Wants and Needs...

Before going to the grocery store, I usually make a list, and check it several times after perusing the refrigerator and the pantry. I also eat something, even if it's just a small snack. This is a self-defense mechanism:  if I go to the grocery store whilst I'm hungry, I buy lots of stuff that I don't need, but as soon as I see it, I have to buy it. I consider this behavior of mine as 'buying without thinking; on a whim, because of a message from my stomach.'

I challenged myself to go through the grocery store and identify all the things that I don't need. After walking through the store with this intention to see what I don't need, then I did another walk through with my list. This was a good exercise for me because it made me think about what I was buying, and why I was buying it.

I imagine our ancestors, who were probably hunter gatherers before they became farmers, and their habits about food. They were limited by the seasons, their lifestyle [whether they were nomads, or kept more than one area for living depending on the food sources] and their ability to know what to do with the abundance when it was available, and their ability to preserve some of the bounty by some method to stave off hunger in the leaner times.

We've come so far from those times, that our thinking is jaded about what we want and what we need.  Here are some things I've decided that I really don't need:

• Cake mixes, because a homemade cake is so much better and doesn't have the preservatives.
• Junk food, because it's a slippery slope for me that is easy to avoid by just saying, 'NO,' However, I do admit that I buy an occasional bag of Kettle Chips because I love the crunch. Two or three bags a year is probably not going to kill me.
• Highly processed foods like breakfast cereal because I've come to love my hot homemade oatmeal with raisins and cransins, maybe some nuts, and Agave nectar for a little sweetness. I buy the old fashioned oats, not the the instant/quick cooking kind. Steel cut oats from Bob's Red Mill are really good!
• Bread, although I will buy the occasional loaf of sourdough bread. I've learned to make beer bread and it's way better than any store bought loaf. This bread has no fat, no eggs, or other complications. It has unbleached flour, yeast, water, salt, and beer. I've tried several different beers and the best so far is Schock Top. The Guinness and the Porter are good, but they do have a much stronger flavor. 
• Margarine. I only use butter because it's much better for you than hydrogenated fats. Most of the butter I buy goes into baking, or on a baked potato, or toasted beer bread! 

OK... the list is not exhaustive or definitive, but it conveys my message; stock your pantry with the basics and create the good stuff from scratch! Grow your own veggies whenever you can; and preserve the harvest when you have lots. Homegrown herbs are the best. Dried apples and plums are wonderful snack foods. 

Now, I'm getting off the soapbox.  It's past my bedtime! :-)