Spend Less
On the smallest scale, don’t buy as much. I don’t have the source, but I read once that Americans throw away about 10% of the produce we buy because it spoils before we can get to it. So let’s think about it: if I were to reduce the amount of food I purchase, would I really be taking away from my family, or would I just be donating less to the green waste bin?

Taking it to the opposite end of the scale, consider this before you go house hunting for a new home for your growing family: in addition to costing more upfront and in property taxes, a larger house will require larger amounts of power to heat, cool, light and otherwise power. In addition to which, the larger your house is, the greater your chances that the kitchen is a long trek from the garage with an armful of groceries!

We are looking at houses while we wait for our vacant one to sell, and this is a tough consideration for me. My husband is a big and tall guy, and smaller floor plans have smaller rooms and lower ceilings, leaving him with a sense of claustrophobia. In addition, we both crave a home office (as in, one for each of us). This makes it a little difficult to realistically think we could fit ourselves and three or four kids into 1500 square feet. But it is very tempting to remember that a smaller house will ultimately leave us with greater discretionary income, due to reduced mortgage, property tax, utilities and upkeep costs. It all adds up, helping both me and the environment.

Spend Smart
Did you know that you have spending power? Oh, yes, it’s one of your best weapons. Everyone has to spend money on food, and each purchase is like a vote for the products you choose. Every time you choose organic produce; dairy and meat products produced without hormones; and food that uses less packaging, you are voting for preserving our ecosystem.

Right now, buying better food does usually mean spending more. But each vote you cast for that better food brings it closer to mainstream, which helps bring the cost down. Just do the best you can to save money elsewhere, and watch closely for sales on your ideal items. You can choose your top priority organics, such as apples, carrots and strawberries; start with milk and add other dairy products gradually; and buy a filter for your tap so you aren’t buying and throwing away dozens of water bottles every month.

Don’t spend at all
This is such a simple idea, but is one worth addressing in our materialistic culture. Sometimes we get tempted to buy something we don’t really need. I find it wise to stop and ask myself, am I purchasing this to add something to my collection or to replace something old? If the answer is, “add,” then where will I put it? How much will I need it? Do I already have the means to accomplish what this tool can do? If the answer is, “replace,” then what will I do with the thing I am replacing? Is it really in need of replacement? A few months ago my husband presented me with the opportunity to buy a new Roomba floor cleaning robot from a friend who had bought two. Now, I think this gadget is way cool. But we already have a three-year old Dyson vacuum that works just fine. So I had to decline the opportunity for now. When my Dyson reaches the end of its life, I will check out the robot worker scene again.

One way to not spend at the grocery is to go armed with a battle plan and a full tummy. Then you know what you are going for, and you have the fortitude to stick to it. Then you can congratulate yourself on how much you didn’t have to save, because you didn’t buy those great bargains in the first place! Warning: just don’t let your reward be a purchase from the impulse section in the checkout line, I’ve been sabotaged by that logic more than once!

It seems obvious to me that helping ourselves and helping the world are interconnected. The less we spend of our financial resources, the more we have left. And the less we consume, the more is left in the global supply. As we buy smarter, we choose products that last longer or work better, which leads to lower overall consumption as well as less demand on global resources. As each individual makes the commitment to use less and buy more intelligently, our efforts will add up to make a difference.

Good luck to you as you attempt to implement these principles to protect your bottom line.

In my search for less expensive food, I discovered that I can make pizzeria pizza in my very own kitchen! Not too long ago, I was shopping for an “It’s Not Delivery…” pizza in the freezer section. My family will tolerate freezer pizza only if it is a certain brand. We have our standards, after all.

It so happened that my brand was not on sale that day, and I was outraged at paying $6.89 for one when I normally buy at the sale price of 3 for $10. I thought, surely I can make a pizza from scratch for less than that!

So off I went in search of ingredients. Turns out I was right. For a net price of $5.10 (after dividing out the appropriate percentage of larger packages), I was able to get frozen dough, pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella, pepperoni and canned mushrooms.

Not only that, preparation only took 15 minutes longer than traditional frozen pizza. I just had to set out the dough far enough in advance to thaw. After that, the hardest part was getting the dough to stretch out to the perfect size and shape. I just let it rest while opening up the other ingredients, then came back for more pulling and stretching. The dough eventually came around to my way of thinking.

