The One Ingredient Shopping Challenge

Only one ingredient?  I am not sure where this idea came from.  Perhaps it is frustration over not eating as I feel I should be eating.  Perhaps it is the junk in my pantry.  The jars of assorted condiments that last forever in the fridge.  The food budget that comes in over budget month after month.  All of those things combined into this insight:  if I could stick to one ingredient foods, I would eat more whole foods, healthier foods and less expensive foods and reduce packaging waste.  Here are some examples.

Pasta?  No.  More than one ingredient.  If I really want pasta I can make my own.  Flour, eggs, salt and water.   Run through my pasta roller, and there you have it.

Peanut butter.  Jiffy?  No.  Grind your own peanut butter at the co-op? Yes.  Healthy and less expensive.

Tortilla chips?  No.  But I can make my own corn tortillas and if I really crave some chips I can fry the tortillas up. 



I'll get some help from favorite books.  A few that I haven't talked  about yet are Making It:  Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen as well as Homemade by Reader's Digest.  Both books excel at taking single ingredients and combining them to make just about every food and home product you can think of.  From fresh bread to face creams.  Pasta to green cleaners.  Just about everything is found in these books.  So, more to come about the one ingredient challenge.  First, I have to empty the pantry of all the junk.  That shouldn't take long.  I will come up with a list of exceptions.  So far wine, beer, chocolate and cheese are on that list.  I will keep adding to this as I proceed.