What did you eat this week

[Sameer]

Beans, Tomatoes, Chilies, Halal Chicken Loaf, Cheese, potatoes, beans and more beans!!!! Hahahaha!

 

[mockturtle]

Beans, Tomatoes, Chilies, Halal Chicken Loaf, Cheese, potatoes, beans and more beans!!!!   Hahahaha!

 I eat quite a lot of beans, too, Sameer.  Maybe we should open our own methane plant.

 

[NWShortyFord]

Sorry mockturtle, I did not mean to lump the insane/mentally ill in with the drug addicted/unsavory characters. They are not the same as theives and addicts and deserve the attention of organized society. Some of the most honest and wonderful people have been mentally ill, along with members of my own family. I spent two hours today speaking with a friend of mine that has been dealing with halucinations lately, it can be tough and more needs to be done. I just have to imagine Paul Allen doesn't want to shop with my buddy just to save some coin, you know. Maybe I didn't illustrate my point as well as I could have.

 

[Sameer]

We could make a fortune in methane! Some nights I feel sorry for my little dog, Mr. Pico....he sleeps underneath the covers! Hahaha!

 

[gypsychic]

@NWShortyFord:

I am so glad you posted your weekly food in real amounts, regardless of where you obtained it. It is much closer to the way I currently eat & would like to continue to eat in that it contained real food as opposed to highly processed food. My question to you is where do you keep it all? What size is your fridge or cooler? Do you have a freezer? If not, how do you deal with things like the 3# of frozen blueberries, which aren't fun after they have melted. You stated you turned down some items because you already had a store of them. About how much space do you devote to your food storage? Any pics? I'm really struggling with how much space to devote to what & food is pretty important to me, especially fresh food, but it takes up a lot more space than regularly shaped boxes of processed, dried food. Just wondering how someone who seems to eat like I'd like to is currently making it work.
Thanks & cheers!

 

[NWShortyFord]

Well I am gald you were interested gypsychic. I keep all of my meat in a styrofoam cooler I have had for almost 2 years now, it is the type that is smaller but thick and very efficient. They usually use them to send food through the mail, like steaks. I see them a lot on the free section of craigslist btw. I got mine from some people who had ordered streaks. I also, at least 6 months out of the year don't have to worry about much becasue it is pretty cool here(i.e. veggies, fruits, milk and eggs.) Thinkgs like milk, yogurt, sour cream , cheese and eggs don't spoil quite as fast as you would think. You beging to learn the turing point on things and it becomes second nature. In the summer, I have to use a larger cooler and hope I can afford ice for the veggies, usually no big deal. I always use the little cooler for meats. It looks like a two year old styrofoam cooler, but I figure even if I use it for years it will still be here for a million years or whatever so I like to reuse as many times as I can. DO NOT USE THIN STYROFOAM COOLERS FROM WALMART>>>NOT THE SAME THING!! Sorry for yelling but I mean it.

I have a fairly decent sized pantry about 2'x2'x4'. Also some shelves. I like to keep a solid store of food just in case. This includes things like canned goods, pasta, sauces, spices etc. The veggies and fruits I keep out most of the year like you would in a house, but in the summer you gotta eat quick.

You mentioned what a person would do with soemthign like 3 lbs of blueberries...well, I share with my wife of course, but also my firends if I can. ALSO, learn to preserve things like this, make jams, jellies, preserves to put on ice cream. Get creative. The best jam I ever had was some local plum cherry jam that someone I know made. Think about what our grandparents did, they made preserves, had iceboxes and used wood stoves for heat...living in a van isn't that different.

You also mentioned the shape of boxes, well say for your rice, quinoa, cereals, lentils and other dried goods you can use plastic containers, they sell them at a lot of bigger stores, where I am at Fred Meyer has tons of different shapes of boxes and bins. Not just tupperware style, but many are shaped like cereal boxes and have pour soouts, they work the best IMO.

 

[NWShortyFord]

Also, I wanted to mention, but I wasn't allowed to edit. I eat the more perishable foods first, leaving the more resiliant veggies for later. For example I will eat the bell peppers and mushroomos before the artichokes and carrots becasue they last a lot longer.

If things get a little older like limp carrots and celery, but are still edlible I make stock for soup...really nice in the winter.

 

[Matt71]

I'm not sure if every place does this, but the one time I ordered meat through the mail (a turducken) they sent it in one of those heavy duty styrofoam boxes, but they also put dry ice in there with the expectation that it would evaporate over the shipping time.

