I’m not really a skinny man, fleshy is a better term, more like a lumpy block of wood with stubby legs. All the same, Management and I have made a concerted effort over the past year to eat whole foods–fresh vegetables from local markets and meats and fish from local butchers and fish markets. Initially, it took plenty of time and energy on our part to do it but once we had a system down we found it to be better for our health and wallets, we even managed to carve our weekly food budget down to about $30 by eating local and fresh.
We eat out now and then but usually at local restaurants and we haven’t stepped into a fast food franchise in almost two years. Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me really impacted how we viewed what we ate. Though, this isn’t to say that we were radicalized into raw vegans because, honestly, who other than trust-fund babies has the money for that?
For giggles and prompted by the new Burger King Quad Stacker (four patties and eight slices of bacon) we surfed over to Burger King and built out what I might have eaten a couple of years ago. Eye opening doesn’t begin to cover it and checking out the costs of obesity at the CDC only hammers home the point that eating like this, even on a weekly basis is bad for you.
Check out the numbers in the detail and summary, far beyond the recommend 2,200 calories per day. Ouch. My heart.
Do you grocery shop all at once for $30 or just get what you need daily for each meal? Unfortunately, our weekly grocery budget is $100 (pet and baby stuff makes up a good portion of it!) But it’s definitely the ready-to-eat, grab and go types of stuff that adds to the cost. Laziness is expensive!
Ha! I suppose I should qualify that $30. The $30 covers just food for the week for the two of us (milk, eggs, butter, fruit, vegetables, meats, sweets). We have a separate budget for the pet food and other household items which are purchased on a 60 to 90 day basis–sales, coupons, and in quantity. The baby, however, will definitely result in us altering our budgets significantly. We split things up so we could better see how we spend our money–it is likely an MBA thing as I keep spreadsheets tracking all this type of stuff.
The $30 is sunk into fresh vegetables and meats that are easy to prepare, out are things like artichokes or butternut squashes–unless it is the weekend or a special occasion–as they take up huge amounts of time to prep and cook. We deliberately choose menus that can be prepared and cooked around a single item with the greatest cooking time like rice (~20 minutes), baked (~50 minutes) or mashed (~30-40 minutes) potatoes. The fact that we get home close to six and have things to do about the house like walking Peri means we have a tiny window to get dinner made, a window sure to shrink further when the baby arrives.
She gets bashed by the other celebrity chefs and her over use of the acronym EVOO is a tad annoying but Rachael Ray’s show 30 Minute Meals was the catalyst and inspiration for us to look at how we cook–methods, technique, and choices–so that we can best maximize our time in the kitchen. Cooking blogs like Simply Recipes and 101 Cookbooks are also great inspiration for different flavors.
My motto is, “Life’s short, eat well.”