eat only what you make from scratch

[lauradi7dw]

I've been wondering whether how well I'd do if I decide to try eating only what I could make from scratch. Breakfast would change, for one thing - I like oatmeal and grits and cream of wheat enough that I could have cooked cereal instead of box cereal, but it would be different. I'm trying to work out a week's worth of menus. I know how to make bread but I've never tried making tortillas. Despite living with people who did so a long time ago, I've never made fresh pasta (or had any interest in doing so). I had soba noodles for lunch, but I don't know how to make those either. I'll willing to stretch the requirements some - I buy fresh, handmade mozzarella cheese, and that's good enough. I'm not going to try to make it myself. I'm not going to make my own tofu, or press my own oil. I've made baked beans once, I think. A long time ago I made my own yogurt, but the storebought is better.
I heard Mim Nelson (author of the series of books with titles like Strong Women, Strong Bones) speak at a conference and one thing she said was "don't eat food that has ingredients." I think that's a silly way of putting it, but I know what she means. Advocating again for making from scratch.

Comments

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

The definition of "from scratch" seems somewhat arbitrary. Is bread you baked from flour you bought "from scratch"? Shouldn't you have to grind the grain into flour? How about planting and growing the grain?

Paying attention to what you eat and where it comes from makes sense. But I don't see anything wrong with specialization, and different people doing what they enjoy and are good at. If you prepare a meal that anyone other than just you consumes, aren't the rest of the people violating the "eat only what you make from scratch" rule?

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Our idea about specialization is that we haven't tried to learn how to make at home what restaurants are more suited for. Mostly that involves not buying lots of cuisine-specific ingredients that we'd only use occasionally and would spoil. For Chinese, Indian (various types), or Thai, we really only do a few very simplistic things at home and buy anything more elaborate when we eat out. (hardly ever *very* elaborate - our tastes are pretty simple, but I've never tried to make Chinese dumplings at home, for example).
I think I may go for the fewest processed items, as much fresh and local as possible being the best guidelines. Clearly other people are buying into the "don't eat ingredients" concept - this ad is for a packaged, processed food, but makes the point that there are choices:

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

Maybe "only eat what you or someone within eyeshot made from scratch"?

Someone needs to come up with a snappy way to say "stick to food that was grown and processed close to you and close to its condition at harvest, without incorporating stuff that makes it behave unnaturally or repels living things."

That said, we're getting into canning, which it could be argued violates the above. But it's interesting, it feels sort of pioneering and provident, and does support the local "foodshed" as the locavores like to say.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

And is definitely the kind of thing the stereotypical grandmother would have done.

[ichseke.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but my grandmother was a TERRIBLE cook.