The Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen.

Prior to starting our GAPS journey, the hubby and I were on a mission to clean up the diet with more organic foods, which have become the main-stay ever since. Going entirely, or in our case mostly (depending on the week), organic is not a cheap endeavor though (thank you government for the over-priced organic labeling....), and so being aware of the produce that has the least amount of contamination is important. To help us keep on the up and up with our shopping, I created these two posters illustrating the Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen (based on the Environmental Working Group list for 2013). I'm a big saver when it comes to my pennies, so I'm hoping that by having these posters prominently displayed in the kitchen will help us remember what to buy, whether we're at the grocery store or the local farmer's market.

Another aid in our quest for high-quality, fresh food has been the purchase of an additional freezer, which has been on the wish-list for far too long. Whether it's produce or meat, helping to squeak out some longevity from the food we eat is important. Hopefully, this will help us save some additional dollars down the road, along with me exercising some restraint when it comes to the grocery shopping in general....(I have a tendency to over buy and stock-pile food....).

Some of the other ways we've been saving lately, is buying seasonally. What a unique concept I know, but it really does make a difference with the grocery bill. With everything being so on-demand at the grocery stores, I never had much appreciation for the types of foods available during the different times of year. Shopping regularly at the farmer's market has definitely changed that for me, and has opened me up to so much more yummy food like rutabagas, which I have experimented with a bit and got some pretty awesome results. It really is worth the effort to get to the market if you can, especially if you can find a good organic vendor as we have in the JenEhr Family Farm.

Next on our to-do list is to purchase more bulk meat, like a half or whole cow. I'm so curious and excited to not only play with some more recipes for all the different parts, but also to see just how long that amount of meat would last us. We've been purchasing our meat from Ney's Big Sky, who generally attend most of the local farmer's markets throughout the summer, and have a delivery system for the off-season. Everything we've had from then has been pretty outstanding, so purchasing the meat in bulk is a no-brainer, just gotta suck it up and do it. The difficulty is that there is definitely a large upfront investment, but I'm hopeful that it will be well worth it! I mean, how could having even more delicious food not be worth that little extra effort?!