Twenty-eight Days From Scratch: The Budget

It's time to talk dollars and cents! One of the reasons I hear many people give for preferring fast food over fresh whole food is cost. I cannot for the life of me understand how that can be. I might have mentioned this before but in college I ate quite well on about $20 dollars a week. Being vegetarian helps a lot and, during that time, I did not buy juice, fruit, eggs or cheese, rice or potatoes (I had to carry my groceries for a significant distance; potatoes and rice added more weight than I could justify) and I rarely bought tomatoes, bread or  pasta.

A few times a week I ate at one of the cafeterias on campus. That is when I would have fruit, rice or bread or some of the other foods that I did not purchase from the store. What I bought consisted of the following: One pound of split peas or lentils (I alternated each week), carrots, spinach, cilantro, oatmeal, peanut butter, lactaid milk (I liked the taste), onions, garlic, and a can of cream-of-mushroom soup (I hadn't noticed the MSG).

On Sundays I would combine the peas or lentils with the carrots, spinach, cilantro, onions and garlic and cream-of-mushroom soup to cook up a big pot of soup (but cooked thick, almost like a stew). I would eat a bowl of that for lunch and/or dinner. For breakfast I had oatmeal with peanut butter and milk (that's how my mama used to make it, ok). I also worked out five-days a week and I was in the best health of my life. I had never looked so good.

The Twenty-eight Days from Scratch challenge replicates that diet in many ways. I have a bit more variety built in (fruit, for example). Food costs have gone up - so I do expect to spend more. I'm setting the budget at $50.00/week.

My grocery haul for this week is:

One pound of Brown Jasmine Rice
One pound of Red Daal
One pound of Green Split Peas

.14 pounds of Fresh Ginger

Five pounds of Carrots
One head of Red Cabbage
Threepounds of Frozen Spinach
Two packages of Frozen Squash

Three Apples
Two pounds of Bananas
One bag of Frozen Pineapple

16 oz Egg Whites

The grand total: $33.88. I will eat for a week on what an average restaurant meal costs.

I have $16.12 left. I am running out of peanut butter and honey (I like that in my oatmeal) so I might re-stock on that. I like to get the big jars, though, so I might save some cash from this week and increase next week's budget so that I can get larger jars of each (which is more economical). I might also need to re-stock olive oil, onions and garlic during the week and I'm thinking to get some tofu for protein. There is plenty of room in the budget for that if I don't get the peanut butter and honey. Lets see which wins.

Twenty-eight Days from Scratch Day Two: Feeling Full

Steamed Cabbage and Red Daal Curry (it turns yellow when cooked).

I couldn't finish my lunch yesterday! I posted a picture of yesterday's breakfast in the last post. This is a picture of lunch: Well steamed purple cabbage seasoned with a bit of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil and red daal cooked to thick but soupy consistency and seasoned with red onion, garlic and a yellow curry bullion cube.

I gave myself an out for this meal (it is only two colors) since I had just added the new three colors rule and hadn't yet gone shopping for the veggies I needed.

The Daal was so wonderfully seasoned that about half-way through, I suddenly felt satisfied. I was done.

To this day I am a dutiful child, however, and my mother's command to clean my plate stuck with me. So I valiantly chowed on. Again I got the full signal. So I put the food down for a bit and did something else until it seemed I could eat again. This time, when I felt full, I remembered how folks in Okinawa, which is a Blue Zone, advise only eating until one is 80% full. I put the lid on that puppy and called it over.

One Granny Smith Apple, four carrots, ginger to taste

I have a pineapple banana smoothie on tap for later in the week (the bananas are ripening) so, for something sweet, I decided to make a carrot-apple-ginger juice. That, and the left overs from lunch, was dinner.

Apple Carrot Ginger Juice

Surely, I feared, I would be ravenous by bedtime so I decided to go to bed early and hope that I didn't wake up in the middle of the night gnawing off my arm. Anyway, going to bed a little hungry is also a recommended Blue Zone habit.

I wound up blowing my bedtime (Superbowl). While I felt a bit of tummy growling when I did go to sleep, it wasn't that gnawing hunger that leads to shaking and thoughts of ripping apart the fridge. I slept pretty well.



I felt fine when I woke up in the morning. Again, a little hungry but not ravenous. So i did what has been recommended all my life: I started the morning by drinking a quart (four cups) of warm water. I didn't down it all at once; I drank it over the period of about forty minutes. I'll try this again tonight. I get the sense that, as with the Juice Feast, day three will be the proving ground.

