Feeding your family

[Ceres]

I'm interested in how you all feed your families - any special diets or food needs in your family? Are you omnivore, vege, vegan, something else?
We're mostly vegetarian. GG and I occasionally eat seafood - about twice in the past year, although I am craving it so I will probably increase my intake. My DS is an extremely picky eater and won't eat fruit or vegetables in any recognisable form. Gully Jr might as well be a raw vegan as he's a total fruitbat. Obviously there are very few meals that we all enjoy and I usually end up providing a second option (unless we're having pizza, which is something we can all agree on!).
I am trying to move away from supermarket foods as much as possible. We have recently started buying milk and cream directly from a dairy. I make butter from the cream. We bought organic flour in bulk and I've been making our bread. Whatever vegies we can't grow are bought from a fruit n veg place near the dairy (not organic but seriously cheap and mostly local). We also do bulk purchases of dried fruits, nuts and legumes from a bulk warehouse. So supermarket shopping is pretty minimal these days - haven't yet found a good solution for toilet paper, pasta and pasta sauce or cheese. I do know how to make cheese but don't really have the time or space for it. We're planting lots of fruit trees so that hopefully in a few years from now we'll be able to feed ourselves from them.
Anyone else care to share?

[GreenGully]

And soon I'll be subscribing to Food Connect (which is where I work) so some more of our fruit and veges will be local. My own vege patch isn't particularly productive (as it is all in styrofoam boxes) but I get a lot from ceres, both in the food I bring home from her garden/chookens and because we spend so much time at her house and she feeds us.
I'm interested to read what other families do too.

[Janet]

I'm in a course with the CEO of Food Connect Sydney so it's interesting to me to hear people signing up around the country to them. I really like their philosophy!

We're in an organic co-op that nets us a massive box of f&v fortnightly. I still have onions and potatoes from last month going atm. :lol I can almost never finish it all without doing a cook up or two and farming out supplies to someone else! We have chickens but only one is old enough to lay atm and even that one egg a day makes a difference to our budget. And omg the flavour makes my life better. :lol We buy meat and fish from a few different places, I try to get to markets and buy organic, free-range meat when possible or at least organic in the local supermarket. Raw milk is fucking outrageously priced local to me when compared with how Ceres buys it at any rate. I have deep dairy envy. :lol We mostly make bread thanks to our bread machine and we buy organic butter that has horrendous carbon footprints but I can't give up the good taste. :oops I've tried ever other readily available organic butter and they were GROSS except for bloody Paris Creek which costs a bomb. :lol Sooo... I try to be organic, locavore, pescatarian but gawd that's fraught, and live with the everpresent reality of needing to eat meat and disliking the production a lot. Always the juggling with authentic life huh?

[Kris]

I hear you on the juggling. Coles is just down the road :oops so they get a lot of my family food business BUT we have a raw milk source, the local WAPF woman is giving me cheese/butter making lessons because I have apparently inspired her to homeschool :uhh; there is an Organic Growers' Market every Tuesday and a farmers' market (which has a load of not certified organic produce) each Saturday.

Things I also try to source locally are: tofu and tempeh and soap.

We are mostly vego - DH is omnivore but has had recurring bouts of gout this year so is far more vegetarian in his eating habits now, I have the occasional sea fish meal as I've had thyroid issues in the past. We try to write up a fortnightly menu plan before our big shop but also have some standbys.

DD1 loathes cereal, prefers toast and has gluten sensitivities; DS loathes zucchini; DD2 is of the faery folk so would exist quite happily on fresh milk, bread, butter and apples but will generally try anything going; DD3 is mostly boobed but is also experiencing the LMS method at the moment (Lazy Mother Solids).

I positively yearn for a bread maker. I want one more than I want wardrobes because I am so tired of gluten free "bread".

I have plans for our vegie patch but at the moment there is a solitary flowering basil plant and a bunch of cherry tomato bushes in amongst the thistles; there is also a hen pen but needs a lot of work and we just don't make the time to fix it up. I miss fresh eggs.

Thanks to some of the JBers I'm now consuming raw cacao, rapadura, maca and Australian grown Chia seeds. What completely frustrates me is that I can't find anywhere to buy sunflower and pepita seeds that are Australian grown :shock

[Ceres]

Luckily sunflower and pepita seeds are really easy to grow :) although you'd have to grow a shit-load to feed your family.
I threw a packet of flax seeds on the ground the other day and they're sprouting! How excitement.

[zenifa]

We've just signed up with Food Connect and get our first delivery this Weds, very excited!!
In the past we've had other similar type of produce delivery and gone to various markets, so will be nice to try them out, heard so many good recommendations!!
Sadly our own food production is pretty poor although we are working on it, slowly.
No special dietary needs nor requirements and **shock horror** we do eat some meat and fish in this house!!
We try to eat healthy, whole & raw foods as much as possible (& can afford) and not rely on processed pre-packaged foods and make as much from scratch as we can. We try to have raw or whole milk and we all eat oats for breakfast regularly with toast as the alternative (we are real creatures of habit and don't vary breakfast as much as others do).

