#20- Be smarter about my food purchases

This is #20 of my 25 Before 25....turned 25 things I want to do whenever I want to do them ;)

Becoming smarter about my food purchases, among other things, has taken me a looooooong time to do. It's a slow process for me, which is mostly because I'm impatient and disorganized.

It means more to me than just choosing the right foods and farms that my foods come from. For me, it also meant planning my meals and lunches ahead of time so that I can spend less time wandering around various grocery stores (and I seriously do mean wandering...) and more time doing things I actually like to do.

I started out pretty good at planning dinners and making lists for grocery shopping. And then I would forget the list at home, try to remember what I need while going up and down every aisle putting random things in my cart, and/or calling Tommy every two seconds to ask him if things were on the list or if we had xy&z in the pantry. I have wasted so much of my short life in grocery stores. uhhh.

So then I started making the list on my iPhone because I take that everywhere with me! But I broke that "habit" real quick and started wandering again. I'm not a list person when it comes to grocery shopping. That's not my life regardless of how hard I try.

After many months of trying and failing at #20, I have finally started to figure out what this means to me exactly.

Here's what I have been able to figure out:

1. Meat Purchases. I actually do care about these. Am I 100% perfect about making sure the meat I buy is organic, hormone free, vegetarian fed, and free range? No. I still purchase products that have chicken or beef in them that is not all of the above, mainly because I do not know, nor do I have the time to figure out, how to make these products myself from scratch with meat that does meet my requirements (see what I did there? eh?) One day....maybe. If I am buying chicken or beef that is packaged, I do choose products that are labeled organic, hormone free, vegetarian fed, and free range. It seems weird, but free range is very important to me. Most people say, "Why? That's so hypocritical to want your food to be free range before you KILL it and EAT it"but that's the way I want the animals I consume to be treated, and this is my blog so deal with it!

2. Egg Purchases. You can also get eggs from farms with chickens that are vegetarian fed and free range. Makes me feel a bit better about eating their unborn babies. (Was that gross? I deleted and rewrote that sentence twice before I decided to leave it...) I especially like this carton I found at Jewel.
"Letting chickens be chickens"



3. Meal Planning.  Basically, I am not the best at this. I might never be the best at this, but I am trying my best! I like to shop on Sundays, and typically try to think ahead in the week on what I want to make for dinner. I try to cook at least three nights a week, and have been trying to also incorporate my crockpot into that once in a blue moon. After I think ahead of what I might want to make for dinner, I go and buy that stuff on Sunday for the week. I will also pick up some stuff that I might need for lunch packing. Then, when I get home, I organize the dinner stuff in the fridge so I remember what goes together. I also pack my lunches for the week and group those together by day so they are easy to put in my lunchbox the next day! This is something that has taken me a long time to figure out, and is definitely not second nature for me. You might think I'm silly because it's not a hard concept, but we all have our crosses to bear in life or whatever, right? Luckily mine seems to be meal planning.


So there you go. In 800 words or less: Being smarter about my food purchases. I still have a lot to learn....so if you have any advice, please share! I think my next step miiiiiight to make one of these for myself:

{Lovely}