Thoughts on Our Journey Towards Food Sustainability

I love food!!!

As a child I created a restaurant menu to make and sell food to my siblings. In my early twenties I designed and opened three successful restaurants from scratch. I studied nutrition, completed a certified training course in nutrition, and was able to assist people in reversing disease through nutrition. I then developed a passion for homesteading preparations. Today, I spend around $75 a month on food, (for me and Dave). I don’t shop at grocery stores anymore. I spend a lot less time in the kitchen, and our health has improved. This bog outlines the key points in my journey. Each point could easily become its own blog, and most likely will!

Practice first!

It is estimated that half of the families who attempt homesteading, fail. I believe they fail because they did not spend enough time learning and practicing the different skills required to make it work before taking the leap into that lifestyle. Now that Dave and I really don’t need to purchase food anymore, I hear lots of comments from people that list all the reasons why they could never do that. But I see sustainability as a process (not a jump); many small steps that eventually, over time, lead up to being where we are today. No matter where someone lives, there is SOMETHING they can do right now. Rob Greenfield went an entire year without spending a penny on food, and no one could give him food. He had to grow, forage, or hunt everything he ate. And he didn’t even own land! Dave and I live in a mobile home and we rent our land. I am only allowed a small garden area. I continually try to hide food by growing edibles as landscaping, and I grow indoor sprouts and microgreens.

List your desired skills

I believe it is wise for everyone to work on building skills. We don’t know the future. We do know, however, that in the book of Revelation it does say there is a period of time coming where a person will not be able to buy or sell, for 42 months, unless they “take the mark”. Setting that aside, Dave is trying to retire. Inflation will continue to rise, but his social security checks will remain constant. Becoming primarily self-sufficient in the area of food means your grocery budget is inflation proof. Many people find the whole thing overwhelming and so they don’t start. It is far better to make a list of every skill you would like to have. Then pray over your list, and choose ONE item to start learning and practicing. Once you feel like it has become routine in your life, pull the list out again and pray over which item should be next! Your list could contain items like:  sprouting, growing microgreens indoors, fermenting veggies, milling and making homemade bread, gardening, composting, growing your own salads, grow your own herbs for seasoning meals, grow your own herbal tea, learn how to grow one calorie crop, canning, dehydrating, raising chickens or other animals, hunting and fishing, butchering, rendering fat, off-grid cooking, fire starting, camping skills, practicing a fasting regimen, etc. Remember, you are 42% more likely to reach your goals if you simply write down your goals!

How much food do we really need?

I have often pondered this question. I read historical accounts of people traveling with just some chia seeds in a pouch hanging from their belt, or parched grain, but when I pack for a 7-day camping trip (Sukkot) it takes me DAYS with many bins packed with food. When the pioneers headed West and spent MONTHS on their journeys, how could they have ever taken the quantity of food that I would pack based on my 7-day camping trips multiplied out to last for months? I then visited tribes in Africa and found them eating one meal a day. We think it is because they are poor, and no doubt they don’t have the funds to spend on food like we do, but many of these men are fit, muscular, and working physically way longer and harder than us Americans could. All of this hasn’t been adding up for me until…

Fasting routine

Dave discovered a YouTube channel with a doctor promoting regular fasting. We had already been fasting on Monday’s and Thursday’s, and sticking to a 6-hour feeding window. But this doctor was promoting only eating once a day, just like my African friends do! The doctor also had some interesting scientific explanations to back up what he was saying. We decided to try it. To our amazement, after only one month of once-a-day meals, Dave’s blood pressure is back to a normal range! We experienced numerous benefits by switching to only one meal a day. In addition, we decided to keep our full day fasts on Mondays and Thursdays. Which means, for homesteading purposes, we only have to provide 5 meals a week! That’s just 20 per month! To give you an idea of how easy it is to provide your own food this way, last week I canned two turkeys that Dave took this hunting season. I canned one turkey as wild rice vegetable soup, and the other turkey just in broth. All together we got 22 meals. So last week I was able to store up one month’s worth of food! (A salad and veggies can always be added from garden trimmings).

