Sustainable Patriotism

I recently heard a story on NPR regarding the first televised presidential address, despite economic woes and post-war needs for revitilization President Truman's address was about food, well... more about eating.

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During his address he recommended (well...recommended like the guilt inducing recomendation of a stern grandmother) to the American people that they should adopt a few simple eating rules so that those in Europe (and America for that matter) would have enough to eat as nations rebuilt after the war.
The food rules he suggested were:

1- No meat on Tuesdays.
2. No poultry or eggs on Thursdays
3. Save a slice of bread every day.
4. Public eating places will serve bread and butter only on request.

I was intrigued by these rules as soon as I heard them. Partially because I already ascribe to a modified version of them (fasting on Fridays etc.) Also, having grown up in Colorado during a decade of drought I am familiar with a similar "by request" imposition at restaurants in an attempt to conserve water.

As a patriot (not a nationalist, mind you, a patriot) I am deeply interested in the notion of growing toward not self-sufficiency but community sufficiency. While doing some more research on President Truman's food rules I stumbled across an article which expanded on the fruits of reducing the national consumption of meat by means of reducing the household's consumption of meat.:

"If every family will reduce voluntarily its consumption of meat, whether it now has meat on the table three, four, five, or six days a week, the nation will achieve a maximum saving of meat and reduce the demand for grain to feed cattle and hogs. This will also produce a downward pressure on meat prices, and help curb living costs."

I know that the news is rife with the pros and cons of the dreaded "austerity measures" that certain countries (including our own) are seeking to adopt but frankly as the old cliche' goes "all politics is local". If every family utilized less resources and also shared the surplus resources with those in their community there would be ample food(/shelter/housing etc.) to go around, regardless of the unemployment rate, the threat of double dip recession or whatever politician jargon is currently a "threat to the nation's future."

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That being said, we have come up with our own, amended and expanded, food rules list so that we can reduce our own consumption and allow for less fortunate members of our community to have enough when we have more than enough. I'm not a big bumper sticker slogan guy but "live simply so that others may simply live" is just too poetically true to be ignored.

Anyway here they are, the Catholic, Patriotic, Sustainable Family Food Rules:
1- No meat on Fridays.
2- No poultry or eggs on Wednesday.
3- Use "cheap cuts" of meat for at least 1 meat meal each week.
4- Monday is soup/stew day.
5- Make only enough food to feed the family at each meal.
6- Treats only on feast days or important family holidays.

The break down of our motivation for these food rules is relatively simple.

First of all, we already ascribe to a meatless fast on Fridays as our form of Friday penance. While our diocese does not require meatless fasting it is a nice way to nod to tradition as well as share in sacrifices of our brethren around the world who are obliged to the meatless fast.

Fasting on Wednesday is also something traditionally Catholic in honor of St. Joseph. Rather than extending an additional meatless day outright Britt and I have been discussing options for other small sacrifices we can make. This one may actually be more difficult than the meatless Fridays because a substantial amount of our protein comes from chicken, turkey and eggs. With that in mind though, it should make the fast more efficacious both spiritually and secularly.

Rule 3's adoption on the other hand was strongly influenced by my (albeit brief) research into the Truman food rules. From the article I mentioned earlier: "...suggested also that housewives buy the cheaper cuts and grades of meat, rather than choice steaks and chops, to bring down prices and reduce waste...75 per cent of the cheaper meats were not being used on the average American dinner table. If the housewife will make greater use of the cheaper cuts we will have about 25 per cent more use of the entire animal. This will help feed starving Europe and cut our meat bills at home. All that is needed is for the housewife to learn how to cook the cheaper cuts. They are fully as nutritious as the choice cuts if properly prepared. Unskillful cooking will, of course, produce unpalatable dishes. It is time the American housewife learned how to cook the cheaper cuts." Beyond the sustainability and economy of using the whole animal, our self-education regarding Whole Food diets has shown that some of the "less desirable" cuts of meats are in fact more nutrient dense than others. Boneless, skinless chicken breast for example is actually pretty weak when it comes to chicken options. My housewife has already begun some of this by making wonderful, nutrient dense bone broths from our "left over" bones. I'm sure she is also eager to investigate other ways to incorporate "mystery meats" into our regular diet.

