2012 – Wiping the slate clean and starting over

Starting a new year is the equivalent of being handed a clean sheet of drawing paper and a box of brand new crayons. It’s a fresh, new, blank slate with endless possibilities. While I’m not a fanatic when it comes to new years resolutions, I like to set some goals for myself at the beginning of every year. I’m going to try something different this year. I’m going to set a monthly calendar reminder with my goals listed so they don’t filed in the intergalactic bit bucket of my brain, never to be seen or heard from again. What are your food goals for 2012?

My top food related goals for 2012 are:

1. Reduce the amount of processed foods in our diet. Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food pretty much scared the bejesus out of me when it comes to highly processed foods. I’ve been trying to slowly eliminate some of the processed staples from our diet but we have a long way to go.

2. Cook/make more things from scratch. Removing the processed foods means cooking more from scratch. The challenge is to balance scratch cooking with our busy lives.

3. Make better choices about the quality of the food we purchase. We’ve made the conscious choice to add more locally produced (preferably organic) foods to our diet this year. My goal is to eat better without blowing our budget.

4. Start “putting up” what’s in season. Last fall I took a great class on canning and preserving but unfortunately the growing season here was almost over. This year I want to start stashing some fruits and veggies while they’re at the peak of their flavor.

5. Meal plan consistently. I think I’ve mentioned before that meal planning is my nemesis – partly because I’m a procrastinator and partly because I have a short attention span. This year, I’m going work out a system that fits the way I do things so we aren’t eating cereal for dinner because I didn’t plan dinner.