Why The Frugal Hostess Would Rather Eat Organic Than Buy Shoes

The main reason The Frugal Hostess decided to do the Eat on $30 Challenge was that she wanted to prove to the world you could eat organic on a budget.  Or, maybe, she wanted to prove it to herself.  This is a constant debate she has with The Frugal Husband: that organic food may be a little more expensive, but with the right amount of planning you can do it without a major change in your food budget.

Sample conversation:

TFHostess: Erg, I’m hungry, I want some wine, whine whine whine, when will this Eat on $30 crap be over?

TFHusband: I could do Eat on $30 and drink wine, because I am super awesome and would stop buying organic food.

TFHostess: Um, what’s the point of that?  You wanna die from cancer or have a son with a small penis* just to be able to afford some wine?  [Point.  Set.  Match.]

(*Just read that chemicals in our food can be blamed for smaller penis size.  That’s right, ladies; use that in your next organic argument with the Hubses.)

Also, The Frugal Hostess has noticed that FruHubs (ya like that?) has been sneaking a lot of conventional produce into the house, under the guise of it being local (i.e., grown in this state) and cheaper.  Now, local is good – it racks up fewer food miles, supports the local economy, and makes sense from a larger “what you’re supposed to eat” perspective.  But The Frugal Hostess can’t help but wonder if buying local produce sometimes lets us feel better about wimping out on putting our money where our mouths (and stomachs) are when it comes to doing right by the planet.  Put another way, what is better: local pesticide or non-local organic?  (And, duh, local and organic is obviously the answer, but that isn’t always as easy as it sounds.)

FruHo realizes this is a nice, comfortable, yuppie dilemma to be in, BTW.  But she’s in it, so might as well try to sort it out.

Reasons to Eat Organic, according to The Frugal Hostess’s cursory Google research

1.  Less pollution of the air, soil, and water.

2.  Like, a lot less.

3.  Better for farm workers to not have to ingest poison all day every day.

4.  Chemical pesticides have been implicated in diabetes, obesity, cancer, autism, Parkinson's disease, male sterility, genital deformities, female infertility, miscarriage, infant deformities, ADHD, hormonally caused gender confusion, asthma, allergies, accelerated aging, and smaller penises in boys, amphibians, and other wildlife. 

Think about that for a minute. 

Have you ever asked yourself why it seems like some of the things listed above are happening at staggeringly increased rates now compared to when you were little or Olden Times or whatever?

Something else The Frugal Hostess found:

”Don’t give up organic for local. Food that’s both local and organic is the gold standard. But while it’s true that food produced locally generally has a smaller carbon footprint than food transported across the country (or from another continent), the carbon emitted by transporting food is smaller than that released by growing it with chemical means. [emphasis by TFH] In fact, PepsiCo recently documented that, for its Tropicana orange juice, transporting the product accounted for only 22% of its carbon footprint.”

So, the conclusions drawn from TheFrugal Hostess’s extremely rigorous scientific research into this topic are:

1.  Local AND organic is best.

2.  If you have to choose one over the other, choose organic.

3.  There are ways to buy organic on a budget.

4.  But it takes A LOT of planning and organization.  Or organic-ization.  Ha.

More to come, lovies.

UPDATE: Duh, today is Blog Action Day on climate change, and TFH didn't even realize it.  How's that for serendipity?

photo by Rhett Maxwell

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Days 1&2

So, here's the thing.  Yesterday was kind of a cheater day to start Eat on $30, because The Frugal Husband came back from his Football Pilgrimage with a bunch of leftovers that his dad paid for.  Everything was free, except coffee ($1), apple ($.50), and bun ($.50).

Day 1 total: $2 

By the way, The Frugal Husband isn't playing.

Also yesterday, The Frugal Hostess did some prep work to get ready for the week on a budget.  While it would probably have made sense to take $30 to the grocery store and buy everything for the week, the CSA box had already been delivered before TFH knew she was going to participate. We all know how she feels about wasting organic produce - completely against the rules.  So, FruHo will be estimating the prices of some items based on Googling them.

This brings up an interesting point.  The Frugal Hostess has a house full of organic food and spices and staples like flour.  Her pantry is well-stocked, so she can use twelve cents worth of paprika in a dish, stay well within the Eat on $30 budget, and still get something pretty good.  Not so if you don't have the money to stock a pantry, like if you are on public assistance.  What if you had to buy the herbs to season your dish as you needed them, rather than having a storehouse of stuff?  You couldn't, of course, because you can't buy twelve cents worth of paprika, and a $21 (or $30) budget doesn't allow for the whole jar.  How do you build up a stock of the condiments and oils that let you eat good food pretty cheaply on a regular basis without some kind of start-up cash?

As she was saying, TFH did a good amount of prep work to get ready for the week.  She had read a recipe a few months back for miniature frittatas and, being a haphazard breakfast eater, decided having them pre-made would help her out.  Here's how she made them (which in no way resembles the original recipe, which is why there's no link; she would probably get sued for saying these are like the ones that inspired them):

Ingredients:
6 eggs ($3.50 per dozen organic, pasture-raised eggs, or $1.75 for this recipe)
Approx. 1 pound of potatoes ($.50, Googled)
Half an onion ($.32, Googled - Vidalias)
2-3 cloves of garlic (Organic, $.10, guessing)
Shredded cheese (maybe 4 ounces) (Organic, $4 block from Trader Joe's, $1 for this recipe)
Splash of milk or cream (Organic, $.30)
Couple pats of butter
Salt and pepper

Directions:
1.  Peel and cube the potatoes.  Like, small home-fry type cubes.  Steam them until soft.
2.  Finely dice the onion.  Saute in butter on low to medium heat until very soft.
3.  Grate the cheese.
4.  Mince the garlic and add to the onions at the very end; cook for a minute or so longer.
5.  Let all of the above ingredients cool down (do the steps below during the cooling-off period), then mix together in a bowl.  Add salt and pepper.
6.  Grease a 12-muffin tin.  Then, cut circles out of parchment paper and drop them in the holes.  (TFH realizes this sounds stupid but you have to do it or the frittatas won't come out.)  Another option is to take the mini-muffin papers, turn them inside-out, and use those.  You don't want the full-size muffin cups because they take up too much space, eliminate the crust, and are just generally a nuisance.  To recap, put something down there.  You know, in the hole.
7.  Fill each hole about two-thirds full of the potato mixture.
8.  In a measuring cup or bowl with a spout, beat the eggs with a splash of milk, salt, and pepper.  Fill the remaining space in each muffin cup with beaten egg.  You'll notice why the spout was suggested.
9.  Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

When they're done, you'll have 12 delicious little frittatas to eat for breakfast!  TFH made them Sunday and then microwaved them for 60 seconds before eating this morning.  You probably need to eat two.  Some variations that would be good: add bacon or ham; use sweet potatoes and leeks; try spinach and mushrooms.  So, with the recipe costing $4 for 12, these little guys are $.33 each, or $.67 for a serving of two.  And The Frugal Hostess's stomach is growling.  More on Day Two tomorrow....

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