Announcement - Open Signup for Nitty Gritty
I think it’s safe to say that every local food blog out there was created with the purpose of sharing the experience of eating local foods and hopefully convincing people to join in. We noticed a bit of a knowledge gap in that the costs of eating local foods was not often mentioned, which is why we started Nitty Gritty. We want to disspell the myth that eating local and/or organic food is too expensive.
One thing that I’m becoming more aware of because of this project is the limited variety of foods we eat. This is mostly my fault and not Joyce’s. I’m a very picky eater. I don’t like most cooked vegetables, for one thing. This makes the likelihood of a (insert your favorite cooked vegetable dish here) of showing up on Nitty Gritty pretty low. My concern is that my picky eating habits are ultimately going to limit the effectiveness of this project.
Joyce and I have decided to open Nitty Gritty up to anyone who’d like to contribute. If you’d like to share your favorite recipes and meal costs, feel free to sign up. Signup will remain open through the end of March. Everyone is welcome.
Anyone who signs up would be a Contributor. This means that your posts would be saved as a draft and would not appear immediately on the blog. Joyce and I will serve as Editors. Editing will be pretty darn minimal, and anything you contribute will show up under your own name, not ours. We’re doing it this way so we don’t get attacked by spam bots. The entire raison d’être for Nitty Gritty is to document time and money costs, so you’d have to include that information in your posts. That’s about the only specific requirement. Feel free to include a link back to your own blog, and even duplicate the post on your blog to serve your own readers. Anything you contribute here need not be exclusive to Nitty Gritty. Content on Nitty Gritty is covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license, which essentially states that anyone that uses your work must give you credit, no alterations to your work are permitted, and no commercial uses are allowed.
Ash said,
February 28, 2007 @ 3:03 am
I’d love to give this a go, but I’m not sure how relevant my input costs etc would be (being as I live in Europe). Maybe I’ll just play along on my blog :)
Moonwaves said,
February 28, 2007 @ 6:49 am
The mad spate of coincidences continues…I just finished posting on my blog about how (after a month or so of saying I was going to) that I was going to this month, start working on tracking the cost of things (and not just my spending) similar to the Nitty Gritty way. So, I’ll sign up as I’ll be doing these kinds of posts for my own blog anyway. Maybe one thing to specify for each new contributor is to use a format like the one you’ve been using with an added line to state where they are located. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the prices of things around the world vary. I’m pretty certain I could never eat as cheaply in Ireland as you two do across the pond.
Great idea!
Devon Girl said,
February 28, 2007 @ 8:46 am
Eating locally is not even more expensive. You will notice locally produced food is nearly always better quality as it’s produced on smaller scale. Our website includes a price comparison with Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and even with cheaper deliveries we’re cheaper on LIKE FOR LIKE quality products. We can’t compete on tinned tomatoes etc but buy fresh local ones and make your own and then freeze it when tomatoes are in season. Healthier and more rewarding. http://www.thelocalfoodcompany.co.uk
Devon Girl said,
February 28, 2007 @ 8:48 am
Sorry forgot an example price comparison link - ignore link above. http://www.thelocalfoodcompany.co.uk/info_news_detail.asp?NewsID=49
Liz said,
February 28, 2007 @ 9:52 am
Great idea, you two! I’ll mention it on my site. :)
Jeff said,
February 28, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
Ash - Judging by our traffic logs, we have a fair number of readers in Europe. Your input would be most welcome.
Moonwaves - Thanks for signing up! :)
Devon Girl - You’re right, it’s amazing how much better locally grown food can taste. We hope you’ll sign up.
Liz - Thanks! :)
Snowbug said,
February 28, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
I’m a neophyte ‘healthy eater’, so this will be a good test. I’ll probably lurk for a while til I’m sure I can figure out how to cost things out correctly.
Thanks for the invite. :)
Willa said,
February 28, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
I just spent the morning vacuum sealing lamb chops, roasts, ribs and ground and chopped lamb. We bought a lamb on the hoof from a local farmer for $4.00 a pound- the farmer slaughtered, skinned and dressed the lamb. The lamb dressed out to 38 pounds, the total was $150.00. (he gave us a $2 break) We took it to a local butcher who cut it for us for $10.00. What felt the most expensive from this whole deal were the vacuum bags- I bought a box of 22 bags from KMart for $9.99, and a roll of bag material to make larger bags for the bigger pieces of meat for another $9.99. But the good thing is that the bags can be washed in the dishwasher and reused. So let’s see- I got approximately 40 meals for $175.00 (Lamb, butchering, 1 box of 22 bags, 1/2 of the roll material), or $4.38 per meal. For 2 people. And these would be what I call “meat centered” meals, where the focus of the meal is the meat, as opposed to “meat flavored” meals- I could probably get 80-100 meals out of the lamb if we didn’t eat like Americans. I guess I could figure in the cost of gas to drive to the farm and back (5 miles), to the butcher and back (2 miles) and the cost of electricity to vacuum seal the bags and then to freeze and hold the meat, but I don’t think I will LOL!
One thing we have noticed- our grocery store offers discounts on food and gasoline based on the amount of money spent in the store. SInce we have been eating local, we don’t get the good discounts anymore, but our food bill is significantly lower.
Willa
Laurie said,
March 4, 2007 @ 2:06 pm
I started to leave a comment here last week, was interrupted by a “loud disagreement” (I was loudly disagreeing about being hounded off the computer) and I’m glad that my partial comment was not published as I stormed out of the room!
It was going to be - I’d say to add me, but I am terrible at math, so I doubt that I can do the kind of cost analysis you are looking for. However, I heartily support what you are doing and I think that it is vital that we show people that eating healthy and locally can be done without being independently wealthy.
There, I said it, finally.
Jeff said,
March 5, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
Snowbug - Thanks for signing up. :)
Willa - That’s exactly the kind of information we want to spread. We hope you’ll consider signing on.
Laurie - Anything we can do to help? We enjoy reading about your meals and we’d love to have you on board.