Love the idea of growing and making more of our own food, just need to learn how, get organised and motivated to make it happen at this stage it hasn't gotten a lot beyond thought (& into action)/

[Himalia]

So are you growing flax seeds, to produce more flax seeds or compost Ceres?

After growing up a meat eater, I became vego 8 years ago however had periods of eating fish, so mostly pescatarian. I have just recently started to eat meat again. We generally do seafood twice a week, red meat twice a week, chicken once and vego twice. I still avoid a lot of the meat and make a vego alternative for myself. I write a meal plan on Mondays, order online on Tuesdays and derlivery is Wednesday. It is organic derlivery. I still get a few things (which I cant get online or are cheaper elsewhere) at coles/woolies/markets/wherever.

I have my own veggie patch which supplies my greens and herbs and lots of other things. I have chooks for eggs too. I make wholemeal and raisin bread by hand each week and bake cakes/cookies if we feel like them. I have started making my own yoghurt too.

While I think organic food is priced correctly, tastes better and is so much better for our health and environment. It can be hard to swallow when I want my mortgage payed off as quickly as possible. I write meal plans to help keep the cost down but most of the time I try not to look :)

[Ceres]

The flax was primarily as a green manure but I'm open to eating the seeds or feeding them to the chooks if it works out.

[Kris]

Chia seeds also grow VERY well in Australia and I'm really loving them. When we get our garden bed to perfection I want to put chia in as well as green leafies, salad greens, herbs and flowers.

[Beatrice]

I've gone through lots of different approaches to eating but these days I've arrived at somewhere pretty close to Michael Pollan's formulation: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Now that we're settled and I have the emotional energy and time to devote to eating congruently again, I'm trying to eat locally, and preferably direct from the grower via farmstands or markets. I will choose local over organic, altho the holy grail would be both. We're back to being mostly vegetarian again, altho this time it's more for budgetary reasons. But when we were out for lunch today, I chose the pot pie made from the ultra-local free-range organic beef. If we start eating meat again it'll be from that farmer. I don't eat chicken any more because I'm not happy with supporting industrial "free-range" producers, and I'm not very happy with having to buy eggs either but I can't find a local source. So yeah: not fully vegetarian, but meat is a very occasional treat. I still buy too much stuff in tins from the supermarket, but I'm working on making from scratch as much as I can. And focusing on eating locally and seasonally, altho sometimes I will be tempted to the Dark Side by bananas at $1.95/kg :lol

But then, it's all made easier by having kids who will happily down an artichoke heart and rocket pizza for lunch then fight over who gets to eat the cherry tomatoes and cabbage out of the F&V box on the way home.

[LouGrace]

We get a weekly delivery of organic fruit and veg on Wednesdays. As well as other staples like tinned toms, recycled toilet paper, crackers, eggs, raw milk etc. And we do a top-up shop at the local farmers markets most Saturdays where we get our organic beef/lamb and buy direct from the farmer whose farm is in the general vicinity of where I grew up which makes me smile. Visit to the fish markets most weekends too. (Yep, not vego around here!!). We occasionally go into a big supermarket for things like frozen peas but it would be less than once a month.

We make our own pasta several times a week from spelt flour, have had much less success with baking bread though. Today we made jam for the first time, it was great fun. Totally over cooked it and the stuff has set like toffee, can barely get a spoon into it! Oh well, practise makes perfect and it tastes delicious anyway. We grow a little in our very limited space - in pots on wheels so we can move them around the deck and follow the sun. Amazing what you can produce in 4 large pots - we've tried growing herbs, zucchini, cherry toms, strawberries, lettuce, beans...some more successful than others. The kids dig it - our 4 year old eats fresh mint by the handful and usually sneaks all the cherry toms before anyone else gets a chance. He goes outside at dinner time to pick parsley to add to his meal!

[shaestar]

I try to eat "old school" real food. Omnivore, real fats (butter, raw milk, coconut oil) fruit &veg in season and mostly local and as little packaged food as I can manage. I get a organic F&V delivery and get my raw milk from a local farm. Another local home ed family raise and slaughter their own lamb, beef and pork and we get a bit of meat from them. We try to avoid "white" anything like flour, sugar etc. I bake treats and sometimes make bread and pasta. I like a lot of the WAP stuff but wouldn't say I'm a devout follower-I don't ferment or soak nuts or anything.

But I also subscribe to the 90/10 rule. If 90% is good then I'm totally off the hook for the other 10%;)

[Sarasvati]

I'm an endangered species *sigh*. I'm a vego, have no desire to eat meat, even if it means I have to eat imported legumes and nuts. Just can't fathom eating animals ever again. I would if I had to, but right now I don't. My girls are mostly vego, though I'm fine with them having seafood and Kira is ok with eating fish too (she hates the thought of land meat too). Imogen will ask to try meat I'm sure.

We do dairy, organic cheese, butter and yoghurt, I've started occasionally using organic cream, and I'm hemming and hawing over organic cow's milk. I cut it out ages ago because I don't really like the idea of it and I don't think it's really necessary or that healthy, but it makes life easier.

