The Rules
For the purposes of our slow food experiment, we will make all of our food ourselves from basic raw ingredients.
1. When we shop for food, we will only buy single ingredients. For instance, we will buy flour and yeast and salt and oil and milk, but we won’t buy bread. We will buy tomatoes and sugar, but we won’t buy ketchup. We will buy coffee, but not flavored coffee.
2. We will not eat food made in restaurants for the duration of the experiment.
3. We may buy single ingredient canned goods or canned goods with water added. So we won’t buy pasta sauce, but we will buy plain canned tomato paste.
4. We will not buy bottled water. All our water will come from the tap.
5. If we slip up or cheat on any food, we will publish the details on the blog.
6. To the extent we can afford it, we will choose local foods over foods of unknown provenance.
Wow – I am so impressed by this. I’d like to say I will do this too but my husband would shrivel up and die without his condiments. I really am very interested in this and will be following this blog.
Would you be willing to post menus, grocery lists and grocery budget information as well? It would be very helpful for people like me who might be interested in trying this if it were an affordable switch to make.
Thank you. I look forward to your future posts.
No ketchup? :( You are a stronger woman than I! And hey, you live in Cinci. I live in Florence. When I cross the bridge, I’ll wave in your general direction.
Ketchup! I just posted about how ketchup makes it better! http://wp.me/pCJCY-3R
However, I do remember when ketchup was made from scratch.
Very intrigued and excited to watch you take this journey. We will be moving to a new house in about two months…a new house with more than 2 sq. feet of kitchen counter space. (I’m not exaggerating about our current home situation. The entire house is 580 sq. ft. And we’re a family of four.)
Anyway, I’m so thankful you’re taking the lead. This is something I would like to do when I have the space that will help me cook with less frustration.
But . . . if you can buy white flour and white sugar and white rice just as easily as brown and brown and brown, I don’t really see how this is a health experiment. Shouldn’t there be some rule about buying the least processed form of every ingredient possible? — which would also include no canned tomatoes, etc
(We did a similar-ish experiment in Cairo simply from necessity. No cream of chicken soup there, or cottage cheese, or spaghetti sauce.)
Jane, that is one we are leaving up in the air for now. We may move to that, but at this stage it just strikes me as silly to refuse canned food in a midwestern fall, when we are a month away from all “local” vegetables being canned anyway. The only way to eat “unprocessed” green vegetables in fall and winter in the midwest is to choose vegetables that have been shipped from far away.
I agree.. you can get the ball rolling now.. and then presumably, next summer you could buy large portions of local fruits and vegetables and can them yourselves. Then they would abide by the rules completely and you’d have them through the fall and winter if you canned enough. =) Canning is something I definitely want to get into next summer!
I agree with the first comment, my husband would shrivel up and die.
Not for the condiments. I mean, you can make your own catsup, mayonnaise and mustard right? I’ve seen Alton Brown do it.. It didn’t look TOO hard.. I don’t THINK…
No, my issue would be other things. Like pudding. My husband likes instant chocolate pudding. He will not eat cooked pudding and I will not make it. How would my husband live without his pudding?
Plus, I know HOW to make tortillas, bread and crackers completely from scratch, but I stink at making time for it. That, that right there would be my downfall I think. There’s a reason pre-made foods are so popular you know. ;)
I applaud your efforts and can’t wait to read more! God bless!
I am enjoying this vicariously, and constantly checking in to see how we do living here in Rabat. We can cheat a lot here, but we don’t by choice. For example, you can find Betty Crocker cake mix here, but I hate cake mix cakes. Why bother? We do buy ketchup and mayonnaise though. And coconut milk. Although I think it is just that–canned coconut milk. I am going to check the label right now :)
Oh and is this a no-alcohol experiement too? I noticed you were chucking the wine. I think wine counts as a simple food. It’s been around a very long time, you know.
Planetnomad, we’ve decided we are going to start off with only alcohol we make ourselves. We may phase it back in eventually, but part of the adventure of this is exploring how all these foods are made.
The one absolute rule-breaker I will keep forever is cheese. I will not live without cheese. Az says he still wants to try to make our own for the experience, but I am not giving up cheese.
I checked cheese at the store this evening and ran back to the blog to find out what you’re doing about cheese! LOL! :) :) :) We *could not* go without cheese. No way. No how. I was so distraught to see that “cheese” was not the only ingredient in cheese! Hee hee hee!
