When it comes to personal actions you can take to live more healthfully and sustainably, your food choices have arguably the most impact. From a health perspective, it’s undeniable that your diet is important. And from a sustainability perspective, the kinds of foods we eat, where they were produced and how they were produced have huge environmental, economic and social impacts.
But, like a lot of the stuff I write about, food is complex. It’s much more than nutrition or environmental impacts. Our food choices are influenced by our culture, our environment, our emotions and our finances. While I’m a huge proponent of voting with your food dollars to support more healthy, sustainable choices. I’ve already written about how this is not always easy. However, an important thing to remember is that the power of our food choices is amplified by the fact that many of us make choices about what to eat at least three times day. That’s 1,095 chances a year to make a choice that aligns with your health and values. Even if you don’t eat “perfectly” all the time (which no one does), making an effort to eat better at least some of the time has a huge impact.
Even for someone like me who is hyper aware of the power of my food choices, it’s easy to let convenience and cravings take control and to fall into unthinking patterns of behavior. So I decided to take a closer look at my food buying habits, both as an exercise in personal examination and to provide an example of how an average person might approach trying to eat more healthfully and sustainably.
First, a little about my general food buying habits. Generally, my fiance and I make a larger shopping trip on Saturday or Sunday, and then a smaller mid-week trip to supplement with things we either forgot or ran out of. On average, we eat out once or twice a week, and we cook the majority of our meals from scratch rather than buying frozen or otherwise pre-made meals. This works for us because we both like to cook and we have the time to cook (and meal prep). Cooking rather than eating out also helps us save money and eat more healthfully.
I took a few pictures of what I bought on my larger weekend shopping trips throughout the month and kept receipts to keep track of how much I’m spending. Full disclosure: I have a part-time job at the grocery store where we do most of our shopping and get a 20% discount, so I’ve included total cost both with and without my discount.
February 25 (cost: ~$75, ~$60 with discount)
So I’ll admit this is a haul I’m particularly proud of. Things you might notice:
- Lots of veggies – Steve and I both make a conscious effort to eat a lot of veggies with every meal. We buy frozen where we can, but honestly the texture of fresh is better for a lot of veggies. But it also depends on how we’re going to use them. For instance the spinach we bought here was used for salads, but I also buy a lot of frozen spinach to go into cooked meals
- Both meat and faux-meat – I used to be a strict vegetarian, for both environmental and ethical reasons, but now I only eat vegetarian around 90% of the time. Steve eats more meat than I do, but he generally only eats it for one meal a day. So while Steve did get some chicken, he also eats the Quorn brand fake chicken.
- Not a lot of processed carbs – Steve and I have been trying to limit our consumption of starchy and processed carbs, both to maintain weight and to pack in more servings of veggies, so we’ll often sub cauliflower rice for regular rice or zoodles for noodles. But we don’t cut carbs out completely. We still eat pizza and bread and noodles, and baked goods just less often and smaller portions.
March 4 (cost: ~$110, ~$88 with discount)
Pretty similar to the last photo. A couple things worth noting
- Both organic and conventional – While organic is definitely the better choice from a sustainability perspective, my financial anxiety keeps me from buying everything organic, and from a health perspective conventional produce has the same nutrients as organic.
- Lots of food miles – Since it’s March and we live in Boston, we don’t have a lot of local produce available, so while I’m a little ashamed of how far some of that produce had to travel it’s really unavoidable. While I try to tell myself we try to eat seasonally (Cabbage! Asparagus! Broccoli!), honestly I’m still figuring out exactly what is seasonal for the Northeast, which has a much shorter growing season than where I’m from in North Carolina. And even though those mangoes might be in season, it doesn’t change the fact that they came from Mexico
March 17 (cost: ~$95, ~$76 with discount)
A few things worth noting:
- More processed, more expensive – While there is this idea that fresh produce is expensive, and yes is generally more expensive than frozen or canned, if you compare produce to processed foods, meat, or cheese it’s clear that produce is cheaper. Plus, processed foods have a higher environmental impact. This week I splurged on some gouda, and there’s some goat cheese hiding behind that garlic and Steve stocked up and bought more chicken than usual. Compare this to February 25, where we got way more food for less money because most of what we bought was fresh produce.
- Not a lot of sugar – One thing you might notice missing from these pictures is sweets. Steve and I also try to limit our processed sugar intake. So we might get a candy bar like the one pictured to be our dessert for a few days. We also might eat fruit for dessert, such as those pears (or the mangoes from the picture before). That being said, we also buy cake and cookies and other sweets, but we limit our portions. So we might get a 3-4in piece of cake and each eat half.
While these photos do provide some insights, they don’t give a perfect picture of our food buying. As I mentioned, we’ll usually make a mid-week trip which adds another $30-50 to our weekly grocery bill. Also, I noticed that alcohol is missing from all of these photos, which was not intentional. In general, we drink either water (both flat and sparkling), coffee or beer/wine.
I also want to note that these were pretty well-planned shopping trips, unlike the one I made yesterday in which I bought gummies, ice cream, onion rings and beer (among other more responsible choices). I mention this both for honesty sake, and to discuss the role our moods and mental states have on our choices. I know I bought all the junk yesterday because I’ve been particularly stressed out the past couple of weeks (which is also why I haven’t posted in a minute). I probably should have taken a picture of that shopping trip too, but again, too stressed to take the time to do it.
But, even though I know I bought a bunch of “junk” yesterday, I don’t feel guilty about my choices a) because I’m enjoying eating all of that stuff and b) I know that I have a good handle on eating healthy regularly, and I’m going to eat this stuff over the next week or two, so some extra candy or ice cream here or there isn’t going to send me over the rails.
Because flourishing is not about being perfect. It’s about making good choices regularly, but giving yourself a break if you need it. So while the choices we make about food have a huge impact on the health of our bodies and the planet, it’s ok if we don’t make the responsible choice 100% of the time.
Flourishing 