But, having said that, it’s nice that I’m cooking for myself – I’m a fairly good cook and I like what I make, and so does my husband!

1) I want to know what I am eating and what I am feeding my kids.
2) Buying staples in bulk is much less expensive than people think.
3) I like feeling capable.
4) I’m passing on skills that do not involve swiping my card at the checkout!

Health is a huge issue for me. I react violently to MSG and aspartame, and rBGH and wheat are now off the menu for me, too. Processed foods make me quite ill. I ate three Doritos last year (I was working 16+ hours a day and starving; a coworker offered it to me…) and within two hours had a raging migraine and swelled up all over.

Over the past decade, I’ve taken to reading every label and buying only organic foods, but over the past couple of years, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy “real food” at the store, at any cost, and I’ve reacted badly to several organics I had been happy with previously – only to find out that the brands had been bought out by frankenfoods corporations and the labeling was clearly a lie. So I’ve been slowly migrating to making my own and growing my own.

This week, I made my own yogurt and put up a batch of homemade strawberry jam (strawberries were on sale). Except for not knowing what treatment the strawberries may have had, I know exactly what went into those foods. And they’re better than storebought, and substantially cheaper. I already bake, make granola, and meat/veggie stocks from scratch. I’m working on reducing my reliance on anything in a can (unless I put it up myself in glass) and eliminating the purchase of anything that comes packaged in plastic.

My garden is growing well, the peppers and wax beans are already blooming. I’ll be canning, drying, and freezing like mad when the crops mature, with the goal of having a year’s worth of frequently used veggies that are not only completely organic, they’re also nonhybrid/non-GMO, and I will be saving seed for next year’s garden.

Something else I have done is to get rid of nonstick coatings, aluminum pots, and plastic food containers. I have a strong concern about what those things may be putting into the food. Everything is stored in glass, served on glass, and cooked in cast iron, stainless steel, glass, or ceramic. I also switched from aluminum foil to parchment paper for everything but occasional use on the grill.

As for food for the family, on busy nights we stick to grilled chicken and baked potatoes, and then other night we go all out and make a huge meal. Freezing stuff for the future is the BEST thing my mother has taught me, then all you have to do is thaw something and bake it! Oh, and there is nothing wrong with a frozen meal once in awhile. Just don’t get into the habit of it!

I don’t do as much cooking from scratch since I got pregnant. Morning sickness stopped me at first then the smell of raw meat made me sick…ugh. Now my husband and I have figured out that he can take one night a week and pre-cook all the raw meat for me and then I can make mostly homecooked dinners the rest of the week

Some things I have tried to do homemade, but it just did not work out. I have given up on homemade ice cream, because the cost of cream is just exorbitant, and good ice cream is loss-leadered fairly frequently at the grocery stores. I would love to do homemade bread, but finding a recipe that my children will eat that works at this altitude (7400 ft) has been difficult.

It’s funny that you cite that picture. I got an e-mail a few years back showing people in different countries, with how much they spend per week and what they eat. That picture was in it. There was also a family in Italy, with almost no processed food in front of them, feeding a larger family than mine for something like $150 a week. I can’t recall exact numbers, but it was much less than I was spending at the time. Something about that photo appealed to me, and I am continuing to strive to become that picture.

A friend introduced me to Good Eats a year ago, and since then I have attempted more than a few things I would never have tried before, including sausage, corned beef, homemade pasta, and baked beans. I have started making my own breakfast sandwiches (sausage, egg and cheese on biscuit) for my husband, to keep him from stopping at 7-11 in the morning. The King Arthur Flour Blog also has shown me a number of excellent recipes for baking from scratch, often with cost breakdowns of Buy vs. Bake. They got me making my own hamburger buns.

My daughter has been bringing home the Little House books from school, and many of those show how people back then were much more skilled at making things from scratch than today. Some part of me would like to be more like that. And while I doubt that society is going to collapse into another Great Depression any time soon, and I don’t worry about our nations food supply, still I think it would be good to have those skills just in case.

In retrospect, I have also done things because my mom did. My mother used to grow potatoes in the back yard, and one day one of the neighboring children asked us what they were. “Potatoes”, we said. He insisted that those could not be potatoes, potatoes only came in a BOX! It has been a family joke for years, and as a result, no one in my family would be caught dead making instant potatoes. Now I am contemplating my own backyard, wondering where there is a sunny enough spot to grow potatoes.

It is easier to stock ingredients that can be made into multiple options for meals than it is to store boxes of prepackaged mixes like hamburger helper, esp. in a small space.

It TASTES BETTER!

I can easily expand a meal to accommodate extra people – offering a seat at our table is important to me.

It is easier for many children to help cook when making things from scratch, and is a good skill for them to learn, too.

My son was able to get off of prescription medication for his neuro probs when I removed artificial colors, sweeteners, MSG, and lard substitutes from his diet. He is doing well in school now. I could not do this if I bought more convenience fooods.

It’s very often cheaper (I figured I save $9 a week when I bake our own bread).

It’s a useful skill. During Hurricane Ike – or any event when typical foods aren’t available- knowing how to make tasty food with basics on hand is a skill that cannot be overestimated. A bag of flour takes up as much room as Pour n Shake Bisquick- but the options are endless, it’s cheaper, and makes more pancakes!

Cooking from scratch has helped me develop instinctual cooking skills, also invaluable for “cooking on the fly”.

MSG is a trigger for me, as well. I like to know what I’m eating. I’m diabetic when pregnant and my blood sugars are better because I can avoid HFCS, white flour, etc. Try eating diabetic with convenience foods!

I firmly believe it is healthier. And cooking some things from scratch doesn’t take longer, either. I make stove top mac and cheese (well, I used dried pasta). It takes just as long for the noodles to boil as the blue boxed stuff; the sauce mixes up in the same amount of time. The difference? Lower fat, more calcium, and no Yellow #5.