Local

Over the past several years, I've been reading and educating myself on food.

Yep, food.

It makes me furious really that I have to EDUCATE myself on one of the most basic necessities of life - but it's true.  I am becoming more and more passionate about eating well, eating local and making sure we stick to a lot of plant based foods.  We don't eat processed, we don't eat processed frozen and we rarely, RARELY eat out.

When most people hear about this, they roll their eyes.  They tell me they could never do it, it's too hard, it's too complicated, it's too confusing, it's too overwhelming.

And honestly?  They are just about right.  It IS hard.  It IS complicated.  It IS confusing and heck yes, it's terribly overwhelming.  But something about that pushes me forward - because it's our FOOD.  It's our source of fuel.  It's what keeps us going.  We need it to survive, and I'll be darned if I'm going to throw my hands up because certain companies have been successful in confusing the heck out of consumers.  It gets me seriously fired up.

And it is frustrating that after several years of reading and learning, there are still things that puzzle me or confuse me.  I'm always learning something new.  It takes total patience and dedication and most people don't have the time for it.

But - it's a cause that is important to me.  The more I learn about what is in our food supply, what we are feeding our children, and the long term effects it has - the more dedicated I feel to figuring it out.  This is a puzzle that shouldn't be a puzzle, you know?  Reading labels on the back of food shouldn't require a dictionary or a trip to google to find out how to pronounce it and what it's used for.

Today's goal was to try to determine the cheapest place to buy the foods we eat.  This is no small task - groceries seem to be cheaper when you're grabbing the unhealthy, quick fixes.  To track down organic produce, local and grass fed meats without having to take out a second mortgage on your house takes some crafty planning.

I wish I had the answers yet - I don't.

I was surprised to compare Harris Teeter pricing to Earth Fare pricing and realize that Earth Fare came out cheaper on a good majority of what I buy.  Even though I had long suspected I wasn't actually spending that much more when I frequented Earth Fare, I wasn't anticipating the pricing to be so much more (actually double in one case!).

If you're looking to start this process yourself, here is a great list of places to visit:

Local Farmers Markets (Charlotte, NC)

And if you have any good tips for me on a reasonably priced source for organic, local foods - please share!  I can't wait for summer produce to show up at the Farmers Market!