You ever wonder just what you are eating? No I'm not talking about what you cooked for dinner. I mean what's in the products you buy to cook for dinner. It seems to me there should be a "daily recalled food report" on the news sort of like they give the daily stock market report. Why? Because I've notice so many food recalls lately. Is it just me or do the recalls seem to be on foods we use most as frugal foods? Peanut butter, cookie mixes, tomatoes, lettuce, ground beef, chicken.... etc. Why is that?

Ever since the 1950s we've been told that convenience foods are the way to go. Don't bother buying a chunk of cheese and grating it yourself.... the manufacturer can do that for you. At a price of course. Don't bother growing and picking your own tomatoes to make your own diced tomatoes.... the manufacturer will do that for you. At a price of course. Don't bother checking to see if the manufacturers are giving you safe, sanitary, healthy foods.... they will give you a recall report when people start dieing.

There are different degrees of living frugally. It might be as simple as switching from using paper towels to cloth towels; or, going even further by making your own cloth towels. The more you "do it yourself" the more frugal you become. Going green and living frugal are similar but different and at the same time they both save you money. Going green is about saving the environment while living frugal is about spending less of your hard earned money.

A person living in an inner city apartment has fewer options than a person living on a large lot in the suburbs. A person in the suburbs has fewer options than a person living on a farm in the country. Obviously the person living in an inner city apartment can't have free range chickens or a milk cow. The person living in the suburbs can's have these either because of city ordinances against having farm animals but they can grow a garden. Only the person living on a farm has the option to live off the land.

So what do we do? We buy from the processor who buys from the farmer. We trust both the processor and the farmer to provide us with safe, clean, healthy foods. We trust them with our lives. Every time we open a gallon of milk to give to our children we are putting their lives in the hands of the person who milked the cow and the processor who bottled the milk. Every time we use peanut butter for a quick snack for the kids we are putting their lives in the hands of the peanut processing plant and the person who grew the peanuts. Every can of veggies we use in a dish, every spice we throw in, every ounce of meat, in every dish, is a roll of the dice with our lives.

Did you know that usually a dairy farmer doesn't drink the milk from his cows until after he has sold the milk to the processor? He sells it all to the processor and then buys it back at the grocery. It's the same with the cattle rancher and the pig farmer and the veggie farmer.... sell everything to the processor and buy it back at the store.

This post may sound negative but it's not meant to be. I'm just being very thoughtful today. I'm thoughtful because there seem to be sooo many food recalls lately. This should NOT happen. If the processors and farmers were really careful and safe about how they provide our foods there would not be a reason for a recall.

I'm also thoughtful today because I came across this advertisement for a documentary movie released in June. Here's the trailer. I love watching documentary movies. I tried finding out when this one would be in my area. The site doesn't work quite right for a search so I'll have to find it another way. This is one movie I plan to see before it comes out on tv. I don't think anyone watching this movie will look at foods in quite the same way again. How about you? Want to see what you are actually eating? Check out the trailer to see if you are interested.