...and will ALL credit to the now quite famous Dana Carpender, here's the link to LowCarb on a Budget (and here's is the full text of her newsletter article, just in case the link bites it so I hope all this FITS!):

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Low Carb On a Budget : Dana Carpender : LowCarbZine
http://www.holdthetoast.com/archive/020116.html

Feeling broke? You're not alone. With my husband back in graduate school, we're feeling the pinch around here, too. Now that we're officially in a recession, maybe it's time to talk again about eating low carb on a budget.

After all, many of the traditional penny pinching moves don't work for us - we're not going to stretch a pound of ground beef with pounds and pounds of bread crumbs, or mix it with rice, or serve it over noodles. So what's a low carber caught in a tight economy to do?

First of all, get clear on the fact that cheap, starchy food is not inexpensive. Nothing that makes you tired, fat, cranky, and potentially very ill can possibly be considered inexpensive, even if they're giving it away. Furthermore, that stuff makes you hungrier, remember? Food that just makes you want to eat more and more is not a great economy move.

(And of course, quite a lot of carb-y, processed garbage isn't even apparently cheap. I've long considered cold cereal to be a conspiracy to get consumers to pay $3 - 4 for fifteen cents worth of grain, and Pringles have to be the most expensive way possible to buy potatoes.)

Still, there's no question that real, nutritious food is often pricey. Here are some ideas for eating healthy within your budget:

* Your body does not care whether you get your protein from lobster or from chicken - so buy the least expensive cuts of meat, and buy them on sale. I recently bought 30 pounds of chicken leg-and-thigh quarters for 29c a pound, which is practically giving it away. At the same time, I could have paid around $2 a pound for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Even though the breasts are all meat, there's no question which of these choices is going to give me more protein for my grocery dollar. Around here - "here" being the Midwestern United States - ground beef goes on sale now and then for as little as 89c a pound. This is when I buy a pile of it, make it into patties, and freeze it. I also cruise the meat and fish cases for in-store markdowns - meat that has been there a day or two, and has been discounted. This is about the only way I buy expensive cuts, like lamb chops. I virtually never buy meat that is not on sale.

* Which leads us to another point: A deep freeze is one of the best investments you can make, because it lets you buy sale meat in bulk. We bought our deep freeze - a large, upright model - second hand, for $225, including delivery; it even came with a 2 week warranty, in case we got it home and it didn't work. It hasn't given us a moment's trouble. If you're buying a used freezer, keep two things in mind: First, it's best to buy from an established and reputable local dealer in used appliances; they know that they have something to lose if you feel you got a bad deal. And second, don't buy a freezer that is more than about 5 years old. Not because they wear out - they don't, much - but because great advances have been made in energy efficiency, and if you buy a freezer that's much older, you'll pay extra in electricity to run it.

* One thing you should not buy in large quantity, regardless of the sales, is frozen vegetables. I have learned the hard way that the shelf life of frozen vegetables (which I much prefer to canned) is pretty short. Even if they're on sale, don't buy more than you can use up in a month or so, or when you open the bag you'll find a bunch of shriveled little green things entombed in ice crystals. Not appetizing.

* Buy low carb vegetables and fruits in season. Unless you find a stupendous bargain on asparagus, it's going to be far cheaper to buy cabbage in January. It will also be cheaper to buy grapefruit (about 10 g per half) than cantaloupe or strawberries, this time of year.

* Shop around. If you're in the habit of doing all of your shopping at one grocery store, you may be losing money. I have seen cauliflower at $1.29 apiece and $3.98 apiece in the same week, at different stores. If the budget's tight, you can't afford not to be aware of differences like that! Never assume that one store has the best prices on everything - one of the cheapest stores in my area for everything else tends to have high meat prices. Pay attention! That money represents your time and your labor!