We also use coconut oil for frying, try to eat as many wholefoods as possible but atm I'm having a bit of a "if it tastes good and isn't too crappy, why not?" so there's been a bit of bought ice-cream (organic and non), chocolate (fairtrade!) and stuff with sugar rather than rapadura or honey. I bake with the latter 2 though.

Oh and organic free-range eggs, usually bought unfortunately. And raw honey.

[mummy2boys]

I'm a lapsed vegetarian, now "mostly" vegetarian. I'm getting back into the habit of meal planning per fortnight. I usually plan 2 chicken dishes per fortnight and one red meat, a fish dish every couple of fortnights (too $$). I buy our fruit & veg at the markets because it's cheaper and we go through a lot of it. Not organic though. I'm a fussy eater, DP is oppositely fussy to me, L will eat nothing but apples and as of today spring rolls, and C will eat anything as long as it's someone else's. I try to get UHT milk from wherever it's on special, thinking about trying powdered milk to bring costs down but just don't know if I can bring myself to do that.

I ask for input when planning the fortnight's meals, if don't contribute then you get what you get and you eat it or you don't.

[Echo]

We're probably the most boring eaters here. :lol My husband likes his meat & 3 veg, which I'm fine with, but it gets old after a while. I'm more open to trying new things than he is which makes it seriously frustrating for me to keep things interesting for myself. If being breastfed means you have a wider palate, then nature really screwed up with us (I wasn't, he was for a short time). C goes through phases of eating some things but not others, then he'll go off the ones he liked and pick totally different ones! At the moment he's big on blueberries, strawberries, and mandarins. He fights me for the chicken skin now too! :lol

I'm still in the experimenting stage of my veggie gardening, finding out what works for our soil, our tastebuds, etc. so now & then we eat something out of that. I'm also planting fruit trees so in a couple years we'll have that as well. And there's a half-built chicken house next to my driveway that I really need to get finished before it starts to get really wet!

I have my favourite local butcher & greengrocer. The butcher uses local (or at least Australian) meat and a lot of the fruit & veg is local as well. Still have to buy some things from Coles/Woolies/Foodland. Sometimes I'll get organic fruit & veg delivered when I remember but the rest of the time I go out to shop.

We're actually lapsed low carbers. I did Atkins for about 6 months 6 years ago and felt GREAT. I actually lost my sweet tooth eating that way. :shock We keep trying to go back but the shop across the road makes that very difficult.

[bella]

It's interesting to think back to all the different ways of eating we've tried - vegetarian, vegan, lots of raw, cheap, organic, local...

Right now half of us eat vego except for fish once a month or so. Half of us eat organic beef once a week or fortnight if we have it - it's very local. A couple of times a year all of us eat our own roosters, though a couple of us just taste the meal. The fish is local and wild-caught. We have eaten fish from our own creek once and it was apparently nice. Heath (6) caught it.

Our fresh food comes from the garden, the local markets (once a month), LETS members' gardens, roadside stalls, and an organic co-op (yummy, but food miles). We tend to just eat what we can get - try to have a balance of fruit and veg, different colours, etc, but focusing more on what is in season and affordable than having bananas in the fruit bowl all the time, for example.

Our grocery items come from an organic supplier every couple of months, or the local independent supermarket when I'm in town. We very, very rarely go to Woolies, which is the largest supermarket anywhere near me (35 mins away).

We make or grow our own - stock paste, fresh and dried herbs, some spices, nut butters, jams, honey, milk, yoghurt, some cheeses, some cream/butter, some bread, pasta sauces, soups, some pasta, some fruit, some vegies, some dried fruit, muesli mixes, baked goods, etc.

Right now we have in the kitchen - homegrown milk, yoghurt from that milk, macadamias, lemons, passionfruit, bananas, guavas, honey, eggs, pumpkin, choko, sweet potato, aerial potato, cherry tomatoes, a few leafy greens (more stir fry than salad), pigeon pea (for dahl), ginger, capsicum. There's herbs in the garden too, and a few other things like celery and leeks. It's pretty sparse as the weather's been shocking, but it's better than spending so much time and money at the supermarket! ;)

We have 100s of (mostly young) fruit trees, about 40 macadamia nut trees, 1 cow (+ babies - 2 dairy, 1 beef), 3 vegie gardens and bush foods. We also have our own water supply. I wish we were eating more from the gardens, and hope the rain stops long enough soon for the seedlings to choose to emerge!

We also have a lot of perennial foods I don't bother with much, but I should...

The kids will eat almost anything, but have their preferences of course. I menu plan and we normally eat each week - a curry, mexican, a stir-fry, pasta, veg/salad, egg dish etc - I try for variety. :)

[gypsyoak]

ceres, can I request the name of your dairy?

We love food here, love cooking and are trying to become self sufficient. We are on our way to only consuming meat we have raised ourselves, or know exactly who has raised it and how. We have a heifer who is a short way off being ready to mate and we are trying to plant one food crop/plant a week at least. I buy food from local growers (so food shopping generally takes a few hours) and I really only buy dairy, sponges and dog food from foodland. We make cheese, bread, wine, jams etc. We are no where near self sufficient yet - but we will be. So, I guess we eat everything that is local and in season....

[Ceres]

Sure, I'll PM you the details.