Even in the best of economic times, we’ve always had a rather small budget for food. When my husband and I first got married, we were both full-time students working part-time, minimum wage jobs at $4/hour. There were months when I fed both of us for just $15/week!
Granted, it wasn’t particularly Real Food, but I mostly mention it to say: I’ve been there, folks. I’ve been dirt poor trying to do the best I can with what I had.
The farmers I buy my pastured chickens from charges $3.25/lb for a whole chicken. The rancher I buy my pastured beef from charges around $3.80/lb for a butchered, processed, and packaged side of cattle.
To some, this seems expensive. Afterall, supermarket sales regularly sell chicken or beef for as little as a dollar per pound.
Yet, these are the same people who are willing to pay almost $10/lb for a box of breakfast cereal.
When talking with others about my eating habits, one of the first questions they ask me is: “How do you have time to do it all?” Granted, it sounds like a lot. Everyone would love to prepare nutritious, wholesome, nutrient-dense, traditional foods for themselves and their families, but who has the time?
Once upon a time, I began each week with a meal plan. It was an amazing little thing — a simple sheet of paper with hand written notes outlining the week’s meals. It also made doing traditional foods preparation a lot simpler. If I planned sandwiches for lunch on Tuesday, I would make a note to bake sandwich bread Monday night. I’d note when to make mayonnaise, ketchup, or dill pickle relish. I’d tell myself when to marinate meat or start the crock pot. When to sprout grains or legumes.