* Check out the discount stores that offer only house brands. We have two chains of this sort in my town, Aldi and Save-a-Lot. I do a stock-up trip to Save-a-Lot (it's closer than Aldi) every six weeks or so. I can't get everything I need there, but the stuff I do get is remarkably cheap - tuna at 2 cans for a buck, bacon for $1.29 a pound, canned mushrooms for 29c, pork sausage for $1.29 a pound, etc, etc, etc. Other things I buy at these el-cheapo stores: blocks of basic cheese, like cheddar, also cheese "singles", and shredded mozzarella, canned tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, mayonnaise, tea bags, instant tea, sacks of onions, other basic veggies, like cucumbers, peppers, cauliflower, scallions, and such; dry roasted peanuts, canola oil. This is also where I bought my chicken leg-and-thigh quarters so cheap. If you have one of these stores in your area, you really need to go and explore. By the way, I also like these stores because they're far smaller than your standard grocery store, and there very few decisions to make! So long as I go at a slow time of the week, I can get in and out quite quickly with a whole pile of food. (If you go at a busy time, however, I admit the lines can be pretty long. Hint: Go toward the end of the month. A lot of the folks who shop at these stores are on very, very tight budgets, and don't have any money at the end of the month.)

* Check out specialty stores. You'd think that health food stores and little ethnic groceries would be more expensive than big chain grocery stores, but it's not always true. My health food store, Bloomingfoods, has herbs and spices in bulk, which is far cheaper than buying them in little shaker bottles. You can even bring your empty shaker bottles and refill them if you like. They also are my source for bulk pumpkin and sunflower seeds, bulk vinegar, bulk soy sauce, vital wheat gluten, oat bran, wheat bran, hazelnuts, and other low carb baking needs. I also shop quite a lot at Sahara Mart, a local Middle Eastern/gourmet/health/grocery store, where I get, among other things, the best prices on shelled almonds I've ever seen. (For those of you in the Southern Indiana area, Sahara Mart also carries a terrific selection of low carb specialty stuff. It's at the corner of 2nd and Walnut, here in Bloomington.) The point here is to take advantage of the various stores around you to find the lowest prices on the things you use regularly.

* Does this sound like you'll have to spend all your time grocery shopping? You won't. As I mentioned, I go to Save-a-Lot about every 6 weeks, sometimes let it go to 8, and stock up. I stop in at Sahara Mart when I'm uptown anyway, getting my hair cut, or going to the library, or something; takes me 10 minutes. Bloomingfoods is my closest grocery store, and the place I run out to if we're out of cream or peanut butter or something, so it's easy to pick up the other things I need while I'm there. It's not a matter of shopping more, it's more a matter of rotating where you shop.

* If you don't have one of these all-house-brand stores in your area, do try the house brands at your local supermarket. And if you don't like one store's house brand of a given item, try another store's version. For the very most part, house brands are made by the same manufacturers, and to the same standards, as name brands. And remember, "different" doesn't mean "worse" - we get used to things. If a product is less expensive, try it a time or two before deciding whether you like it or not.

* Do more of your own cooking and prep work. We've become a society of people who will do nearly anything to avoid having to cook, and it's costing us dearly. Paying people to do your cooking for you has always been the prerogative of the rich. You will pay far less per pound for a head of lettuce than for bagged salad; far less for whole chickens than for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. If you're short on both money and time (and hey, who isn't?), use the time-honored trick of doing a couple of hours cooking on a weekend or a day off every week. You can make your own bagged salad, a pot of soup or all-meat chili, a big batch of cole slaw, cut up vegetables for munching with dip - whatever appeals to your family - and stash them in the fridge. This will give you a major leg up on cooking all week long, without the expense of convenience food.

* Another place where cooking will save you mucho bux is when it comes to low carb specialty treats. Making your own low carb cookies and bread is cheaper than buying them.

* Although Splenda is - at least in my opinion - the best artificial sweetener on the market, since it is still under patent, it is relatively expensive. Consider keeping saccharine, or, if you like it and tolerate it well, aspartame, on hand for things like sweetening coffee or tea, or adding a little sweetness to a salad dressing or a dish of yogurt. Both are available in generic versions which are quite cheap. Save the Splenda for baking and such.

