Magical Eating » health http://magical-eating.com Sustaining ourselves, sustaining our communities Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:33:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 How to Cut Food Costs http://magical-eating.com/2009/03/11/84/ http://magical-eating.com/2009/03/11/84/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:33:42 +0000 greenjenbyers http://magical-eating.com/?p=84 Uncle Sam Says Garden

I was reading an article from Mother Earth News about cutting household food bills in half.   This may not be new information for you but I thought I would pass it along in case it helped with those magical, sustainable kitchens.
To read the article you can click on the linked text above.  I have pasted an excerpt below.

Blessings ~ Jen

Cut Your Food Bills in Half

By Barbara Pleasant

Everybody eats, and what you eat is getting more expensive all the time. By September 2008, food prices had risen 13 percent in just three years — to about $165 a week, or $8,580 a year on average for two-income families that include two to three people. Can you really cut that in half? You bet you can, and in the process you will also improve the overall quality and security of your food supply.

It should come as no surprise that cooking at home is a huge step in the right direction, and it may require less time than you think. Growing some of your own food is a big help, too, whether you are growing a garden or investing some volunteer time with a community garden, school garden or CSA (community-supported agriculture, a system where members receive produce directly from a farm). But first there is another matter to address, which most people find about as pleasurable as stepping on the scale. You must take an honest look at where your food dollars are going now…

]]> http://magical-eating.com/2009/03/11/84/feed/ 0 What’s in my orange juice? http://magical-eating.com/2009/02/27/whats-in-my-orange-juice/ http://magical-eating.com/2009/02/27/whats-in-my-orange-juice/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:26:02 +0000 elfin http://magical-eating.com/?p=34 The more I read about the everyday foods I find in the grocery store, the more I’m surprised. Boston.com interviews Alissa Hamilton, author of Squeezed, and it turns out even simple “not from concentrate” orange juice is anything but:

In the process of pasteurizing, juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn’t oxidize. Then it’s put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year. It gets stripped of flavor-providing chemicals, which are volatile. When it’s ready for packaging, companies such as Tropicana hire flavor companies such as Firmenich to engineer flavor packs to make it taste fresh. People think not-from-concentrate is a fresher product, but it also sits in storage for quite a long time.

]]> http://magical-eating.com/2009/02/27/whats-in-my-orange-juice/feed/ 0