Heavenly Homemakers

Gretchen emailed me with this question:

I just read some of your series on “Getting Real with Food“. I am in the midst of being a “coupon queen” but trying to quit. I am doing some organic foods and trying to cook so much more homemade food. My question to you is, how do I make this transition?

I am having a lot of trouble just trying to figure out how to stop couponing. I get organic produce delivered to me. I am starting to buy my pantry staples in bulk. Do you have any advice?

My answer:

(And by the way, we’re not talking about trying to stop couponing because there’s anything wrong with couponing…it’s the fact that usually coupons we find are for unhealthy foods, and our focus is on getting food for cheap or free instead of buying good, quality foods.)

Okay, now…My answer:

I SO understand your “pain” with trying to stop couponing. It seriously is painful…I’m not kidding when I say that. I loved doing it so much and it was such a part of who I was…not to mention it was something that made me feel so good about how I was taking care of my family. I didn’t want to give it up. But I did want to eat healthier. Oh, it was painful.
 
I remember walking through the grocery store one day when I had first learned about high fructose corn syrup and MSG and hydrogenated oils. And I was determined to still use some coupons because I thought surely I still could on some things. You know, like granola bars. Those are healthy, right? And I kept checking labels and EVERYTHING I had a coupon for had at least one thing in it that we shouldn’t be eating. I was getting so discouraged. And I started getting mad at the grocery store. And I thought it suddenly smelled stinky. And then I was starting to feeling teary. 
 
I think I might have used one coupon that day on toilet paper or something…and saving those 50 cents didn’t really make me feel good like normal coupon shopping had. It made me feel worse.
 
Ultimately I think what helped me the most was that I pretty much stopped shopping at grocery stores. I began getting my food in all different ways, like from local farmers, our farmer’s market, a food co-op, and other bulk food stores and graneries. This means I hardly needed to walk into a grocery store anymore, which is where my couponing took place. 
 
And, where I used to have SO MUCH FUN couponing at the grocery store…I now have SO MUCH FUN pouring over my food co-op catalogs and seeing what’s on sale for the month and what produce is available. I really kinda make it an “event”…when I have a quiet moment with my feet up to look through the catalogs and make my order. AND, I have so much fun seeing what awesome food I can get at the farmer’s market, and so much fun finding great foods from area farmers. 
 
And the joy I used to feel knowing I was “taking such good care of my family by saving so much money with coupons” I now feel knowing that I’m taking such good care of my family by feeding them so well. 

And this joy feels even better!
 
SO, hang in there. It sounds like you are very much on the right track!!!! Since you get your organic produce delivered to you  and you’re ordering staples in bulk….you are making the transition very well.
 
And hey, use some coupons sometimes while you’re transitioning…on some things that are more “compromise foods” or toiletry items (I still use those kinds of coupons actually when I can). 
 
Or, still use coupons to get free or almost free items that you can share with a food pantry.
 
I hope this helps. Please feel free to ask me more if I haven’t answered you as specifically as you would like. 
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Anyone have anything they’d like to add?

(Visit Tammy’s Recipes for other kitchen tips.)

Last time I posted in this series, I talked about some of the no-no ingredients you should try to avoid. And I promised to explain a bit more about why you should avoid them. 

Then I started writing this very difficult post and found that it was a very difficult post to write. ;)

Most of the nutrition information that I have read and learned comes from Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions. But I really wanted to show you how many other great sources explaining some of these “no-nos” there were out there too.

So I began to do research. (Yeah, that’s the part where this post got very difficult to write. It began to require lots of reading and lots of note taking….and I really did need to begin making dinner for my family.)  :)

As little boys begin to look more and more pitifully hungry (and as I still don’t even have the chicken thawed) I decided to just provide you with the links I found. Then you can read the information for yourself and pick and choose what you’d like to read instead of me trying to decide what you’d like to learn.

Oh, but guess what? Some of the sites contradict each other. Not surprising really. That’s one of the biggest reasons I want to stick with eating real food.  I know what it is. I know what’s in it. There is no controversy in that.

Here are the ingredients I suggested to you here that were no-nos…and the links I found to provide you will more information than you could possibly ever want to know. And then some. :)

Partially Hydrogenated Oils: 

Here’s what I found at the Weston Price site specifically about hydrogenated oils. And here’s a link from that same site to a page full of links that talks more about fats in general. (You’ve gotta love a link to more links.)

I Googled Hydrogenated Oils too…just so that I could read what other sources said about it. I wanted to see if anyone out there said, “No really, eat all the hydrogenated oils you want. It’s okay.” I didn’t read them all, but all the links I did read said to avoid them. Check it out.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (or High Tukfrose Corn Syrup, as my friend’s little girl says it!):

Here, check out this link at the Weston Price site which describes High Fructose Corn Syrup very well. 

And, I found this article quite interesting.

Here are all the links I came up with when I Googled it. 

Food Dyes:

I appreciated what Dr. Mercola said about Food Dyes. He had several other articles too here. I very much trust Dr. Mercola and his research.

Here’s what I came up with when I Googled Food Dyes. 

Artificial Sweeteners:

The information I found at Dr. Mercola’s website provided TONS of information abour artificial sweeteners..

When I Googled Artificial Sweeteners, I found different sites with conflicting information. 

Okay…after you go click around on some of these links, you’ll see why I wasn’t able to conglomerate (whoa, big word) all of that information and put it into one post for you. So sorry if this was just about the most boring post ever. (For comic relief go here.)

I think now I’ll take a shift in the direction of this Getting Real With Food Series, and start just sharing more specifics about more of the things we eat and drink and why and how I make them and where I get them. (You know I love talking about my cow in the freezer.) 

One more thing! Remember to just take little baby steps and don’t try to change everything at once. If you’re reading some of this information and you feel overwhelmed…stop reading it. Just work to change small things, one at a time. That’s do-able!
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Go on over to Tammy’s Recipes for other kitchen encouragement.