* Drop diet soda in favor of iced tea. Whether you make it from tea bags or from instant tea, it's far cheaper than even generic soda - and better for you, to boot. You can, of course, choose the sort with caffeine, or decaf - and you can even mix the two if you want to reduce, but not eliminate, your caffeine intake.

* Use food up. I confess I'm not as good at this as I should be, especially with the vast piles of leftovers that recipe development is creating around here. Still, letting leftovers grow fur in the back of the refrigerator is not good economy. Take them for lunch. Turn them into soup. Use them for omelet fillings. Freeze them for a night you don't feel like cooking. Have a weekly Smorgasbord Night, where you heat up and serve all the leftovers of the previous week. In short, remember that you've paid for that food - and the energy to cook it - and don't let it go to waste.

* Watch the portions. Do you really need to serve 8 ounces of meat per person, or will 6 do? If you have a family of five, this modest restriction will result in your serving 10 ounces less meat per dinner - and 6 ounces of meat will still give you about 42 grams of protein, surely as much as any body needs at one meal. The "super-size it!" culture has led us all to expect portions that are overflowing our plates, but we really don't need them. Remember, you should be eating enough to satisfy your hunger, but not much more. This, of course, will also speed your weight loss. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of cooking less - many of us have a "deprivation mind set", and become nervous at the idea of restriction of food - try cooking the same amount, but serving smaller portions in the kitchen. Eat what's on your plate, wait for five minutes, and then see if you want more.

* Get the family used to eggs for dinner at least once a week. I just paid $1 for two dozen eggs on sale, and even when they're not on sale you can generally get them for 99c a dozen, at least around here. That comes to just over 8c per egg, or just over 16c for a two-egg portion. Add to that the fact that eggs are endlessly versatile, and cook in no time flat, and you can see that you can't afford not to expand eggs into roles other than breakfast.

* If you have children in the house, remember that chips, cookies, cold cereal, soda, and other junk are not a right, and you are not a terrible parent if you refuse to spend money on rubbish, instead putting those (many!) dollars toward good, basic food. If the kids want garbage badly enough, let them spend their money on it. Handy hint: Basic bulk popcorn - the kind you pop in a popper, not the microwave - is dirt cheap. It also has 13-16 grams or so of usable carb in 3 cups, popped - about the same carb load as 15 potato chips. If they want snack food, buy a popcorn popper, and teach them to use it.

* Here's my most radical suggestion: I urge you to consider economizing on virtually everything else, and buy good food. If you have to choose between eating real, healthy food, and buying a bigger house, let the kids share a room, and feed them well. If you have to choose between meat and vegetables, and a new car, buy a reliable used car, and nourish your body. If you have to choose between allocating a dollar to your food budget or your clothing budget, eat right, and shop at yard sales and the Goodwill; you'll look better healthy in used clothes than you will fat and sick in designer fashions. Do not think that I take these suggestions lightly; I write this while wearing a second-hand sweater, sitting in a house that is far smaller and shabbier than I would like, with a 12 year old car in the driveway - but with good food in my stomach. Food is the stuff of life. You are creating your body out of it. It affects the quality of your life in every possible way; your energy level, your mental health, your physical mobility, the rate of your aging, your risk of degenerative diseases, your longevity. If you have growing children, the importance of good nutrition for them is, if anything, even greater than for you; food will make a difference in their grades, their behavior, their risk of getting involved with drugs and alcohol, and of course, their risk of obesity and ill health. Treat food with the respect it deserves, and I promise you, it will not let you down.

For approximately a zillion ideas on how to save money, plus a welcome attitude adjustment regarding our consumer culture, I highly recommend The Complete Tightwad Gazette, by Amy Dacyczyn: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...owcarbohysoluti . Unbelievably useful, practical, and fun to read. My only caution: Dacyczyn advocates cutting your food budget by eating lots of "healthy" low fat carbs in place of meat. 'Nuff said. But the rest of this book is dynamite.

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