It isn't so easy to do these things. First off, you have to know how to cook. We can't make food as good as our chef son can in a fine dining restaurant, but we can prepare food of higher quality than that of most restaurants, even on our hotplate. This takes some skill, but skill we think worth developing. Second, the food we eat can be expensive. We keep costs low by eating less. We both stopped drinking and this also cut expenses (and helped me lose weight too. I have nothing against alcohol, but I like good beer and wine and these cost money. But I do love champagne and I may take up drinking again). We look for sales and save coupons. Even Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joes have sales. At a Safeway in Arlington, VA we snagged 37 coupon books to use for organic dairy products at any grocery store. Almost all regular grocery stores have organic products, and they have sales too. Ethnic food stores are often good places to shop for decent food at low prices. Snack foods like cookies and crackers sold at such stores often don't have the bad ingredients such products have in chain groceries. Fresh fruits and vegetables are often available too. In Taos, NM we got avocadoes for ten cents apiece at an ethnic market. We buy day-old bakery items when we can. Farmers' markets are often good places to shop and have lots of free samples too. So far the best markets we have seen are in Union Square in Manhattan and in downtown Portland Oregon.
It would be nice if we subsidized small oganic operations the way we do large corn farmers and did a lot of other things to produce healthier and less environmentally damaging food. And really campaigned to get people more aware of what they eat and how much. And campaigned too so people exercised a lot more than they do. Too many of our countrymen are much too overweight and out of shape. Of course lots of other changes need to made in our society. I don't think people eat 1,000 calorie hamburgers just because they are available and relatively cheap.
Karen and I have agreed that we would have found it very difficult to have afforded to feed our six-person family on the food we eat now (Our four kids are all adults). But all the more reason to struggle for the social changes needed to allow everyone to do so.
Michael Yates