Manipulating the Market – Part 1

Alright it’s been a minute since i’ve made a post here and a lot of negative things have happened in my life to cause this. I’ve changed my views and actions on some topics because i’ve lost a lot of passion and reason to do so. Anyway, I’m going to focus more on helping people out with more personal issues such as buying products, gardening, and finding ways to make what you have last longer. Basically I’m going to teach you how to save loads of money the best I can and hopefully it will help you out.

The economy is horrible and we all know the reasons why. Well… Most of us do. If you don’t know why you can find information on that throughout this website and I encourage you to do so.

Now back to what I came here to do. Basically Part 1 of this will be focusing on food. Part 2 will be focused more on lifestyles and personal home products. So how about we get to it?

Manipulating the Market Part 1:

Everyday shoppers go to the store and buy buy buy. Some purchase daily, monthly, bi weekly, and some just whenever. Usually they buy the same things. I’m not sure if you’ve ever really paid much attention to what you’re buying but typically it will always consist of the same products every time you go with the occasional “hmm that looks good I think I’ll try it” splurge.

Now some of us already know that any products you buy in the store are called GMO’s or Genetically Modified. These are products that are man made. Yes everything in a supermarket is man made in some way. Even your veggies and meat products are genetically modified. Corn for example is processed in a lab to create the best bug, drought, flood resistant product that they could make. That goes for everything else like tomatoes, potatoes, celery, and spinach to name a few. Basically you get the point.

Now because of this plants hardly regrow from their seeds or don’t have any seeds once they hit the stores anyway. But, here’s a trick that’s going to help you save a little money. You can buy some produce that will actually regrow! People usually don’t think about it or don’t know but yes you can buy these plants and regrow them at home which can save you quite a bit of money in the long run.

Here’s a list of some of these products:

Dry Beans (Yes dry beans back on the shelf which are really cheap can be planted and grown!) Why not buy a bag instead of buying 6 packets for your garden every year for over half the price?

Garlic Yes Garlic is a bulb and can be re-sprouted and grown again! Why not give it a try and grow your own cheap garlic? You can keep doing it all the time so you never run out!

Potatoes As long as you get the right potatoes you can replant them and grow a whole bunch of potatoes. It’s cheap to buy a bag and plant half of them and get 4 times as much back! Sweet Potatoes can be grown the same way. Just make sure the kind you’re buying will grow eyes

Celery Most people would never even think about this one but yes you can actually regrow bushels of Celery right at home! Here’s a link to step by step instructions on doing so Regrow Store Bought Celery

Green Onions This is another bulb and they usually still have roots on them at the store. Just cut the onion 1 inch above the bulb and then replant them and you’ll have more green onions than you’ll need!

Pumpkins Pumpkins can be used for several dishes and just for decoration. You can harvest the seeds from your pumpkin and replant them for next year. Almost all pumpkins will regrow.

Squash There are a lot of varieties of squash. Almost all of them bare seeds and can be regrown. With this in mind there’s no limit to what you can grow and cook.

Melons Watermelons, Cantaloupe, Honey Dew and several others are sometimes a little tricky. A lot of them now-a-days are genetically modified to not produce seeds. This goes especially for watermelons. If you can figure out or be told which ones aren’t seedless nine times out of ten you can harvest the seeds and regrow the delicious varieties as well which can save you lots of money!

Cucumbers Cucumbers are a little more tricky. Most stores won’t sell Cucumbers that can be regrown. Once they get to large they’re not really edible or not desired anyway. The best way to go about these are to get ones that are overly large. If you can’t find any then the farmers market is a great place to look.

I suggest everyone buys produce from the Farmers Market near you because you can get better deals and most of them grow plants that will regrow from seed. Along time ago almost all the plants you see in the store were regrown from their own seeds instead of having to re-purchase seeds year after year. Some farmers especially larger ones have almost always re-bought seeds but smaller farmers didn’t have to because they could save enough seeds for next years crop.

The list above isn’t a short list and it’s not a long list. There are other items that I over looked so don’t be afraid to try to re-grow some other produce. It never hurts to try. I really hope this article will help someone out there save a little money and become a little more independent because society as a whole has lost many people to the “easy” way and we really need to keep in touch with our survival skills because you never know…

Here’s a couple more idea’s and tips that you might find interesting.

When grocery shopping, look for “damaged” items (the box or can may not look pretty, but who cares!), ask for 75% off, they will normally give it to you!

Buy produce from farmers markets or “produce stands” on roadside… it is ALWAYS cheaper than any organic produce in the store! Also, you might ask if you can trade/barter produce (eg; offer to work the produce stand a certain amount of hours in exchange for produce.) The worst they can say is no!

Thanks to Kristie for helping me with idea’s on this article!

August 20 2011 10:14 pm | DIY and Helping and Safe Food

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