"How much do you spend on food?"

I was asked this two days ago. It was one of a list of questions which apparently "need" to be answered in respect to another issue facing three of the four siblings.

I had to think about that of course. I am careful of what I spend and I am grateful when a very kind friend occasionally gives me half a dozen eggs from the hens her family keeps. That can make a real difference to the weekly spend on food. Protein in any form tends to be expensive.

There are good reasons for me, like anyone else, to be careful of what I spend but there are also good reasons for me to make sure I eat "sensibly".  It is possible to do both things together.  I make sure I have some protein each day, some carbohydrate too. I like most vegetables and I tend to buy them in season so they are cheaper. I like fruit and do the same. 

"You could buy much cheaper bread," someone once told me. Perhaps but good wholemeal or whole grain bread is actually cheaper than the cheapest white sliced. It is cheaper because one slice is more satisfying than two of the white and the food value is much higher. The cheap white is loaded with sugar and preservatives and the bread I buy has a bare minimum of both. 

I thought of this and I thought of the food the Senior Cat was given in the nursing home where he ended his days. It was, as such places go, reasonably good food but he was used to meals cooked for two, not sixty-two. We took in the bread he liked a few slices at a time and the staff were kind enough to see he had that for breakfast toast instead of the tasteless white sliced. If I end up in one of those places there will be nobody to do that for me but I am thankful we could do it for him.

But what else did I buy? What was I eating? How much did it cost? I tried to work it out and came up with a figure I thought might be reasonable. I hoped it would not be considered "excessive" but it seems not. "Is that all?" I was asked, "Are you sure that's right?"

I thought again.Yes, it probably is about right. I tried to explain, "Last week the broccoli was on special so I bought extra and made more soup with that and a few other things. I made eight lots and I have had two. The other six are in the freezer. The week before that I made something else and there are three more meals in the freezer. It's cheaper that way even when I consider the cost of running the freezer."

The person I was talking to seemed confused. I tried to explain that feeding myself is not simply about the cost of the food. It is how I deal with the food I buy. Making multiple meals at a time and freezing them makes sense. That way I can save in more ways than one. It is actually very useful to be able to take a pack out of the freezer and heat it up when I need to do other things - or simply want to do something more interesting than washing saucepans.