Food Inc.

Part of the motivation for our new 'lifestyle' came about on a dreary afternoon at home. It was a typical Saturday afternoon, cuddled up on the couch with Netflix, and we stumbled upon Food Inc on instant play. I had been wanting to watch it since seeing the director of the documentary on the Today Show. We were both shocked and sickened by the food industry in this country--ashamed that with our purchases we've been supporting the continuance of such a system. I've never watched something that got me so motivated to make a change, but we knew that was exactly what we had to do.

We decided right away that we were going to work harder to shop locally and eat foods that consisted of wholesome, natural, organic ingredients. There was a stint in D.C. when we went all natural--but quickly realized it was going to be tough on our tight budget. We've realized now though that our health and what we put into our bodies is worth the extra cash--it also helps that our new city is a lot more affordable than D.C.!

We've created a system when it comes to buying our groceries; a trial and error process that we're still perfecting. Our immediate reaction in an effort to buy locally and organically was to rush on over to our local co-op. However, after dropping $86 on only a few days worth of food we realized this might not be a realistic option for us. The next grocery day we decided to check out the 'Nature's Market' at our local Wegman's. Many of the same products as the co-op, but in a big box store. I struggled with this one a bit, knowing that shopping at Wegman's we're not supporting 'the little guy', but on a tight budget it's what works for us right now.

Also this past Saturday we went with a couple of friends to check out the local farmer's market. It's not in full swing, given it's the off season, but there were still a lot of local vendors offering just what we were looking for. I became a bit of a skeptic, however, walking around the market. I couldn't help but question how organically (as in not using pesticides and other harmful chemicals) all of the produce was. A lot of the 'farmers' seemed to be taking imported vegetables and fruits and putting them into barrels to make it appear that they had grown it themselves--this practice was a bit disturbing to me. However, we managed to find a few true farmers who were selling a crop that was obviously from their own fields. I'm not exactly sure how organically grown everything was, but at least we know it was grown locally. The meat that we were able to find at the market was excellent and from a farm not too far from home--it was nice to be able to find a good variety of free range, grass-fed, organic meat.

So our current buying system consists of a trip to Wegman's Nature Market for the majority of our dry or frozen goods, a weekly trip to the farmer's market for fresh produce, meat, and eggs and a stop by the co-op for our milk and maybe a cup of soup :) A bit more driving than we'd like to do, but until we live in a community where we can walk to a fresh air market and get everything in one stop this is what we can do to ensure we're not supporting the horrific food industry in this country.
-Heather