 

[NWShortyFord]

mmm turducken....I think some use dry ice, some don't either way the stuff they send in the mail is usually pretty burly. Always better than the ones you can buy in the store, unless someone out there knows better.

 

[gypsychic]

Matt-sorry to hijack your thread. I thought the info on space would be helpful to you as you plan your van for your year trip. The below comment probably won't benefit you since its about food storage while staying local, not on the road like you will be. I won't deviate any more.

NWShortyFord. Yes, I can and preserve and have a large chest freezer now for both my garden produce & upick. As I transition to full timing in a van I will need to change how I do things because I won't have access to a freezer or large storage space for can goods. I have a garden plot at a community garden & hope to keep most produce in the ground until I eat it. That will help with some storage issues while I stay local for the next year or 2. After that, maybe I'll have enough experience to make some decisions for when I hit the road.

I was actually going to suggest to you that you get a P patch plot(community garden plot name in Seattle) since you do stay local. Having a community garden plot has been the biggest help to my limited food budget. I couldn't afford all the organic produce I grow. Its relaxing as well. Plus I give some surplus back to the food bank so I feel like I'm helping them when they have helped me. Just an idea & FYI. There are organizations here that help out with seeds and starts. The great thing about CG plots is you share most tools & don't have to buy many. This makes growing food very budget friendly to start.

Thanks for info on your van allotment to food storage. You must have access to a freezer if you're making your own stock. That's more ambitious than I will get on a camp stove. More power to you for eating real food.

 

[gypsychic]

I see those stryo coolers on the free section of CL a lot. I'll try to snag one if you think they're that useful. Thanks for the tip!

 

[LucyImHome]

What I eat varies with my living situation and where I am. When I was living in my truck, I got a 5 day cooler and completely wrapped it in Reflectix. Frozen gallon jugs of water, 3-4 days in Palm Springs, summer.
I'm in a TT in a park now, with a full size rv fridge.
I'm vegan, which makes things much easier. No meat or dairy to deal with.
Breakfast.... half slice of bread with almond butter and carob chips. Orange juice. Or Grape nuts with soy or almond milk and frozen blueberries.
Lunch and dinner are interchangeable. Most of the time it's soups, stews, hearty salads, beans and rice. Beans and rice is a base that I add all manner of veggies to. Tofu gets added to a lot of things as well.
I also do some amazing smoothies with my Ninja! It's a great way to hide bigger servings of veggies than what you'd usually eat otherwise. That's 2-4 times a week.
I spend about $350 a month, for myself and my son. He's a big guy, I'm a thin woman. When it was just me, I spent about $80-120.
My weakness is chocolate. Good quality chocolate. It's an addiction. When my son was little, I hid in the bathroom once so I didn't have to share it with him! Did I feel guilty? Hell no! It's chocolate! Not gonna waste good chocolate on immature taste buds! lol

 

[Matt71]

We're still working out food storage, but Canned and dry goods we'll probably pick up once a month and perishables we'll pick up once a week and store in a cooler or frig.
The last few times we traveled we put our perishables in air tight plastic containers and then put those in the cooler. It ate up some extra room, but it kept our food from getting soggy as the ice melted while still keeping everything cold. Plus the water was still pretty dang cold for a while after it melted, so we were generally able to keep stuff in the cooler longer than normal. It's kind of similar to the frozen gallons of water idea, but it's kind of hard to freeze large quantities of water on the road. It's really easy to buy ice though.

I suspect we'll eat a lot of sandwiches and soups for our lunch, and cereal for breakfast (my wife anyway, I usually skip it). For dinner I want to try to establish as many recipes as I can that I can do in the RoadPro 12V oven. We also have a butane burner, but that requires dirtying a pan, so I'll probably save that for when I'm feeling ambitious and want to try to make multiple things at once..

 

[Wabbit]

Well gee kurbmaster, they are for people who need them...

I do not get food stamps, ebt, ssi or disability(I don't morally believe in it)...

The food bank is a great resource but trust me, you wouldn't want to go if you didn't have to. It takes hours, you have to sit with fellow van dwellers like myself which is nice, we have a good group here, but also all the insane, drug addicted and otherwise unsavory characters are there too...

Keep in mind a lot of this food would otherwise be in the dumpster....

Foodstamps and disability(not sure what the other ones are) are also for people who need them. Why don't you "morally" believe in people getting help in this way? Do you think there are people out there who don't "morally" believe in providing food banks for people who might need them?

Your comments on the "insane, drug addicted, and otherwise unsavory characters" make me feel pity for you. These are your fellow human beings and no child would "choose" one of these titles as what they wanted to be when they grew up.

