Sustainable Family Challenge: Don't eat out for a week

I am beginning to realize that the most important key to living a Sustainable Family lifestyle is changing habits and rethinking how you operate within the confines of what has become our uber-capitalist society.  That includes recognizing the difference between “want” and “need”.  Can you believe that only 10 years ago, most of us had to call our spouses before we left work to tell them that we were on our way because we had no way to contact them in transit?  Now we “need” to ask Siri what is on our calendar for today!
 

All this came to a head for me about a week ago, when I realized that one of our new kittens had chewed almost completely through my only iPod charger, rendering it useless.  Oh, the humanity!  How was I to check text messages, or game scores, or Words with Friends^®?  I realized it is time to start getting myself in check and practice what I preach.  What better way to do it than to come up with some little challenges to change my habits from consumerable (is that a word?) to sustainable?  I encourage you to join me in this quest!

Here’s the challenge:  For one whole week, don’t eat anything that doesn’t come from your (or better yet, a friend’s) refrigerator or pantry.  Go ahead and buy whatever groceries you think you need for the week, and then just say no to restaurants, cafeterias, vending machines, and any other “instant gratification” food source you currently use.  If this sounds easy to you, think about how many cups of coffee or lunches you bought last week.

I’m going to start after I buy my usual pizza lunch on Thursday and see how long I can stick to my principles.  I guess I’ll have to try to sneak a soft pretzel and a beer into the UConn game on Sunday.  If you decide to try it too, please leave comments here on the blog and let me know how you did and what, if anything, was your downfall.