This week’s meal-prepping interview is living proof that you don’t need a car to feed a growing family.
Welcome to the latest post in TreeHugger’s series, “How to feed a family.” Every week we talk to a different person about how they approach the never-ending challenge of feeding themselves and other household members. We get the inside scoop on how they grocery shop, meal plan, and food prep to make it go more smoothly.
Parents work so hard to feed their children and themselves, to put healthy meals on the table, to avoid spending a fortune at the grocery store, and to fit it all around busy work and school schedules. It’s a feat worthy of more praise than it commonly gets, which is why we want to highlight it – and hopefully learn from it in the process. This week we head to snowy Winnipeg, a city on the Canadian Prairies, where a young family explores the art of fermentation and does most of their grocery shopping without a car. Answers written by Emily.
Names: Emily (32), Tyler (34), Robin (3.5), Sophie (1)
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Employment: Emily and Tyler worked overseas in the international development field for several years in Laos, Southeast Asia. Their first daughter Robin was born there. Now that they have returned to Canada and are living in Winnipeg, as well as having a second child, Tyler continues to work in the development field, while Emily stays at home with their small children and manages various projects.
Weekly food budget: We spend between CAD $150-$200 (USD $112-$150) weekly on food, and between $60-$130 (USD $45-$100) on weekend outings. We try hard to eat seasonally, so there is some variation in the budget throughout the year. For the winter weekly food budget, it comprises a monthly trip to the farmer’s market, a large shopping trip around every two weeks to the grocery store, and a monthly trip to Bulk Barn, as well as many small trips to top up at small shops close to our home.
We buy all of our bread at a small bakery down the street, and get meat and some cheese at a little shop around the corner that has a meat counter and will wrap with butcher paper. We are trying to avoid plastic as much as possible. We order meat from a friend’s parent’s farm periodically, usually half a lamb every 6 months, and that meat will take us a long way.
In the summer the variation would be that we eat out less and get more of our vegetables from the garden. We also get to the local summer farmer’s market every week.
© Emily N. (used with permission)