As to whether or not the food would go to waste without you being involved, as you sure this isn't just rationalization/justification on your part? You shouldn't feel the need to be ashamed if you need help in life, and you should not want to shame others if they need help. You might want to examine your reasons for doing this. I know I am getting preachy here and I am far from perfect, but your comments smacked of this rationalized/justified superiority crap I hear all the time from people and hearing it here(this forum), upsets me more than usual.

I apologize for offending you if I have, and I want you to know that I am far from a "good" person. However, I am a better person than I used to be and I hope to be a better person tomorrow. I believe compassion, empathy, and understanding are very important for us as humans to practice. As you might be able to discern from just this posting, I need to work on these too.

As to what I ate...

Today I ordered Dominos pizza. The 3 toppings large for 7.99$ carry out. The thing that's good about this is they do not hardly charge you anything for adding "extra" cheese or extras on the toppings you do choose. I ordered 2 pizzas and mine had double cheese, extra sausage, and extra mushrooms with normal amount of pineapple and it was 8.74 instead of 7.99(.75 cents). For the amount of pizza you get, it seems cheaper than if it's store bought. I also order it online, this might be why they don't charge too much for extra stuff, might be different if you walk in and order.

 

[Matt71]

Hmm, do pizza places deliver to RV parks and campgrounds or are they generally too far out in the boonies?
I can just picture the delivery guy running an order out to the slabs. lol

 

[Wabbit]

This deal is for carry out only( the 7.99), but yeah on the delivery to campgrounds if they are close enough they will deliver.

 

[NWShortyFord]

Gypsychic, I actually share a p-patch with a friend, as for getting myself one, it is a long, long list here to get one within the bounds of where I live. I might mention that all of the extras go to the local food banks of which there are many. This makes for the BEST produce in town, I have received some amazing veggies from the local gardens. I gotta say I also love the summer when his/our p-patch is really rockin. Usually we do leeks, tomatoes, zuccini, carrots and green onions...always other stuff too, but those are the mainstays this year.

 

[gypsychic]

NwShortFord-Good to know you already know and participate. I co-manage a community garden here in Portland. I was lucky and was able to get a plot after only a year wait but many gardens have up to a 3 year wait list or more. A group is working on adding more to the city's already 50 community gardens but it's a long, slow, expensive process and not many funds available. That being said, I LOVE my garden and giving it up will be the hardest thing I give up to go on the road, eventually. Will be trying a different succession planting plan this year to make it more viable for keeping produce available when I need it and not have a feast or famine situation. I want to experiment with using the garden as my storage rather than a fridge this year. I also help garden the areas where all the produce goes to the local food banks. That is wonderful also. I just love to garden, vegetable and fruit gardening that is. If it's not edible or medicinal I don't much care about trying to grow it, but that's just me. I'm planting peas this week, along with spinach, lettuce, arugula, oriental greens, radishes. I have a few things to go in the cold frame and for starts as well. All experiments where the end result is mostly great tasting food, my favorite kind.

That being said, I don't eat much during the winter. Usually one meal a day in the afternoon with a morning fruit which is more of a snack. Today I had a banana in the early morning and then went out for lunch, which is a rare treat I allow myself once a month, and had eggs Florentine with spicy home fries. I ate half of it, gave the other half to my mother when I saw her later today.

I used to love to cook. After I got sick I find I can no longer make elaborate meals. I rarely cook anymore, preferring to eat more of a simple, semi- raw diet out of convenience and energy conservation more than anything. Gardening sounds like it would be more work than cooking, but in my raised bed and my gardening style it's somehow less taxing and less painful than standing in the kitchen and making a regular meal. Also, with my limited energy I'd prefer to spend my time outside with nature in my garden plot than inside cooking. So I eat simple foods but I enjoy them immensely. I would have to be literally starving before I would eat fast food. It doesn't do much to assuage my hunger and I always feel terrible afterward. Then thinking about all the chemical science that went into trying to make the food taste appetizing sort of turns my stomach so fast food is a no win solution for me.

I'll be experimenting with solutions for my own food requirements when I stop staying locally and explore more of the country. I have a feeling I'll be exploring areas based on how many farms and farmer's markets they have nearby over many other criteria. Maybe if my health improves even more I really look at WWOOFing as a viable option for me. Could be fun!

 

[cdiggy]

Just had a meal that was cubed pork loin with canned string beans and rice. Lid came off the dried red pepper which made it uneatable! I hate having to waste food so tomorrow I will cut it with cheese and make burritos. Hopefully it will be tolerable by then