If you’ve been following me this summer, you know that my kids lived on whop biscuits and nitrate-free hotdogs.  Apart from oatmeal, there wasn’t a whole grain to be found in my pantry.  But now that I’ve recovered from summer and returned to my natural state as homeschool mom and spontaneous short order cook, I had a strange personal realization.

I am a super-frugal nut.

But, it’s not money.  If it were money, I’d buy less wine.  No, I’m nutrient-frugal.

I threw away SO MUCH food this summer.  But, all the sudden, I can’t do it.

Why?

Because this summer, we lived on TRASH.  WHO cares if we save the fries or the white flour bun on the fried chicken-esque sandwich? I’m almost excited when they don’t eat it.  But the whole-grain, brown rice and quinoa, ground-hemp seed spiked, honey and raisin sweetened, hot cereal? Can’t do it.  Yeah, some of those ingredients are more expensive, technically.  But my MIL gave me the cereal.  It wasn’t an expensive breakfast or anything, but WOW was it nutrient dense and had some really neato variety.

So, we had too much.   But I know that my kids won’t eat it from the fridge.  No point putting it in there at all.  But Baby really liked it, so I hauled out the ice cube trays.

She’s going to love this on days that the kids are eating something she can’t have. (BTW, those raisins were ick little bricks before I boiled them for cereal.  Awesome save.)

 And the half-eaten “germy” leftovers went in the chicken bucket to be eaten again later as eggs.  Conservation of nutrients, the law in the Caswell house.

Also, I made a blueberry/blackberry/raspberry shake this morning.  We had lots of leftovers.  So, I got out the Popsicle mold.  One kid took two sips before he gave up, so I put his in first and marked the sticks with his name.  (We just got over a cold here, so I’m making a half-hearted effort to not share germs.)

So, I guess preparing nutrient-dense food motivates me to be less wasteful.  What does it for you?