Food Values

Our emergency food is the same as our day-to-day food, so it's helpful to know something about our overall food-related goals. Here are mine:

• I eat food that is healthy, local, and organic.
• I buy animal products from farms with humane practices.
• I spend as little money as I can without compromising these goals.
• I cultivate relationships with the people who grow my food.
• I grow, harvest, and process my own food.
• I don't waste food.

These goals are all interdependent -- for example, growing my own food saves money, and cultivating a relationship with the farmers allows me to determine whether the food is healthy and farm animals are well cared for. Organic food is healthier than conventional food, and storing food makes lower-cost bulk buying practical. And local food is more likely to still be available in the event of an emergency.

Greg's food values are similar to mine, but he differs in one significant way, which is that for some foods (staples in particular) he's willing to compromise quality to obtain a lower price. So although most of our food supply consists of my carefully selected local and organic foods, we also have a few conventional ultra-cheap bulk discount items.

I'd also like to mention two other, more general, goals that have an impact on how we manage food:

• I treat lifestyle change as an ongoing process, and make changes gradually over time.
• I allow myself an occasional splurge, and relax my standards when it's impractical to uphold them.

In other words, I try to cut myself enough slack to avoid getting hung....