The Month That Lasted a Lifetime

Before Rice & Beans Month, Doug and Anya Holcomb of Portland, Oregon shopped for food the way a lot of people do, stopping on their way home from work and rarely sticking to a grocery budget.

“We often felt overwhelmed trying to figure out what to eat for dinner,” said Anya. “it seemed like there were so many options and like we ‘should’ be eating different things every night of the week.”

Anya, baby Micah, and Doug Holcomb from Portland, Oregon

Then Doug and Anya decided to join Lahash for Rice & Beans Month in March, and so enjoyed the intentionality and lack of waste in the simple meals that their entire approach to eating was changed.

“Now, we cook one big pot of food every week with beans and some type of grain,” said Anya, describing experiments with many different spices, as well as grains such as barley, quinoa, rice and millet.

“We eat this all week long, along with lots of fruits and vegetables and dairy products. We plan ahead and do a couple of big shopping trips every month instead of a lot of small convenience trips. We are closely tracking our grocery budget and are choosing not to shop once our grocery budget has been used up for the month.”

It wasn’t always an easy transition – Anya had never cooked beans from scratch and hadn’t even heard of many of the grains they now eat regularly.

“Rice & Beans Month was the thing that got us over these hurdles by providing community, ideas, support and accountability. Our bodies feel amazing with these wholesome meals. We no longer feel like we need to be eating different things every day, which has given us a sense of freedom from cultural norms. Furthermore, this way of living feels more consistent with the type of Christ-followers that we desire to be, as part of a global community where many of our brothers and sisters in east Africa live simply out of necessity.”