The Cost of Bad Food

Something that has bugged me for some time is when people talk about the cost of organic food. But, I would question "What is the cost of good health?" I firmly believe that you either pay now or pay later! There have been numerous bits of research on the ratios now and in the past as to the amount that is spent on food compared to health. As we spend less on food, we spend more on health. Our children are the first generation that are expected to live a shorter life than their parents! This is a sobering thought!

Organic food is more expensive (sometimes) than non-organic, but the quality is usually a lot better. Especially if you are buying from farmers markets or an organic delivery business - these guys know their suppliers and know that they are fair dinkum! Unfortunately now that the big Supermarkets are in on the act, the quality is not as good. Funnily enough, they are only in the organic industry as they know that the consumer wants it, but they don't always play by the right rules. They actively try and change the rules or at least bend them, and usually it's the poor old farmer that cops it! Then you have the corporate growers, who have profit as their only motive, and they will find ways to get around the regulations.

Profit is important, which is why we need to support our smaller growers - however they also care about other things, like animal health, soil health, sustainablity of both and the good health that their customers will get from eating good quality organic food.

Some ways to make it less expensive to buy organic:
- go to farmers markets
- start buying some organic products or products that use very few chemicals
- eat less - organic food is richer in nutrients so you need less (this may also improve your wasteline!)
- find out what is grown close to where you live and buy direct
- buy the raw materials and cook at home - this is a another topic altogether!!!

You don't need to buy food that is certified organic if you know who grew it and what they did to it! Get to know what is grown near you and talk to the farmer.....we are a friendly bunch!

Pork

We have finally killed our first pigs, so our Free Range Pasture Raised Pork Enterprise is officially official! It's early days yet, but we are really excited by the potential and so far have had some good comments about it. Juicy, tasty, no feed lot smell and the fat is divine! Well, I do agree on all those points, but then it's hard not to be biased when you have produced it yourself!

Recently our daughter brought out some left over roast pork - this was conventional pork that she had cooked a few days earlier. Our family don't believe in wasting food, so she brought it out for me to do something with. I cooked up a kind of stragonof thing, with fresh mushrooms (well, they were frozen ones that we collected previously), garlic and parsley (from the garden), onion and finished with some of my lovely fresh cream. I served it with pasta. Well the sauce was really nice, but I could not eat the pork! It really did not taste very good!

It's not much point eating it if it tastes that bad and I suppose it's not wasted when we have dogs!

It's a bit of a problem for us really, because we are getting to the stage that we can't eat conventional food. Have we become so accustomed to eating our own or other organic produce, that we can't stomach other foods. It's been a long time since I have "enjoyed" junk food, but to not even be able to buy the usual supermarket produce is another thing altogether! Oh well, I just suppose we have to convert all our friends and family into buying good quality and healthy food!