Which brings us to soup/stew Mondays. Part of the reason is that if we are making these splendid broths from bones, fat, celery trimmings, carrot tops etc. we might as well take advantage of them and get a fully gamut of meals out of our food (stay tuned for a future post about how to make an entire week's worth of dinners from one roast chicken!). The other thing is that soups and stews are notorious ways to make a little bit of food go a long way. If you start with a nutrient dense bone broth, you needn't add any meat, or if so, very little and the rest (beans, carrots, potatoes etc) end up acting as texture and filler more than needed mineral and nutrient contributors.

Rule 5 has a loose association with the Truman food rules in that rather than "saving a piece of bread" each day, we only make enough food to feed us each day, thereby saving bread (or meat or veggies or whatever) because its not even set on the table. This has an added benefit of healthful portion control and digestive health. We should eat until we are no longer hungry, NOT until we are full.

The final rule is probably the most sensible, but strangely the most difficult. Americans love treats, snacks, novelty foods, easy foods, appetizers etc. But frankly a lesson I know from our Catholic fasting practices is that feast days are always more delicious and celebratory when they are special...go figure. The interesting thing is that our Faith is all about feasting, in fact a big feast is one thing we're all looking forward to for eternity. So this rule boils down to no special treats (beer, ice cream, cake, going out to eat etc.) unless it is Sunday, a feast day or a very important family holiday. By abstaining from those special treats day to day we allow them to remain special when the time for celebration comes.

Finally, beyond consuming no more than our share of resources, saving money, reducing the strain on our farm/graze lands, there is a wonderful side effect that our family is looking forward to: aid in planning. Britt mentioned that she is undertaking the Plan-It-Don't-Panic meal planned challenge. How much easier is it to know that Friday will be meatless, Wednesday won't use eggs or chicken and that we're having soup on Monday? It just becomes a game of fill in the blank after that.

Linking up with GNOWFGLINS

Great Jello Jigglers! It's alive!

This is a video of the most recent batch of homemade chicken stock after it set up over night in the fridge.  As I was about to dip the measuring cup in to pour it into jars for freezing, I realized it wasn't going anywhere!  I was able to dig it out eventually-it was exactly the consistency of jello- but only after I took a fun video for you to watch!

Chicken stock is easy to make.  Simply save all the bones and bits from your leftover chicken dinner, and maybe some raw bits too (I had a few backbones in there from when I split a few whole chickens to grill and chicken necks).  If you have access, which I do not currently, add some chicken feet for added jello-ocity!  I keep all my bits, along with some onion skins, carrot peelings and celery hearts in a freezer bag in the freezer, and after the bag gets full, into the crock pot it goes!  Add water (pure if you can) just to cover the bones, and maybe a dash of salt, set it on high for a bit, then low over night and through the next day (making sure it never dries out) and there you go!

(you can add apple cider vinegar and let it sit for a few hours before starting the crock if you'd like, but I haven't found this to make much difference)

To "clarify" it I line a plastic colander with cheese cloth (actually, I use some old fashioned diapers, you know pre-prefolds, that I inherited from my mother's stash.  Works just as well) and place that over a large mixing bowl to catch the deliciousness.  Let everything drain through the cheese cloth, and then let the stock sit overnight if you'd like, or use it right then if you can't wait!

So now you have a delicious, and extremely nutritious addition to all your soups, to cook rice beans or other grains in, to saute veggies in- the possibilities are endless!  My husband raves that my stock is so good, you don't even notice if the soup doesn't have any meat in it!  In fact, in this recipe I only used maybe half a cup of chicken (even though I call for a cup, I just didn't have that much) but we couldn't tell the difference.

This is a great money saver- why buy canned stock at the store that doesn't have half the nutrients when you can make your own!  I want to step up to vegetable, fish and beef stock, but haven't gotten that far in my journey yet.  Maybe soon!  But for now, enjoy the jiggle.

If you have to pay, pay less.

Despite the recent upset to our plans to not spend money thanks to troubling brakes on our car the whole ordeal has become a triumph and a testament to the goal of our little experiment.

After some pulling to the left, some funny sounds and an initial estimate from a repair shop our family was looking at a bill upwards of $500 to keep our family car safe and sound.

We rely on working brakes to help promote a healthy nap routine.

I would love to say that this all has become an impetus for me to learn car maintenance and to become a journeyman mechanic overnight. Sadly this is not the case, in fact I still basically have no idea how to fix cars other than changing a tire and replacing a battery.

