Food for Thought

What would you consider your top commodities if you were to sit down with pen and paper and conduct an audit of your personal assets? What would your list look like? Would it look like a list that you would hand your banker if applying for a loan? That’s exactly where my analytical, business mind goes.

But... may I propose for one moment that family, time and health be included, if not at the top of the list of most valuable commodities, that often times get traded without thinking twice?

I’ve been there too many times. Running into either the grocery store or fast food restaurant waiting in line to pick up food that is more convenient than healthy, more expensive than budget wise, all because I am in a rush on the way home from work to feed my family before heading back out to a sporting event. In this one scenario alone I have traded all three of my top commodities, and not to mention trading my budget as well all for convenience and poor planning.

I have also had times where I plan a good intentioned trip to the store (money, time), with list in hand to make beautiful, healthy meals for my family and forgotten things have been left in the fridge, untouched because I was too busy to make the recipes I had purposed for those items (health).

I would like to share some astonishing facts that I found according to a study conducted by the USDA that American households spend about $2,200 a year on food that is thrown away(1).

That’s about $183 per month of money, and time away from our families working to earn that money, literally thrown away in the trash! Which if I am able to speculate here, additional money was spent in its place on eating out on top of that, an average of $250 a month per household, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics Report(2).

The study further indicated that the average American household spends 6 hours per week (cooking 5 out of 7 days) spent shopping for groceries, cooking and clean up. If you enjoy cooking like I do, you can see that as time well spent, but for those who don’t enjoy that sort of thing, that can seem like added daily stress (health).

My grandparents did not look at things the way we do now. They would not let anything go to waste. They were very intentional about using their family’s resources (commodities) wisely and making the most of every purchase.

These are some of the reasons, among others that I have created Fennel and Thyme LLC. I am very pleased to say that we have recently acquired a commercial kitchen to work from that we share with the S.A.L.T. Box Ministries in Canal Fulton, OH.

We would love to help your family reclaim those valuable commodities lost in the busyness of life by creating meals with products sourced from local suppliers that helps eliminate waste from rarely used grocery items and giving you some time back in your day.

We can also help alleviate stress knowing that you can provide healthy already prepared meals to your loved ones without coming home to cook (wondering what to cook) or being locked into a contract or rigid plan, just order what you need.

For those who like to cook or would like to learn a new skill, we will be scheduling a variety of basic cooking classes for adults and children.

Fennel and Thyme will be hosting an open house in May, look for our announcement on Facebook and our website for event information and sign ups. There will be food samplings, prizes and opportunities for you to take home your favorite samples. See you soon!

Stacy

(1)https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/americas-165-billion-food-waste-problem.html

(2)https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/consumer-expenditures/2015/pdf/home.pdf