What I know about authentic pizza is this: the secret of good pizza is to bake it on a stone, with cornmeal to keep it from sticking, and to bake quickly at high heat. I didn’t have cornmeal so I used polenta. I thought it was a little gritty but nobody else noticed.

Despite how beautiful this pizza turned out, the real test was the taste. I had made this as a peace offering for the troops since Mommy was headed out the door for a playdate that night, and I was floored to come home and find not a scrap of it left. Two small children and two grown men with average food intake managed to polish off the entire thing. And to hear them talk about it afterward, apparently I am on to something good. I wish you could have seen the look in their eyes…

I think one could easily make this pizza without a recipe, but here is my formula:

• 1 loaf bread dough

• 1/2 jar pizza sauce
• 8 oz (2 cups) shredded mozzarella cheese
• 3 oz sliced pepperoni
• 2 oz drained canned mushrooms
• 1 Tbsp butter
• garlic salt

Preheat oven to 475. Sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza stone. Stretch out the dough using a combination of pulling, throwing, and rolling pin, until it is just larger than the stone. Tuck the edge under.

Spread pizza sauce on dough, leaving an inch clear around the edge.

Reserve 1/2 cup cheese. Sprinkle remaining cheese on sauce. Arrange toppings over cheese, then top with remainder of cheese.

Melt butter, then brush on edge of crust. Sprinkle garlic salt on buttered area, or over entire pizza if desired.

Bake 15 minutes until top is golden brown and bubbly.

Make sure you lick your fingers for every drop of deliciousness!

How is world news affecting you these days? I try not to pay too much attention, because I have a vacant house for sale in this faltering economy. I have tried to limit my reading of the newspaper, at least until that gets resolved. The only thing to be accomplished by reading all about the mortgage crisis and the impending recession is to get me uptight about a situation that is out of my control for the moment.

But there is something going on that I cannot ignore. Have you noticed yet how the news of what’s going on “out there” is starting to be reflected in your monthly expenses? We recently moved to a different region of the country, at which time I made the switch to organics for meat, dairy, and some select produce. To me this explained the significant increase in my weekly grocery bill. But as I have begun looking longingly back at the ordinary apples and milk in hopes of saving a few dollars, I am not seeing as much of a price spread as I remember. What happened when I wasn’t looking?

It seems that food prices globally are responding to increasing pressure from multiple sources: Severe weather in Australia and Argentina, among other places, has diminished supply, at a time when producers’ reserves are down, due to increased standards of living in the huge countries of China and India.

In addition, as oil prices continue their stiff climb, higher fuel cost leads to higher production and transportation cost, which gets factored into the end cost, which consumers pay. To help counteract the fuel factor, some of our usual sources of food have been reallocated to become fuel resources. But now higher corn and soybean prices are increasing the price of feed, which in turn increases the price of poultry, meat and dairy products. The summers when we could buy twelve ears of corn for a dollar, or even two, are gone.

To put the squeeze from yet another direction, our US economy is in a fragile situation, if you believe the news. Falling interest rates mean higher inflation, which means your money buys less than it did not too long ago. Natural gas and electricity are increasing in cost due to a shortage of supply; home prices are falling due to a culture of poor lending practices among the mortgage industry, finally correcting itself.

And all of those factors are being reflected in the bottom line on my grocery receipt, which according to some research reflects a five percent increase over last year. The painful realization is that many staple items such as milk, eggs, beef and wheat have increased between 25 and 50%.

The natural principle at work here is that economy is built on a balance between supply and demand. Prices of products are always fluctuating; sometimes there is a bit more supply, sometimes a bit more demand. In an ideal capitalistic economy, demand will slightly outpace supply. Right now, the equation is unbalanced with too much demand for food resources, and a food supply that has been globally diminished on multiple fronts.

The good news is, the equation will naturally right itself, sooner or later. Growers will increase their production of needed crops, because with more demand they can get paid more for growing them. Governments will eventually change policy to encourage greater production in areas of need. Higher cost of transportation may lead us to increase consumption of locally grown produce and goods, as well as take the step into more fuel-efficient vehicles. If critical markets slide or crash, perhaps that will bring a relief to the high price of oil (which still seems to mystify those of us outside the oil industry as to its true cause). Long term, there are good results to come from this imbalance.

In the meantime, it is time to take action. What are you doing to protect your family budget at the grocery? In the next few weeks I will be discussing responsible and effective ways we can make our food budget stretch to the max.