Simplicity Challenge: Part I

My Aunt Susan has generously passed along to me two books about spirituality and simplicity. One is Not Buying It by Judith Levine and the other is Nothing Left Over by Toinette Lippe. Both started out strong and I found them inspiring. However, about one third of the way through I began to find the authors' self-congratulatory tones insufferable. Maybe it is a hazard of becoming simple. Please let me know if I start to become insufferable too.



Anyway, one thing that I would like to do in 2008 is focus on one area of simplicity each month. For January, we are working on focusing on being good stewards of the food we bring into the house. Not only are we trying to avoid dietary no-nos like high fructose corn syrup, prepackaged foods, and bleached flour goods but we are also working on actually using up the food that we buy.



Like most American families, we tend to waste a good deal of the food that comes into our home. Sometimes produce that looked so tempting in the grocery store spoils while neglected in the refrigerator. Other times, we just put too much on our plates at mealtimes. I'm also guilty of passing over leftovers in favor of a newly made dish.



When I think of the fact that much of the world struggles to get the nutritious food that we toss in the waste bin, I am quite frankly embarrassed. But I really want to use this as an exercise to develop more gratitude for the abundance we've been blessed with.



So this month the goals are simple:

• Make as much use of each food item as possible. This includes using vegetable trimmings to make vegetable stock or saving them for the compost pile. Cracker and bread crumbs come free at the bottom of the bag.
  


• Use up left overs. Lunches are a great way to use up left overs. So are soups. And casseroles.
  


• Start with small portions. While we aren't really trying to lose weight here, we do find that we don't always eat as much this way and we certainly scrape less off our plates into the garbage after a meal.

I'll post a report of how we did at the end of the month. Anyone want to join in?