If you had predicted to me a few years ago that I would go from enthusiastic Lufavore to resigned Maxivore, I would have giggled. Impossible ! Food is the last place I would skimp on price, freshness and quality. You can’t get any uglier and more North American in terms of field/plate disconnection than these morgues on sad boulevards. Nothing seems to grow there in nature or even in these dusty soils doped with steroids.
In these warehouses where very dead vegetables land, anemic zombies push a garish yellow cart in search of a thrill, “the” balance. Proof that we too can twist the system without having collected money in tax havens and without any leftovers for our RRSPs at the end of the month.
I know, it’s in my head. We are all dead in February, except for a few homemade alfalfa fans. For others, the important thing is the price per 100 grams, the treasure hunt. The giant sale product has become my friend and I avoid the Atwater market to go to Aubut, restaurant and family caliber. Result ? I have a kilo of Barry’s Cocoa ($20.99) to snort in five years. I will end up becoming push small sachets, reseller of brown powder, the crack of pastry chefs (DM please).
Moreover, I read that 60% of our grocery basket is now made up of discounted products: Quebecers are the champions of the flyer. If you go grocery shopping without your glasses, you are living in denial or are addicted to positive psychology. I pity you.
My kitchen management course at ITHQ and catering experience will have left their mark: I know how to manage a fridge, leftovers, specials, even garden surpluses. I have always kept a little OCD in reserve in this department, a little obsessed with waste.
A vegetarian for 13 years, I know the power of legumes and flatulence; I live on humus and homemade green juice. I cook for four and freeze – my grandmother stored it outside in this country which is not a country… nor winter -, I provide my B with little mom’s dishes: lentil stew with chipotle sausages (vegan ), “my grandmother’s” spag sauce with soy proteins, baba ganoush and sumac pita chips, raw cookie dough (with cocoa!), etc.
Home economics for dummies
My friends who are the most informed when it comes to family economics are, unsurprisingly, single mothers of a sports teenager or organic market gardeners, gourmets, good cooks, vegetarians, subscribers to circulars, to Bulk Barn (bulk sales), to “100 grams” (an app that offers all the specials from five different brands, 100grammes.ca/retro2023), to @miss.econome (a Maxivore which uses “unbeatable”, the Maxi brand ensuring to compete with the discounts of its competitors), to “Welcome to the cheaps” (a FB group which talks among other things about grocery store and gives stuff worthy of the last world war). Some have read Do more with less by Vicky Payeur, a useful book to learn how to save money on everything, including food.
By getting into the habit of emptying your fridge and delaying shopping for two days, you could finance a family vacation!
For my part, I have become faithful as a match “Ethical non-monogamous” Tinder: Tau (organic fruits and vegetables on sale), Adonis (three cans of chickpeas for $5 this week), not to mention Aubut and Maxi. Tau is the zen lover on Sunday, Adonis, the gym rat on Friday, Aubut, the good father with his brioche on Saturday, Maxi, Martin Matte…
I also switched to intermittent fasting for several years. It seems that we eat too much, doctors no longer dare to say it: 38% overweight and 25% obesity in Quebec among those aged 30 and over. I save a third of groceries with one less meal. I am about to make vegetable stock with my compost.
I’m not surprised to learn in the essay The protein revolution from food distribution and policy professor Sylvain Charlebois that, by next year, more than 16 million Canadians will stop buying meat (or eat less of it), especially among young people. It was partly for my B and for the planet that I became vegetarian when he was seven. The impacts on his virility – a major concern for some – seem negligible, according to the latest rumors.
Next anti-waste step
The Dechetarians (miscellaneous dumpster) and other gleaners have good nights ahead of them: 58% of the food produced in Canada is wasted, reported Estelle Richard in To put an end to food waste in 2021. Consumers are responsible for 47% of this waste, according to a cited study from 2014.
Dishes made at home seem very dull compared to those offered by our favorite chefs. The latter, despite their best intentions, help to keep consumers away from their stoves by making cooking something exceptional, because in doing so, they convey high expectations.
Analysis of the reasons put forward by the author: the loss of the transmission of knowledge, individualism (communal meals are losing momentum), incompatible schedules, Uber delivery, disembodied products which are therefore easy to throw away, the lack of skills and imagination in the face of what we already have at home, the ignorance of the work behind each food, the intimidating models of perfection carried by foodism and media-driven chefs.
Leisure time devoted to screens is no longer used to prepare preserves and make jams or bread. TV should be interested in this essential aspect of processing and conservation rather than broadcasting yet another chef’s show which presents recipes with no link to the season or local purchasing.
Even compost has become a way to relieve guilt. Each Quebec household throws away between $1000 and $1700 per year of food.
And this, in a context where water tables are falling all over the world and where climate change will increase the price of food. The surprise will be brutal for those who are still doing their novena and their amen at Milano.
And the effects are already being felt in the streets. At the door of the Maxi d’Hochelag where I took my B to buy groceries last week, a man was begging.
After listening to his pain, we gave him money and big hugs. Hugs are (still) free and are not perishable.