What I do know, from my past as a full-time researcher, is how to find information and compare facts. The first step was to check whether the parts prices were reasonable or not. On a very quick inspection of napa and autozone's websites I realized that no, in fact the parts prices which I was initially quoted were reasonably inflated. I'm not saying that it was a scam, but in the very least the rotors which I was told needed to be replaced were much fancier than I needed for tooling around the suburbs in our little family car.

Armed with this information I was prepared to confront the repair shop and point out that I wasn't entirely ignorant (at least not about parts prices if nothing else) and demand some reduction in the repair cost based on the significantly lower priced rotors I found.

Before I walked in to make these demands I also decided to check the labor costs which I was quoted. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in allowing businesses to charge whatever they please for their services, but I'm also a firm believer in not paying it unless I feel that it is justified.

The first other shop I called for a quote was a nice, small, local chain of maybe...3 shops. The guy who answered was very helpful and polite. However, the quote which I received was just a few dollars less than the chain repair shop which gave me the initial quote. The difference was that the parts prices were cheaper at the local chain while the labor costs were more. But Britt and I agreed that this is a case where I do feel it to be justified to pay more, in a small, local shop you tend to get better customer service and more reliable work (because their business relies heavily on customer referral). In the case of a large national chain, they work on volume first and foremost.

I then called another chain in town and asked for quote on the same work just to double check. This shop however quoted me nearly $150 LESS than the intial $500 Britt and I were expecting to have to shell out. But thats not all...

When we actually arrived at the shop and the mechanic looked our car over for 10 or 15 minutes he told me the typical "yea, you need new brakes, see here? this is worn, that is worn etc." but then he informed me that not only did he think I didn't need to replace my rotors, but they weren't even close to needing replaced. There was something about him needing 16,000...something to retool them and that mine had 50,000. Like I said, I don't know jack about cars, but I do know that 50 is way bigger than 16 and that was good enough for me.

All said and done (I just need to pick up our car in the morning) the cost for fixing our brakes on the car ended up being just over $225. Funny how not paying for the cost and labor to replace parts that don't need to be replaced can drop the price.

In retrospect I should have called the small local guys back with the new information and see what kind of deal they could have given me. But you have to forgive me for being a bit impetuous once I found out that I was saving $275.

All things considered, I don't feel too bad spending money today, since after all I saved more than I spent thanks to a few minutes of research and shopping around.

Farmer's Market Monday

Farmer's Markets are so pretty!

Mondays are Farmer's Market days for us.  Since we'd had my cousin and her family over for dinner Sunday night, we were completely out of vegetables.  And since one of our original rules allowed me to spend money on fresh veggies and the like to keep our family running on a healthy Real Food diet, away we went to visit with our favorite Farmer's family, mentioned here in Joey's post. Unfortunately, Darrell is still not doing so well, so please keep praying for him.  But Alice and Alicia were there and ready to enjoy a quick snuggle with Beatrice while Charlotte munched on a slice of their delicious Rocky Ford Watermelon.

Bea's got their attention!

Mrs. Alice and Beatrice get a good cuddle in

Charlotte enjoys her Rocky Ford Melon with Joey

Alicia's turn to cuddle while Mrs. Alice helps another customer

We got away with enough tomatoes (ours aren't turning red in the garden), red potatoes, yams, and an onion to last us the week for just $4.  I also bought a spaghetti squash and a bunch of dill for the dill pickles I needed to make at the stand a few down for $4 as well.  We love our Farmer's Market for sure!

The Makings of an Artist

We're having quite the busy week here on the LAC home front, so please forgive our brief absence.  My cousin moved into town with her 2 young girls close in age to ours and we've been enjoying the play dates and dinners and trying to help them get moved in as easily as possible. 

 St. Charles Boremeo by Gwyneth Holsten was commissioned by us for our daughter Charlotte

We also got to have dinner with our wonderful friend, Gwyneth, to talk about art and Christmas presents!  Gwyneth Holsten is probably the most talented person I know, and she's made art for both our family and our friend's for quite awhile. We're hoping to start a local artist's cooperative with both her and Mark Thomason, another family friend/artist, and maybe a few others.

St Joan- Painting on Canvas by Mark Thomason

But, just so you don't think we've abandoned ship....

We spent money.

