We have set ourselves a target: in August this year we will aim to eat only food we have ground, picked wild or traded. We will attempt to avoid any food purchased from commercial outlets. There will be an issue about things we cannot produce ourselves such as wheat flour and tea so we are looking for a friendly shopkeeper who will be ready to trade these for eggs, jam, honey and other of our produce. Nevertheless, we will ration very closely these products.
We will be filming our activities and writing up a full record on this blog. Hopefully, once the monthn is up, we will be able to continue with what we started. We will need to do more research in advance and I suspect I will be going back to my wartime cookery books to look at alternatives to some of the things we have to buy. Potatoes can be used as a partial alternative to flour in some circumstances; honey will replace sugar; milk supplies will be dependent on our getting a goat (as will cheese and yoghurt).
So follow us to see how we get on. It should turn out to be quite an education for all of us.
4 comments:
jonathan.if you have apples you can use apple sauce as a substitute for both fat and sugar in baking. I am doing an experiment in living on wartime rations on my blog, so have had to look for a lot of alternatives
Eileen, thanks for this. We'll give it a go. We did 2 weeks on a wartime diet and rations in 2011. We learnt a great deal that can be used in our quest to be self-sufficient.
actually some of our eating habits need just to try different approahces. due to family member's gluten and lactose intolerance, today we are not eating any wheat (mostly grains at all, just in very rare cases some rice and rice flour), dairy (except butter) and almost not sugar (only for jams, but in those we have been reducing it also drastically). it's absloutely normal and good way of eating - mostly vegetables + meat, eggs, fat and some fish. some years ago i probably couldn't even imagine something like this, but todat it is absolutely good way of eating.
for example, my recent years favourite receipe for pancakes (quantities are approximate)
4-5 eggs, beaten
some water (beaten with eggs)
some pieces of steamed pumpkin/squash (we steam these and then freeze, easy to prepare meal later) - mashed with eggs
1 tblsp of rice flour
1 tblsp of potato starch
1 tblsp of coconut flour (not self-sufficient, i know) or almond flour
and that's it! just bake in fat or butter. i normally add some honey and some frozen strawberry raw "jam" without sugar.
can be also eaten with fried mince-onion mix.
i have realized that our eating habits are in some part "just in our heads" and after "re-shaping" it we can change the way we eat. maybe some of my thoughts help you to go more self-sufficient too.
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