Day 31 - The End of the First Month

We're one month into our little experiment, and so far we've learned

* Strangely, being allowed small bits of chocolate cake on a regular basis in no way makes up for the lack of Diet Pepsi

* No matter how much we both miss diet soda, we've each only had it as a "cheat" once. Our cheats are usually reserved for white chocolate martinis

* Many people are concerned about their health, but not generally concerned enough to change their diet.

* When planning for this year, we didn't think about dining at other people's houses. We're still debating whether to just assume these are a "cheat" or exempt them from our strange little experiment.

* Once you read the ingredients list on lowfat cottage cheese, you wouldn't want to eat it anyway

* We only get one body, and yet we really haven't paid very close attention to what we were putting into our bodies until now. Sure, I've always tried to eat "healthy," but never stopped to think about the nutritional value of food so altered from its natural state that it can be put into shelf-stable containers.

* Sometimes I read food labels in the stores out of sheer morbid curiosity. Like for Velveeta.

* Does it strike anyone else as a bit crazy that in the most powerful nation in the world, most of us couldn't actually feed ourselves for more than a couple months at most?

* Foods in their natural state are actually a lot cheaper, but things made from them aren't. The ice cream most likely to not contain chemicals or additives will be the most expensive.

* Haagen-Dazs makes a chocolate peanut butter ice cream with NO artificial or unidentifiable ingredients--bless them!

* People were probably a whole lot healthier before anyone found ways to produce cheap sugar.

* With all the problems with salmonella found in food coming from Mexico and the recent peanut problems here in the US, I feel a sense of relief that we have grown so much of our own food in the last year, and buy our food from companies with VERY strict quality standards, like Costco. Food choices shouldn't be about getting the most food for the least amount of money. They should be about health and safety.

* Having a small chest freezer in the garage has made this experiment MUCH easier, and was probably the best $200 I've ever spent

* If you don't open any of your canning efforts until January, it's hard to curb your enthusiasm for the upcoming garden. Sure, it's all been fabulous, but if we had tried some of the salsas in September I might still remember how much work 8 tomato plants were, and would not now be considering 10-12 of the things.

* Do not can pizza sauce in half-pint jars if your favorite part of the pizza is actually the sauce. Full pints would have been much better.

* If your friends find out you have jars and jars of blueberry-honey-nutmeg jam, you may find yourself receiving FAR more invitations to come over for brunch.

* All recipes started out as somebody's experiment, though few of theirs seem to be green.

* A few cooking magazines cater to budget-conscious cooking without hurting their image. The rest have to call it "Southern Style Cooking"

* We have some really strange eating habits in America. Th other day I was in line at the grocery store behind a woman buying all sorts of "diet" packaged food--slim fast shakes, weight watcher cookies and brownies, lean cuisine pizza--and not a single fruit or vegetable.

* They may look small, but sugar pumpkins produce an amazing amount of pumpkin puree. Be prepared for a week of pumpkin or to freeze some.

* Everyone is talking about the "healthcare" problem in America, but no one is talking about the "health" problem in America, even though 66% of Americans are overweight.

* Butternut squash doesn't last as long as pumpkin. I'm not sure how long they actually last in storage, but it's something shorter than 4 months

* I still have no idea what to do with the pumpkin pickles.

* Dinner guests don't actually need to be aware of our little experiment, though it's best to stick to actual recipes for guests. Green food is a tough sell.

* Starting the second month is much less frightening than starting the first month was