Wait, what?  What did I just say?  We broke a rule!  Yep, we did.  Well, actually, we didn't exactly.  An unwritten rule that Joey and I agreed on at the beginning of the month was that if we found something that we've been looking for at an unbelievably low price, that it would be stupid and prideful to pass up that opportunity just for the sake of the "experiment".  Specifically, we've been looking for a new wheel for Joey's studio because his has been unbalanced since we bought it 2 years ago, and we don't have the equipment or the mechanical aptitude to fix it ourselves- which leaves us only the option to get it professionally centered, and we haven't found anybody in the area willing or able to do that for us without great effort or expense.  So we decided to look for a totally mechanical wheel (instead of the kick wheel that he currently has).  With a centered wheel, Joey should be able to throw several pieces a day, which should amount to money in our pockets by the end of the month if we plan things right. 

Apothecary Jars by Joey

But really, since it was a business expense, does that really count?  :)

So hopefully in the next few weeks, Joey's Etsy store will stop making that annoying cricket chirping sound and get filled with beautiful mugs and bowls and the like in order to help us on our journey towards true sustainability.

The Experiment

Welcome to our new blog!  We're a young family, with two beautiful daughters, and we're both educated-and unemployed.

We're Joey and Brittany, married in early 2009 while Joey was finishing his degree in ceramics and philosophy while Brittany was working as a non-profit social worker.  We've never expected to make a lot of money doing the things we love to do, and still don't.  But after we had our 1st daughter, Charlotte, in November of 2009, and we realized that it would cost us money for Brittany to continue working with daycare and travel costs, so we became a no-income family.  We were lucky enough to have the remainder of Joey's school and some of our basic living expenses paid and saved for, but we never expected to have to live on that for this long.

Joey graduated in December of 2010 with a BFA in Fine Arts  and a BA in Philosophy-aka "bartending".  In the first few months after school, we worked hard looking for a job for him, but realized quite quickly that this was not likely in this economy.  In the 8 months since graduating, he's had 2 interviews. 

But life is good!  We've grown as a family so much!  Brittany's learned how to cook everything from scratch, we've given up soda, and take out pizza, and lots of other "luxuries" that most people our age consider "essentials".  But in all this, we are still finding ourselves part of a very consumeristic society.  If there's something we need, we head to the store- the thrift store usually- or onto amazon.  We research and we fret over that last penny, but we still go over our budget.  We're just too comfortable with the availabilty of our credit card.

So we're starting a family experiment this month to kick start our new blog.  We're going to spend no money for the month of September!

The Rules
For one month, we will not buy things.  Paying our electric bill, obviously, does not qualify as buying a thing.  Going out to eat, on the other hand, does.

We will be paying our recurring monthly bills during this month, but we will be trying to keep them as low as possible.  Quick showers and no more AC and a few more rules should help.  We'll be comparing our water, electricity and phone bills at the end of the month to see how we did.

We will attempt to feed our family on no money, but will allow a small budget for fresh fruits and vegetables to keep our family healthy and strong.  We will not compromise our Real Food values in the interest of free food.

Our first resource for food will be what we already have in our house (and no we didn't stock up on anything, except butter which was on a great sale this week, beforehand).  We will eat from the back of our pantry and freezer and from what is left of our poor little garden before we buy anything.

Our second resource for food will be bartering.  We have a farmer's market near us on mondays and tuesdays with a farmer we've already established a bartering realationship with who will be a good go to for this.

It there's still something we need, we will purchase it at the lowest price possible.

We won't just "hold off" until October 1st and go on a spending frenzy.  We will genuinely attempt to source out those things that we would otherwise purchase in a free or nearly free manner.  For example,  Joey is currently looking for lumber to build raised beds for our gardens for next year, and Brittany is looking for things like a yogurt maker, and books.

Necessities don't count.  If we need to purchase medicine, we will do it.  If we have to go to the doctor, we will go.

In the end, the goal isn't to spend no money, but to not make purchases. 

The reason people buy things is because it's convienent.  The less convienent something becomes, the less expensive it becomes.  That's the society we belong to.  We don't want to do things, so we pay people to do the things we can do for ourselves.  But our goal isn't to remove ourselves from that society (go "off-grid") but to find our resources through the community we live in, in as low impact a way as possible.

Want to follow us on this journey and see just how good (or poorly) we do?  Jump on board and see Our Live Active Culture in action!