Will You Take the No Grocery Store Challenge?

A few weeks ago, we told you about the Halstens, a family of three from North Carolina who vowed to go an entire year without shopping at grocery stores. It was their own way of helping remove processed foods from their family's diet and really think about the food they're putting in their bodies.

“It’s one thing to make poor choices for yourself,” Angie Halsten told us. “It’s a whole different ballgame when you are making them for someone else. We are setting the standards to which he will live by the rest of his life,” she added, referring to her two-year old son. 

We were pretty inspired by the Halstens' story. And it turns out, so were some of you.

This week we found out that Mrs. Lampshade, of the 18 Years to Life blog, had decided to launch her own month-long No Grocery Store Challenge. 

You see, Mrs. Lampshade [Ed. note: we love the name] had gone through some eating habits that are pretty familiar to most of us: a young adulthood marked by a pretty blatant disregard for everything we shove down our gullets, followed by a wakeup call and a pledge to be more conscious of the food we eat. 

We've all been there.

And, she writes, motherhood hammered that point home to her even harder. So she's decided to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Angie in North Carolina:

...a week ago, when Food, Inc’s link to a TakePart article popped up on my Facebook News Feed, I was intrigued. It talked about a family of three (Hey, like me!) and their pledge to not use grocery stores for a year. Now, a year is a little more than I’m mentally able to get behind at the moment. But there is NO reason why I can’t try it for 28 days. That’s how long it takes to form a habit, right? Like leasing with an option to buy.

Mrs. Lampshade picked up the rules from Angie's own blog, tweaked them a bit to fit her own family's needs, and that was it: her own No Grocery Store Challenge was born. 

Now she's got some tips for Farmers' Market shopping and food storage on her blog. 

Color us impressed. What about you? Check out Angie and Mrs. Lampshade's rules at their own blogs and let us know in the comments section if you could see yourself taking your own No Grocery Store Challenge.