Thought For Food: Preamble

I love FOOD. Plain and simple.
More than that I love GOOD food. Sometimes plain, sometimes simple.
More than that I love INEXPENSIVE good food. Rarely plain, rarely simple.

I think about food a lot. Always have.
I find immense satisfaction in preparing enjoyable foods for myself and others. Always have.

What I think about a lot now is preparing inexpensive good food that provides enjoyment for myself and my family.

Although I would not consider us an average American family, we have to make the same decisions as average American families. Most regularly, decisions about where to spend our money. We have always felt we should try to stick to a food budget, but we had the luxury of not sticking to it strictly. That has changed. We have a larger family with larger expenses. Unlike average American families, I feel strongly about certain ingredients (no corn syrup, no hydrogenated oil to start) and do not want to comprise how I feel for the sake of budget. Instead of compromising, I am setting out to enjoy eating "right" and within budget. Since I know I am not the only one out there faced with this dilemma, I thought I would start writing about it to help others and if anybody is so inclined, get help from others.

I would like to start sharing decisions I make for our family and how that effects our budget for the better or worse. My goal is to meet our budget as best we can and with more consciousness towards food decisions. The former goal is concrete and easily measurable. Mint.com does not lie. The latter is subjective, so let me take a moment to define what the latter means to me right now.

Having more consciousness towards food means eating, (which starts with grocery shopping) in a way that reduces our carbon footprint (aka eat more locally) and eating less genetically modified foods (aka know the source of the food we buy and eat). I do not plan on preaching and forcing upon others why those foody buzzwords are necessary for a more sustainable environment and healthy person, but i will in my posts talk about why those ideals are important to me and point to places for all of us to get more information with those ideas in mind.

Each post, I want to focus on one food and figure out where budget meets consciousness for that food. Then decide if I can continue to consider it something that makes sense in our budget or if it needs to be a "luxury" item...of which we will have plenty, because we do love our food luxuries.

I will also try to post our grocery purchases and meal plans for the week.

First up: the rotisserie chicken.