Eating "Fresh"

This post isn't about a project, but is about my opinion on food. Stop reading if you don't want to hear my opinion, otherwise, thanks for listening :)

 Lately, I've gotten into a ton of discussions with people about what kind of food they eat and how either processed food is the devil or the inexpensive solution to feeding a growing family. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on regarding this issue, but here's the bottom line: there's food revolution going on in our country. People need to educate themselves with factual information and stop blindly following everything that they see on the news or the internet. Yes, fresh food is definitely healthier for you. Is organic necessarily better? That's your personal opinion, in my opinion. I don't think that we eat very much processed food at my house. An outsider would probably come in, look at my pantry, and beg to differ. True, there are lots of boxed and canned items in my pantry, but after looking closer, you'd see that it's all raw ingredients. Sugar, flour, rice, pasta, etc. Of course there are things like cereal and tortilla chips, but I don't feed my family "convenience foods" like frozen pizza or TV dinners. We literally make everything from scratch. Breakfast muffins? Scratch. Granola? Scratch. Spanish rice? Scratch. Every single lunch and dinner, baby food, and dessert - from scratch. Sure, the ingredients were processed, but compare the little bit the raw ingredients are processed to how much a boxed mix of brownies is. It's a no-brainer.
I've also been hearing that vegetables are expensive. I will agree with this to some extent, but the fact is, when you buy things in season (ie, asparagus in the spring time or apples in the fall), that's when the price is lowest. Eating produce when it is in season is sustainable and cost effective. Don't believe me? We just got 20 lbs of blueberries for $2.50 a pound because they are in season. Compare that to a pint for $3.99 in January. Vegetables are an investment, but they stretch mush further because they FILL YOU UP. You'd be amazed by how far a few single veggies can go. $25 worth of produce will feed us for a week, eating veggies as a side dish or main dish for every meal. If that isn't bang for your buck, I don't know what is.

Moral of the story, if you want to feed your family less processed food, start with buying more produce and more raw ingredients. Making things from scratch is time consuming, but I'm 100% convinced that it's saved us majorly on our grocery bill.