Food functions

When you plan your garden, or decide which wild edibles to learn, you want to keep in mind food functions. All food, when consumed, has a primary function to accomplish in our body. For example:

• Fruits – Cleanse

• Vegetables – Heal

• Proteins – Build

• Fats – Feed (especially the brain)

• Carbs (not refined) – Energize

• Medicinal plants – Protect

Your goal should be to figure out how to provide for yourself from EACH of these categories. Maybe start by securing one from each category. 

Being willing to cook what I can grow

One of the character lessons I had to conquer was the willingness to give up preparing the meals I have always loved, in order to prepare meals based on food ingredients I can grow. This was a process for me. I had to continually ask myself, “Are you willing to eat what you can grow?” To my surprise, eating food freshly harvested from the garden is way better than those meals I used to love to prepare! Once you find some foods that you can grow or wild harvest, the next helpful task to do is to research recipes or even purchase recipe books, for learning different ways to prepare and enjoy that food item. Cassava is so easy for me to grow. I didn’t grow up with this food, so I had to learn how to make meals with it. Now I will never give up my Cassava!

How would my life change if I didn’t have to buy food anymore?

This is a question that played in my head for several months, before I was ready to discuss with Dave about drastically eliminating our grocery spending. I proposed taking our budget down to $120 a month. To be honest, it was a huge leap at first! To my amazement, I am finding we don’t even need that much.  Currently $75 a month seems about right. I am still learning how to provide our fat and our sugar (for Kombucha) and Dave loves milk. This summer I am planting lots of seeds: sesame, chia, flax, and pumpkin. I have already learned how to use sesame seeds for making mayo, salad dressing, and a milk substitute. I hope to purchase an oil press soon to make Moringa Tree oil from the seeds of our Moringa trees. It is very nutritious!

How would YOUR life change if you didn’t have to purchase food anymore?

Eating in Season

The other day we talked and decided to stop purchasing fruit. It seems like there is always one fruit we are harvesting, or someone we know is harvesting and shares with us. We also discussed that we could fill in with our frozen and dried fruit. I struggled with the idea of not ALWAYS having oranges or grapefruit available in my fridge, but we proceeded with our plan. Then…wouldn’t you know it. Our neighbor came by and gave us a bag of grapefruit. She said she wouldn’t be able to eat it all in time. Then a friend asked me to come and look at her property to see if I had any gardening suggestions for her. She had two trees full of citrus! Then the phone rang and it was another neighbor wanting to know if she could trade me cabbage, pineapples, and oranges if Dave would catch her some fish! It’s as if God is saying, “See! Trust me!” It is possible for you to survive without the American way of taking your paycheck to Costcos!

A New Chapter!

Taking this leap into not purchasing food anymore, practicing fasting with eating only one meal a day, and harvesting food everyday has brought so many benefits. We are noticing nature so much more. Paying attention to birds’ songs, the butterflies that visit the garden, and turkeys that gobble from across the field. We are paying more attention to the cycles, rhythms, moon phases, etc, than we ever have before. Our hands dig in the soil daily. Life is more joyful. It is slower, and it is changing us. Even my time spent on menu planning. This used to be a challenging task! Now we just harvest what needs to be used up and eat. Done! One last advantage is when you practice fasting your senses become more alert. Things taste better. When you combine that with freshly harvested food, it means our meals are so incredibly delicious! I keep taking pictures of our meals 🙂

One of Dave’s favorite dishes is a free-growing weed we have: Lamb’s Quarter! He loves lamb’s quarter sauteed with butter, salt and pepper! It tastes awesome, is very nutritious, and it’s FREE!

Our desire

I pray you are inspired by our journey, to start creating your own list of skills to learn. I am willing to discuss coming to your community to teach a workshop. We have a dozen listed here, plus the 70 lessons from our curriculum. This journey is really a community journey. We need to continue promoting life in community and unity. We’re here. Drop us a note on how we can help! 

Join the movement where we are restoring mankind to the garden!