Last updated Monday March 25, 2018

Gardening - The delicious side of JohnSavesEnergy

What does gardening and food storage have to do with saving energy? 

Well, if you think about it, there really isn't much difference in powering your house and vehicles with solar energy and powering your body with food that was grown using solar energy. 

Whether you measure energy with kilo-watt-hours or calories, energy is energy. 

So why not grow your own food energy in your own backyard and use it to power your body? In this way you become even more self sufficient and energy independent. 

Being less wasteful with food will save you money and reduce the energy used to produce and transport food. Buying food ingredients in bulk reduces the amount of packaging for your food, which in turn reduces the amount of garbage and recycling waste. Homemade food is healthier and has less preservatives than store bought food. Your family may even get sick less when you make your own meals instead of buying who-knows-what at the store. 

Buying wheat, rice, oats, beans and sugar in bulk is not very expensive (compared to pre-made meals). All of them store well, especially the wheat and beans. 

Why is it every time you run to the store for milk or bread, you end up spending $100 on a bunch of other stuff that you didn't realize you needed? The less you go to the store, the less you will spend on un-budgeted food. 

I am all for having a year or two of food on hand for emergencies. But it seems like such a waste to never make use of it. 

Back in 2003, I was out of work and struggling financially. To save money, my wife and I started eating our emergency supply of food that we already had on hand. She began making home-made bread and making more home-cooked meals out of grains and beans. 

We also started using morning moo's powdered milk. It is unique from regular powered milk in that you don't wish for death after drinking it. It's very similar in taste to regular milk. It is always on hand and you never have to run to the store at 10 pm just to pick up more milk. When bought in bulk, it only costs $1.15 per gallon. 

Fast forward to today. Every week, we still make home-made bread, drink morning moos milk, (when we run out of regular milk), make our own granola cereal, yogurt and pancake/waffle mix. My wife (mainly) and I still make lunch and dinner meals from scratch, nearly every day. 

A king's servant was talking to his friend one day. He said, "If you just do whatever the king tells you to do, you would not have to eat lentils every day." His wise friend remarked, "If you just learn to eat lentils, you would not have to do whatever the king asks." 

Mastering how to make delicious meals from lowly bean and other food storage ingredients will bring you increased health, peace of mind, independence, self sufficiency as well as drive down the high cost of buying food. 

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