The 28 Days From Scratch Challenge: Day One

Breakfast!

28 Days from Scratch Challenge Day One: Today I followed the spirit if not the letter of law. It looks like a slight modification might be in order. I am working on a project that involves interviewing people and my interviewees are demonstrating a distinct preference for meeting at restaurants. And eating food. My first meeting coincided with the first day of the 28 Days from Scratch challenge. This created quite the . . . opportunity. Let's be optimistic about this.

The challenge does allow me to eat two restaurant meals during the month. I'm the cautious type. If I have a "Get out of jail free" card, I like to hold on to it for a while before choosing the most strategic time to use it. Here I was on Day One, famished and holding a Brunch menu describing the most scrumptious sounding food. I agonized over whether I should just throw in the towel and use that card on Day One.

I took my time reading that menu. The hostess must have though that something was wrong with me considering how intently I read that menu. I read every ingredient in each description and (except for the meat) imagined how each morsel would taste in my mouth. I settled on two choices.

I read further down the menu and there in the bottom left-hand corner was a little box labeled "Sides". What happened to be one of those sides? The Fruit Bowl. Ah. Hmmm. What to do? The fruit bowl would technically get me out of using the card. It was just fruit, after all, no manipulation or other ingredients involved. But I was SOOO hungry! And the whole restaurant smelled SOOOO goooood! I could hear my taste buds chanting: Choose the food! Choose the food! Choose the food!

My guest arrived and we sat down. I explained the challenge to her and when our server arrived I asked her to get my guest's order first so that I could have a few extra moments to think. My guest ordered and then I decided to use conditions to help make my decision. If the fruit had been frozen I would not eat it. I'd order the regular brunch. My mouth and tummy reluctantly agreed that, fine, that would be the test.

Of course our server said that the fruit was not frozen, it did not come from packages. The restaurant received the whole fruit from the vendor and chopped it up right back there in the kitchen. Yes, it was refrigerated but never frozen. I knew what I had to do. My taste buds and my stomach said, "Heeey, wait, hold up a second, we had an agreement here!" I bowed my head for a moment, took a deep breath and charged forward.

"I'll have the fruit bowl," I said as my face crumpled up with fake tears. My guest laughed and so did the server. "Ahhhhh!!!" I wailed, "This is sooo hard!" I could hear every taste bud shouting, "Nooo, stop! Take it back! Take it back!" My competitive streak is too strong, however, and the strategist said, "Don't use the card today!!!" And so I ordered the fruit bowl - with some modification.

I told our server that I don't like fruit cold - I like it at room temperature. I really don't understand eating refrigerated fruit. One loses out on so much of the juicy sweetness. We improvised. She brought the fruit bowl (which was generously sized, to my pleasant surprise) along with another bowl filled with hot water.

We placed the fruit bowl in the hot water and that actually did the trick. Eventually the fruit came to room temperature and I really enjoyed it. In fact, by the time I finished, I felt satisfied. When our meeting ended, I got up and felt really skinny! My pants felt loose and my tummy wasn't heavy as it usually was after eating at a restaurant. I was really pleased with myself and now I have a viable solution for how not to use the card and still eat at a restaurant.

Because I am never satisfied with accomplishing a challenge by anything more than the skin of my teeth, I've upped the ante on this challenge. It isn't enough that all but two of my meals be cooked from scratch, they must also be balanced and must follow the 1/2, 2/4ths rule. Also, except for soups and other liquids, I must eat my meals with chopsticks. Eating with chopsticks means eating more slowly which means feeling fully satisfied with less food.

Here is how the 1/2, 2/4ths rule works: Divide your plate in half. Fill half with vegetables. In the other half, fill 1/4 with protein and the other 1/4 with grain. To accomplish balancing, make the plate as colorful as possible. Aim for at least three colors per meal. Your plate should look something like this:

Top left: Scrambled egg whites with caramelized onions, garlic and olives 

Top right: Steamed purple cabbage with olive oil

Bottom left: Stiff Mealie Pap

Bottom Right: Steamed carrots with olive oil

I chose this container because it came with a divider, provides for reasonable portion sizes and because claims to be leak proof so I can cover it and take it with me.

I tested it with water and found that there was was a little bit of leakage. That only happened if I vigorously shook the container, though, so I think it will be ok. Next time I'll write about how to make time for all of this.