Lowcarbezine!

Low Carb On a Budget

I've written about this before, but it's been quite a while, and we've gained a whole slew of new readers since then, so I thought it was about time to address it again - especially since everyone's still trying to pay off the holiday credit card balance!

Many people are convinced that low carbing is terribly expensive. There is some truth to this, but less than many people think. I, by way of example, have been low carbing for over 8 years, and for many of those years we were fair-to-middlin' broke - I wasn't a best-selling author yet, and my husband was a grad student. I learned a few things about the economics of low carbing, and I hereby pass them on to you.

* First of all, the most common "budget stretcher foods" - white flour pasta, white rice, white bread, white sugar, hydrogenated shortening - are so nutritionally empty and damaging to the body that they wouldn't be cheap if they were given away. Potatoes are somewhat more nutritious, but still have a sky-high blood sugar impact. What could possibly be cheap about "food" that makes you tired, makes you gain weight, ruins your health, makes you cranky and depressed, rots your teeth, and just plain makes you hungrier? You must get over the notion that your old diet was cheap. You were just paying for it in other places, that's all.

* The staples of a low carb diet are animal protein - meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and cheese - and low carb vegetables. These come in more and less expensive versions. Your body does not care whether your protein comes from $12 per pound lobster, or $1.99 per pound catfish, from $7.99 per pound rib eyes, or from 59c per pound chicken leg-and-thigh quarters. Both asparagus and cabbage are very low carb vegetables, but only one of them is cheap year round.

* Don't forget about eggs; they're not just for breakfast. Even if you're paying $1.25 per dozen for eggs, a two-egg portion comes to just over 20c. That's cheap for a lunch or dinner, even when you throw in enough cheese or other ingredients to turn those eggs into an omelet.

* Do your own prep work. Lettuce is cheaper than bagged salad, whole chickens are cheaper than boneless, skinless chicken breasts. You pay for everything that is done to your food before you buy it, so buy it unprepared.

* A deep freeze is a wonderful thing to have. If you're on a tight budget, you may think you can't afford one, but it's important to look at the long-term savings involved in buying sale meats in bulk, and in being able to keep leftovers for future use. I bought my freezer used, six or seven years back. It cost me $225, including delivery and a 3 day warranty, from a reputable local used appliance dealer. It's a Sears Coldspot, a good brand, and it hasn't given me a second's trouble. It's absolutely huge, too! One word of warning: Don't buy really old used appliances. Energy efficiency has improved tremendously over the past decade or so, and you don't want to be spending money on electricity that you could spend on food.

* Stop eating out! Even cheap fast food is cheaper at home, and you won't be tempted to sneak a few fries from someone else's bag.

* Which means taking lunch, of course. I'll cover bag lunches in the next Lowcarbezine!

* Don't get into the low carb specialty food habit. Low carb bread, bagels, chips, ice cream, pasta, etc, etc, etc, are flooding onto the market. Some of this stuff is pretty good, some of it is wretched, but almost all of it is very expensive, and exactly none of it is essential to a low carb diet. An occasional treat of sugar free chocolate or a low carb tortilla is all well and good, but if you start eating low carb bread and pasta and such as often as you ate the high carb variety, you'll go broke in no time. Furthermore, you're less likely to lose weight, because almost all of this stuff has more carbs than, say, a leftover chicken leg. Base your diet on inexpensive protein foods and vegetables, not highly processed specialty stuff.

* Shop around. In the same week, I have seen cauliflower at $1.89 per pound and $3.29 per pound, at different stores - that's a big difference. In particular, if you have one of those "all house brand" stores near you, these are terrific places to buy basic commodities like eggs, block cheese, butter, oil, bacon, canned tomatoes, tuna, vinegar, mayonnaise, etc, etc, etc, at low prices. I visit my local Save-a-Lot on a semi-regular basis to stock up on this stuff.

* Buy in bulk. If you can possibly find the freezer or pantry room for extras, buying stuff when it's offered as a loss-leader sale can save you a lot of money. Think of it as investing. So long as it's stuff you know for sure you'll consume, buying at, say 20% off the regular price is the same thing as making 20% on an investment - tax free.

* Cut corners wherever else you can, if that's what it takes to feed yourself and your family decent, nutritious food. Drive a used car, shop at yard sales and thrift stores, cancel your cable television and watch videos from the public library - whatever it takes. Food is the very stuff of life, and the quality of your life and your family's lives are directly dependent upon it. Once you have a roof over your head, no matter how humble, nothing else you can buy is more important.

Posted by HoldTheToast at January 10, 2004 08:04 PM