It's Challenging to "Eat for Free"

My current challenge is challenging my thinking more than I thought it would. For the 100 Days Challenge, I chose to spend no more money on food through the end of the year. It seemed like it would not be too difficult as we get a share from the CSA every week, I have a full freezer and refrigerator, I've got food stored for emergencies, and there is produce that can be harvested from our garden and elsewhere.

The CSA share, over the year, includes everything needed for a well-rounded vegan diet: vegetables, fruit, grains (wheat & oats), and beans. The share can include starchy vegetables such as red potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, or winter squash which also contain the complex carbohydrates needed for fuel. There are not quite enough calories in one share, though, to sustain us on it alone.

Emergency food supplies need to be rotated, though, which means I do have aging food that should be consumed sooner than later. Yes, that food will need to be replaced but hopefully that can wait until January for the purposes of this challenge. With luck, this will coincide with moving into our own place so that we don't have to move food. The full refrigerator and freezer also need to be emptied out for our eventual move, and room made for new harvests that are better frozen than canned or dried. Our garden is starting to produce (photos coming soon!) so fresh vegetables can be supplemented from the back yard.

So, "Where's the challenge?", you ask. The challenge is coming to grips with how often I've run (or rather, biked) to the store to get one or two ingredients here and there to make an easy meal with the food on hand. It's also realizing how often I got quick, but still relatively healthy, food from restaurants when I didn't feel like making a meal from scratch. If I want to eat now, it has to be made by me with what I have here.

In other words, the challenge is in giving up convenience. It may seem like this is a random and pointless exercise, but there is a reason I chose to try this. Actually, there are a lot of reasons, such as saving money, cleaning out food for the move, eating up older food, and forcing myself to be more creative. Another big reason, though, lurks beneath the surface of all these other reasons and that is concern for our future.

Many indicators point to a more challenging future than the life we currently experience. Peak oil, climate change, economic instability, and a growing human population may very well change our way of life and our ability to easily get whatever food we want to eat whenever we crave it. Obviously, most of us cannot get any particular food we want with our limited budgets, but in general there is a huge abundance and variety of food currently available to those in the United States and other developed countries. Analysts and experts predict that this cannot be sustained in the face of peak oil and climate change.

There may come a time when people have to eat what they can grow, harvest, and obtain locally, possibly with a few outside inputs (such as grains). As things got tougher, cravings for particular foods would become irrelevant as one would eat solely for nutrition and survival at that point. My personal challenge does not go nearly this far, but I do see it as a means to dip my toe in the water of a different lifestyle.

In less than a week, I've already had to remind myself several times that I can't just run to the store to get something I need (or want). When I ran out of flour, we had to set up the pedal-powered grinder and transform the wheat berries into flour ourselves. If I want burritos, I'll now have to make the tortillas from scratch. If I want corn tortillas, I'll have to cook my dried corn with lime to make hominy and then grind that to make masa. Recipes must be modified to omit or substitute for ingredients I do not have. And recipes will need to be created for those odds and ends in the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.

So far, it has truly not been all that difficult but I do wonder how it will be by mid-December. And then I wonder how it would be if I could never shop at a grocery store again.

How would it be if no-one could every shop at a giant grocery store filled with cheap and convenient food again? Would they adapt to getting their foods from gardens, farmers' markets, and CSAs? Would they be willing to change their diets, cook from scratch, and learn food preservation? Would they know how to feed themselves with a 50 pound bag of oats or wheat berries? Would they learn the value of bartering what they produce and preserve for what someone else produces and preserves?

I think there is a small set of the population that would indeed survive without the grocery stores. These people already live like this or are moving towards this lifestyle. A few more may be willing to learn. But, I fear, there are many, many people who would flail and struggle to maintain the old status quo, people that would take what they want through any means necessary, and others who would simply give up rather than change.

Those of us making these changes now can continue to share our personal experiences and provide information on local resources, but we cannot force change in those who do not want to change. The impetus to change must come from within, either from desire or desperation.

So, where do you stand? Have you changed the way you look at what and how you eat yet? Are you willing to make changes now when it doesn't seem that critical or important? Or would you wait until the last moment and then fight change with every last ounce of strength you have?