bulk shopping question

[readyaimduck]

I cringe at the sight of the meat at Wal-Marts, too.

You should Wilma with all the chemicals (or at the possibility of sounding radical), 'other' stuff that they pump into the meats nowadys! 
Give me pure range beef any day....there definetly is a different, honest taste to it.

I am afraid this country is going to either:
1.  Kill us with the very foods we eat that are purchased in the stores;
2.  Charge us out the ying-yang for eating these deadly foods;.
3.  Which is another topic of Health Care - who you can see and not, depending on what you can afford;
4. Then pass a law to solve the cure, not the problem

If my thinking is not heat/beer/stress/or age related  ...no wonder so many people are trying to get back into 'home grown' practices that we all grew up with.

Don't even get me started on self indulged obesity!

[farmgal67357]

There are already groups of people, mostly in larger cities, who coop together and order their produce and other grocery items in that manner.  I looked into it at one point...It wouldn't take much to get a coop started.

Could we get together and ask the folks who own the grocery to be our co-op? If they already sell some things in bulk, maybe together we could get an even better price! Plus it's good to shop local, if you can. I know that sometimes high prices won't let ya do that.
Lisa

[srkruzich]

Shoot lisa, i can buy 50 pounds of flour for 10 bucks.  Just go to the coop and buy a bag of red hard winter wheat.  Grind it yourself.  1. Flour is useless if ground and prepackaged as its minerals and vitamins disappear after grinding and during the grinding process. they use moterized machinery to grind it and that heat generated destroys a lot of the vitamins and minerals in the wheat. 2. You get the bran in the wheat when you grind it yourself.  3. you get fresh flour every time. Just store your wheat in containers. I put in 2 liter bottles if i have them and use dry ice to preserve the wheat berreis. 4. if you like wheatberry bread all you do is crack a cup of berries which is as it sounds, just cracking the berry and mix into your dough.  5. You can take 2 cups of berries and boiling water and pour into a thermos and leave on counter overnight. Next morning you have a hot cereal to eat! 

You can also get Dent corn from the coop.  Thats what they use to make cornmeal for your corn bread.  Currently its about7 dollars a 50lb bag.  2. you can soak whole kernel dent corn in lye and make hominy.  You can take that hominey and grind it into a meal and have grits.

You can also get flax, barley, and a host of other grains dirt cheap.  I love taking milo and wheat, oats, barley ect.... 12 grains and make bread out of. 

THe cost, a hell of a lot cheaper than buying it in the stores.   Bread flour aka Red hard winter wheat, sells for almost 9 buck per 25 pounds.  1 50 lb bag of wheat berries sells for 11.00 i think.  So 5.50 for 25 pounds of flour that is actually good for you.

Coop you say?  Animal feed??  You would eat Animal feed???  Theres no difference between the coop wheat and the wheat you get in the stores except for they run air over the top to blow the chaff off.  Heck all i do is take a air hose and blow the chaff off or i'll just grind the chaff up into the bread. It won't hurt ya one bit! 

Lots of ways to save money.  Hand grinders you can get on ebay for less than 50 bucks.  They will last ya a lifetime!

[greatguns]

My homemade mincemeat still has meat in it.

[Diane Amberg]

As much as I like homemade and organic, I do have a life away from home too. Can't do it all. We grind our own coffee and I can and freeze like crazy, but I also like to sleep. I'm not into making hominy. But I can get fresh stone ground corn meal from the mill. I can get fresh ground flour from the mill in Flourtown PA. It's a bit of trek up there but we make a day of it and go Amish shopping while we're there. I'm getting ready to make a wheat berry/ blueberry salad tomorrow.

[srkruzich]

As much as I like homemade and organic, I do have a life away from home too. Can't do it all. We grind our own coffee and I can and freeze like crazy, but I also like to sleep. I'm not into making hominy. But I can get fresh stone ground corn meal from the mill. I can get fresh ground flour from the mill in Flourtown PA. It's a bit of trek up there but we make a day of it and go Amish shopping while we're there. I'm getting ready to make a wheat berry/ blueberry salad tomorrow.

You know it doesn't take long to grind 3 cups of flour for a recipe.  Maybe 2 or 3 min. 

[Diane Amberg]

Nah, it's the grain storage and the lugging and totin' not the grinding.

[readyaimduck]

I hear you Diane.   
You did bring up a good point:
I buy in bulk from the Mennonites in this area.  It's already packaged, home grown, natural, and I think that getting it from them just helps them and me - a win-win situation.
  I would love to go to a barter system (of which I do for things)....however, money does help to exchange goods for other goods that may not be bartered.
That's why I started this thread...I am tired of the middle man taking more than his share.

The more ideas to help us all help ourselves without dependency on the greedy others, would be grateful.
Unfortunately...we are getting older and not able to hoe that garden and till that soil. 
That's why I think Cattle bunk(without the bars) is a good 'garden' for a limited space.  No bending over and holes in the bottom for drainage with a catch tray for recycle.
ready

 

[srkruzich]

I hear you Diane.   
You did bring up a good point:
I buy in bulk from the Mennonites in this area.  It's already packaged, home grown, natural, and I think that getting it from them just helps them and me - a win-win situation.
  I would love to go to a barter system (of which I do for things)....however, money does help to exchange goods for other goods that may not be bartered.
That's why I started this thread...I am tired of the middle man taking more than his share.

The more ideas to help us all help ourselves without dependency on the greedy others, would be grateful.
Unfortunately...we are getting older and not able to hoe that garden and till that soil. 
That's why I think Cattle bunk(without the bars) is a good 'garden' for a limited space.  No bending over and holes in the bottom for drainage with a catch tray for recycle.
ready

 

Well i did the garden and the hoing and the work, and the heat just killed it.  Only have a few okra plants and 1 tomato plant if it ever starts putting on tomatos.  Oh and a few pepper plants. I have cucumber plant but i am afraid that this heat is going to make them so bitter i can't eat them

[readyaimduck]

True:  nature can be a killer/deterant, no matter how you nurture.
ready