This will be one exception that we will use, as well. :)
Today on my drive home I was thinking about your experiment. I was all ready to be a copy cat a few days a week, going through what I can/could learn to make from scratch, and then I got to cheese. Cheese and yogurt….
I was wondering about cheese! That was by FAR the hardest thing to give up when we were vegan.
You are hardcore. I am impressed.
You could try making mozzarella cheese. You can make it in the microwave. I mean, stove + microwave. It’s a big huge goopy mess but SO COOL!
I am SO going to follow this blog. Fascinating!!
I love that you are trying this despite being a stay at home mom of young children. It gives me hope I could accomplish it too. Also, regarding the post about losing time with the kids because the cooking requires so much more time may I offer some encouragement? Most of my best memories from childhood center around baking or cooking with one of my parents. I can remember distinctly some sort of “all about me” assignment in my 1st grade class including the fact that I could make pie crust nearly all by myself. It made me so proud, and I know my mother had spent many many hours teaching me. i also know for a fact that my ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions is linked to measuring cups and recipes. As a mother of 3 young ones myself I know it isn’t always possible to include them, and it can add time or frustration to the process but they LOVE it so much. And they fuss less about eating new things when I let them help which is a bonus for me. :)
Just found you through Owlhaven. I don’t think I’m brave enough to take the plunge and join you, but I’m very interested in the experiment. I intend to follow along, at any rate. Maybe you will inspire me to make at least a few changes.
If you do decide to get into cheesemaking (probably no more difficult than wine-making), this is supposed to be a very good book: http://www.amazon.com/Home-Cheese-Making-Recipes-Delicious/dp/1580174647/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255110007&sr=8-2
Good Luck and thanks for sharing!
I found you through owlhaven (though I occasionally lurked on Toddled Dredge). I think this is a great experiment–something that I would not do myself, but it did make me think about making things at home from scratch and buying less convenient food.
I can understand the exhaustion and trying to find more time with your kids and I think Katie’s idea is great. Also, you might want to prepare a lot of something at one time and freeze it (it might be worth buying an extra freezer with the money you save from restaurant and convenience foods).
We are going to try the pita bread recipe this weekend.
Wow, Veronica. Not even the Erismans would try that. Well, on second thought, maybe we would. Mr. Erisman has not yet weighed in… I think I will try to keep him away from this blog as long as possible. : )
That said, we have very little processed food in our house as a matter of course. We don’t bake bread on a regular basis, but we do buy it from a local baker. If you are buying canned tomatoes and canned tomato paste (which people have to process, albeit without the evil stuff), I don’t see why you’re ruling out cheese if it doesn’t have chemicals added to it or processing beyond the typical things you’d have to do to make cheese.
I’d love to hear you blog about how the girls are responding.
This sounds similar to what we’re doing but you have much more PC reasons than we do. We’re just trying to survive on a small income. I’m really excited to follow along on your journey. I’m fascinated by what we can make at home that I just never even questioned before as I bought it in bottles or jars or cans. It’s very freeing and thrilling and makes me feel all self sufficient. Good luck. I’ll be reading!
You are nutso, woman! But this is going to be great entertainment… :)
Cheese would be a dealbreaker for me too. LOL. But I have heard lovely things about homemade yogurt. I keep meaning to try it.
I was also greatly impressed with Pollan’s “In Defense of Food”; it really made me think about the history and (non-) culture of American eating. For now, I am more aware of what we put into our bodies, but that doesn’t mean I have gone so far as to ban products with ingredients I can’t even pronounce, let alone multi-ingredient products…
I’m assuming you’ve read Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral”? Her family attempted to eat only locally for one year. It’s chuck full of interesting history and facts about food and nutrition as well.
I followed you on Toddled and was curious what your new blogging venture w/be. Looking forward to following you on this journey! Does it have a timeframe? Or just one day at a time… ;)
This is an interesting experiment. I just found you (again) today. Good luck with this! I hope it goes well for you and you discover joy in the kitchen together. I loved your post today about partnership.
I thought your rules would be much harder to follow. Except for condiments, cheese and breakfast cereal, I almost follow these rules already. All it took was leaving the United States. And our cheese is made by people we know. Does that count?
Okay, nevermind, I buy bread! And crackers! And cookies!