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Eat better on a budget: Grow your own food
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Homegrown tomatoes, garlic, onions and beets
Everyone wants to healthier but the rising cost of food, and fresh, whole food in particular, is often prohibitive. Even still, there are definite ways to get the best mileage out of the dollars spent to feed yourself and your family.
This is the first installment of a series that will explore some of those options. Here's the first one:
Eat better on a budget: Grow your own food
In addition to its health benefits, planting and growing your own food is one of the top ways to save money on food. Beyond purchasing seeds, there is a greater investment of time and energy needed to care for crops and bring them to the meal time table. The ability to hand pick on demand at peak ripeness coupled with the fresher taste provides a value over and above expensive store-bought varieties.
To maximize savings, plant two crops - one for summer and one for fall. Portland's summers are conducive to tons of options - berries, meolns, beans, peas, cucumbers, lettuces, sunflowers, tomatoes, and more. Zucchinis are doing particularly well this year. Grow an abundance of your favorites, then preserve the surplus for winter months.
As summer winds down, consider a fall planting of kale, collards, squashes, pumpkin, carrots and beets to round out your winter stock. And don't forget a few herbs like basil, fenugreek, and parsley to season your dishes. If you prefer, herbs can easily be grown in pots, as can tomatoes, strawberries and peppers, making them ideal for condo dwellers, senior, children and those with limited space. It's not too late. This is the perfet time to begin planning a fall garden.
This category wouldn't be complete without the addition of sprouts. Did you know that most Oregon markets no longer carry alfalfa sprouts due to possible contamination? It's true. The good news is that sprouts are so easy to grow right in your kitchen. Beans and seeds are excellent for sprouting. Common favorites include mung bean, lentil, and sunflower seeds. All that's needed are a sprouting jar, clean water, and a little patience. Sprouts make a wonderful vitamin-packed addition to salads, sandwiches, soups and stir-fry dishes.
There's nothing quite like the satisfaction of preparing and enjoying a dish from foods grown in your backyard and picked by hand only minutes before! If that weren't enough, growing, nurturing and harvesting our food connects us to the source and cycles of life, soothing stress and calming the spirit - important elements of mind/body/spirit (i.e., holistic) health.
More articles in the Eat better on a buget series (coming soon):
Shop for local foods in season
Buy frozen produce
Shop the bulk foods aisle
Choose nutrient-dense foods
Reduce, reuse, recycle
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