Philosophy

I have always been a 'foodie'.  Not the kind of foodie that shudders if there isn't a different wine for every course or spends every penny on eating at Michelin starred restaurants.  Rather, I believe in buying good quality ingredients and using them to prepare meals from first principles without wastage.

Wastage - $$$

Without wastage is key: becoming a cook doesn't have to mean that you hemorrhage money, have your cupboards full of aging rosewater bottles or packets of polenta, and have a weekly purge of mouldy leftovers.  Being a foodie is all about planning, thinking and enjoying food.  With a few tricks and a bit of forethought (during the commute or before bed is a great time to think about food) you can have a bin that will only see wrappers and a fridge free of mouldy containers.

Assembly of Food - Who's the Cook?

While I am not a complete tyrant for cooking from scratch I do believe that you should look at the labels and the source of food a bit more critically.  If you buy a sarnie from a supermarket, it may well have been made by someone you have never met, packaged again by another person or a machine, loaded onto a lorry and driven across the country sweating in the packet as it goes.  No wonder the bread is either soggy or packed with preservatives to stop the onset of limpness.  So consider where your meal was assembled and by who.  If you can't be sure, pass.  It is just too gross not to.  Oh and when in a restaurant it is always a fun game asking to congratulate the chef (of course only if deserving), it makes such a fun and obvious connection between the deliciousness of a meal and the hidden hero.

Cooking from Scratch - Therapy and Choice

Cooking from scratch means you know what you are putting in your mouth, you have some quiet time as you create and you have more meal choice: buy a pot of pesto and you have a week of pesto, buy a bunch of basil, some parmesan, nuts, oil and garlic and the world is your oyster.

Take tomato sauce for example - you could either buy a jar that has a million of ingredients crammed into 500 ml and then spend 10 stressful minutes trying to open it and then you are left with half a jar in the fridge; or you could buy and chop up half a bag of tomatoes, throw them in a pan of sizzling garlic with some fresh or dried herbs.  In the first scenario you eat some mush made from an unknown source, using unknown ingredients and stress levels rise thanks to the impenetrable lid.  Whereas in the second scenario you have seen all four ingredients in their elementary state, have created something delicious, you know exactly what you are putting in your mouth, and you've had a therapeutic time doing it, not to mention that the left over tomatoes can be used for tomorrow's salad.

Free Range Meat - Principles

By only eating free range meat (watch Food Inc and weap for the awful things we do to animals) I am empowered to make my mini mark on the meat/supermarket industry.  No money of mine is going to support animal cruelty thank you very much.

Free range pork is near impossible to come by in SA, a complete travesty especially considering the intelligence of pigs.  It is deplorable how we are happy to shut thousands of pigs in dark sheds, remove them from their mothers and feed them with growth hormones as piglets just because on a monday night we fancy 6 sausages for the price of a can of soda.  Is price really more important than principles? 

By taking an interest in food and learning to cook you can make a lentil moussaka or veggie curry that is just as delicious as a meat variety and then look forward to a good hunk of free range, grass fed, well hung beef on the weekend.  Life is always a lot more exciting when you have something to look forward to while principles usually lead to a bit more self respect.

Being a foodie is a no brainer, it is about simple good quality food that helps out your health, your bank balance and your sanity.