“But what do YOU buy?’

A question I often hear. And a difficult one to answer! Like most people, I go through phases with what I feel like cooking and eating and that affects my shopping. While I eat strictly vegan, I am not as strict with local and organic, but I often will pay a little extra for these. I balance it by saving money by soaking and cooking my own beans and preparing as many foods as possible from scratch. I’m not as awesomely cheap at my good friend Steevo who survives as an elite road racer on mostly oats and peanut butter and makes his own bagels, but I am frugal. AND I eat great, healthy food. For the first time in my life I’m walking distance from a member-owned organic vegetarian co-op  and it’s expanding my usual food purchasing.  Here’s my recent score:

 

Now this is not all I eat, as it doesn’t include staples like peanut butter, rice, tortillas nor as many vegetables as I eat, but I wanted to share what $42 can get you at an organic co-op:

1.5 pounds garbanzo beans
1.5 pounds lentils
5.5 pounds bananas
2 pounds purple potatoes
0.75 pounds broccoli
0.2 pounds garlic
2 pounds tofu
1/2 gallon soymilk
5 pounds russet potatoes
2.5 pounds pink lady apples
1 pound zucchini
3 pounds canned tomatoes
8 ounces vegan ravioli (It was on sale!)

And fortunately over 25 pounds of food fits inside my messenger bag:

 

Combined with my staples, this is many days worth of food, without that much labor (the garbanzo beans are cooking while I write this- multitasking!). What does your shopping cart or messenger bag look like? And have you seen these articles from the past few days?

–Jonathan Safran Foer: environmentalists who eat meat have a blind-spot

–Cook County (Chicago) Health Department: become a vegetarian!

–FBI tracking videotapers as terrorists?

–Should you go vegan to get skinny? by Ginny Messina, RD, MPH

I’m also working on a post about New Year’s Resolutions, should be up before the end of the week. Oh yeah, happy new year!