In my last article I said we would discuss more food ideas, free food, and time saving tips as well. So let's start off with more food ideas.
I watched a program on PBS one day and it mentioned a place where everyone had a vegetable garden and no lawn. It was amazing. So one thing I absolutely encourage is gardening. Even if you can only grow tomatoes in a pot on your patio. Do it. Fresh food is so delicious and healthy. One day last winter I had a tomato in my kitchen that had a brown spot on it. I really was disappointed because I wanted to eat it and it was the last one. So I cut it open to see if the brown spot went all the way through, and wouldn't you know, it was full of tiny sprouts. All of the seeds started to grow inside the tomato. I was so thrilled. I gently scooped out all of those tiny sprouted seeds and rinsed them carefully and put them into my Gerber daisy flower pot on the kitchen table. She didn't mind sharing her soil for in a week or so I had forty tomato plants all about two inches tall. I had to get some potting soil and put them all into their own little pots. By spring time I had forty plants each two to three feet tall. All of my family and friends got tomato plants as a gift whenever they came to visit. One small tomato yielded quite an abundance to say the least. With a little effort you may be very surprised at what nature provides. So plant a garden this year if you can even a small one.
With all the lay offs and many people now on unemployment some are now having to apply for food stamps. This may take a measure of humility for a few. The food bank is also a resource you can tap into. Don't feel bad about it at all. Just think of all of the fund raisers you helped your children with. The food drives you donated to, including the one you stuck near the mail box for the mailman to pick up. It may now be your turn to utilize that service. I am grateful that there are food banks. Just type into your web browser for example "food banks in Colorado" or "food banks in Denver". An entire list of choices pops up and this will enable you to find one near you. Some food banks allow you to shop for free twice a week which will keep your family fed in between food stamps which are not stamps at all but you now get a card that gets credited for a certain amount depending on how much you qualify for.
There are quite a few discount grocers now available that sell food that is about to expire. Sometimes boxes of cereal that are crushed or sliced or may be nearing the expiration date or cans of food that the label is falling off of or are dented. Here is my take on discount grocers. They can be a godsend. But the dented cans you should avoid. Sometimes the dented cans can actually cause the food to spoil. I would be leery about feeding it to my family. If you do buy dented, make sure that the top of the can is immovable. In other words you cannot push the top down at all. If it seems bloated or the top is movable do not buy it. That means the pressure is broken that sealed it and the food is now spoiling or spoiled. Our local discount grocery store sells organic milk, eggs, yogurt, even chocolate. I enjoy visiting it because I always find something new. The boxes of cereal are like $1.00 each and they sell canned food in jars sometimes. One tip about the cereal, if it is too close to the expiration date sometimes it may taste rancid. Grains get a rancid taste when they are old, so try to pick out the ones with the freshest date. But yogurt I have eaten even over two weeks past the expiration date and it was just fine. Besides if your kids eat it as fast as it comes into the house then it really doesn't matter too much if it is close to the date on the container because it will probably be gone by then anyway.
When my children were all at home I read an article about free food. It was in an old "Mother Earth New" magazine Nov./Dec. 1970. I applied the practical suggestions and actually got so much free food I was giving it away. The article suggested eating what was unsaleable at the store. By talking to store produce managers for instance and asking them what they do with the food they cannot sell I was able to purchase for $1.00 a bushel of produce from a health food store. I bought several at a time and my friend Marlene and I would divvy it up in the yard. You know the old, one for me one for you, idea. She had six kids and I had five. So between the two of us we would can, bake, dehydrate, whatever we brought home that day. It worked wonderfully well. But now a days, it is harder to do that. Many stores won't just because they are afraid to get sued. Or they are already donating it to a food bank. But it is worth the try. You have nothing to lose. You have to speak to the produce manager. Some require that you be a charity and some don't. I also did the same with the dairy manager and bought the yogurt and milk and cheese that was just on the verge of expiring. There used to be a yogurt plant in Denver that literally gave me cases of yogurt at a time. I would take off the lid, stir up the fruit at the bottom, put the lid back on with a Popsicle stick into it, and put them into the freezer. I did this with a bagel shop too. I went there once a week and sometimes had 300 bagels in a large plastic bag. I froze as many as I thought we could eat and gave the rest to family, friends, and the middle school my daughter went to. The cook was happy to get them and gave the students free breakfast. A toasted bagel with butter. The students were very happy with the arrangement and could choose any flavor they wanted. I did this with pizza restaurants as well. At the end of the evening when they were about to close on a Friday or Saturday night I would pick up the pizzas that were not deliverable. They gave them to me. I took them home and wrapped them up in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer. Then when the kids wanted pizza I just warmed them back up in the oven. You have to call first and talk to the manager. Don't just show up and ask for them. It won't happen. I also read an article in another magazine, I don't recall which one, but it was about a great banquet in Washington D.C. The banquet was all made with the food they had collected from local restaurants and stores that was to be thrown away that week. It was done to prove a point. The point was how much food gets tossed everyday in America. If you find such a deal anywhere, share the food. Give it to all of the people in your life who are struggling. Give it to the food bank, put it out there on craigslist. But share it.
By the way keep a pretty table it makes mealtime happier. (Photo is my best friend Jane's kitchen table in Southern Cal.)
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