Preserving raw foods, two ways to make living the lifestyle CHEAP!
If you’ve read my books, you know that I promote ways of making a whole-foods, high-raw, plant-based diet very affordable, especially the #1 and #2 highest-impact methods:
- Plant a garden and use everything in it (see Ch. 5 of 12 Steps to Whole Foods).
- Have a full-sized freezer in your garage and use it to stock greens from your garden, and fruits when they’re in season, against the winter.
Check out my garden, photo from yesterday–in this space, I have cucumber and squash plants in front, with kale and collards showing behind that.
In my freezer, the top shelf shows gallon bags of quinoa, brown rice, and cashew pieces. Behind that, I have walnuts, sesame seeds, and pumpkin seeds. Second shelf, lots of peaches that I’ve chopped in sandwich baggies for smoothies, greens, alfalfa/clover sprouting mix, almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and Costco mixed berries.
Third row down, lots of collards, chard, turnip and beet greens, amaranth, kale, and a little squash and strawberry leaves, plus edible greens I didn’t plant, like milkweed and morning glory. These are all frozen for wintertime green smoothies.
Fourth row, frozen strawberries for Hot Pink Smoothie and bread for kids’ lunches. In the door are jars of tomatoes–I don’t blanch them, just blend till chunky and freeze, for later use in soups and salsas. Digestive enzymes on the top row, which I keep in my purse for any time I eat a meal that isn’t 60-80% raw. Lots of baggies of peaches (chopped in eighths, anywhere I can find a nook or cranny). I will be packing greens into QUART size bags, now, and utilizing all the extra space. There’s still plenty of space in this freezer!
Someone left my freezer open a crack last weekend and lots of stuff defrosted. So I threw everything in boxes and took it all into the grocery store near my house in a grocery cart. Walked into their deep-freeze (which is utilized about 10%), unloaded my boxes, and went home to clean the freezer out after it defrosted. Dragged my date back there that night (it was Saturday!) to haul it all back out and take it home and load it back into the freezer. Just acted like I owned the place, past half a dozen employees, haha. (Don’t try this at home without asking permission! I asked the owner once several years ago if I could use the freezer now and then for a day, and have taken that liberty a few times since then, when I defrost my freezer.)
Posted in: 12 Steps To Whole Food, Green Smoothies
