Frugal and not helpless.

There are so many people I know who don't know how to make anything for themselves. We are such a consumer driven culture it is crazy. I know people who just don't cook anything from scratch. They convince themselves that if they buy pre-cut vegetables, marinated meat, and a prepared side dish and heat it up that they are really cooking. They have no idea what went into the meal they eat nor how many different people handled that food before it went in their mouth. They don't know if that food traveled for weeks across the country or sat on the shelf forever. I like knowing that my hands prepared my food and that most of it came from local sources. Call me cheap and I take that as a compliment. I like knowing that in the future I will not be helpless or dependent on mass produced food to feed my family.