Aisle Be $eeing You
Highly nutritious foods are often low in cost. Among them are bananas, carrots, potatoes, whole-wheat flour, and dried beans—the sort of high fiber foods that nutritionists now recommend. They also tend to come with minimal packaging—an environmental plus. - Wellness Made Easy: 365 Tips for Better Health, by the University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter
As with the taking of a daily cold swim, cold shower or cold bath - or the eating of hot peppers - under which early resistance finds itself vanquished by a habituated second-wind relish of the wholesome fruits of disciplined hardihood, an adherence while at the grocer's over each 30-day cycle to a cost ceiling - $100, say - can apply a whetstone to the blades of the soul all its own. In a time when it is not at all uncommon for urban humans to spend $5 or more each weekday upon the "food" under the black (they're only gold-plated) arches, or at the espresso bar, or double that thus at both, to say nothing of the affiliated drinks budgets, the pursuit of parsimony in gobbing indulgence can seem not so much dourly ascetic as bracingly athletic, with a becoming moderation in the case of each indulgence supplanting a total abstention that even under the cost restrictions proves as pointless as it is puritan.
I mark one prime reversal of polarity when shopping - from an old-days aim of buying a small number of very large items to a latter-day preference for a breadth and variety of items at price-points as low as possible consistent with relatively low unit pricing. I seem to buy nothing advertised on television or highly processed, or items subject to the usual sorts of auto-therapeutic new-age niche marketing, self-consciously green, foodie or locavore, or otherwise after the desiderata of the Mark Bittmans, Michael Pollans, and Alice Waterses of the world, sellers of snake oil of sorts no less deadly when subject to due scrutiny than those marketed under the imperatives of the merchants of death of deep-pocketed, corporate-state, regulatorily-captured agriculture.
Right, then - projected food buys for April under a daily 2,000-calorie requirement:
Fruits and vegetables: 46 pounds total: bananas (4 lbs @.49/lb), broccoli (frozen, 4-lb bag, $3.79), cabbage (3-lb head @ .49/lb), carrots (5-lb bag $2.49), kale (1 lb @ $1.99/lb.), romaine lettuce or chicory (1.5 lbs $1.99) onions (5-lb bag $2.49), oranges (8-lb bag $5.99; eat the peels, too), peppers bell and hot (3 lbs @ $1.49/lb), peas (2 2-lb bags, $1.89 each), spinach (frozen, 4 10-oz boxes @ .79 each), tomatoes (crushed, 3 28-oz cans, .89 each). Total: $36. Daily calories: 300
Grains: cornmeal (2-lb bag $1.29), oats (42-oz can $2.39) whole wheat flour (5-lb bag $3.79). Total: $8. Daily calories: 500
Legumes: 5 1-lb bags assorted beans, lentils, split peas @ $1.39 each. Total: $7. Daily calories: 300
Nuts and seeds: almonds (1 10-oz can $3.49), sunflower seeds (1 7-oz bottle $1.79). $5. Daily calories: 100
Milk and cheese: skim milk (3 1-gallon jugs @ $2.54/gallon; devote half of each gallon weekly to homemade nonfat yogurt), cheese (2 8-oz bars cheddar or colby jack @ $1.75 each). Total: $11. Daily calories: 200
Meat, fish, eggs: beef (1 1-lb package round steak on sale @ $2.99/lb, 1 1-lb. package liver $2.69/lb), chicken (3-lb package drumsticks on sale @ .99/lb), eggs (1 dozen large $1.49), pork (1 1.5-lb package sirloin steaks on sale $1.99/lb.), canned fish (1 15-oz can Pacific sardines in tomato sauce $1.99, 1 15-oz can jack mackerel $1.99, 1 15-oz can pink salmon $2.99). Total: $20. Daily calories: 200
Drinks, sweets: coffee (10 oz brick or can $2.49), tea (100 bags $2.49), beer (2 24-oz cans $1.19 each), ice cream (1 32-oz carton $1.99), bittersweet chocolate chips (1 10-oz bag $2.49), coconut (1 7-oz bag .99). Total: $13. Daily calories: 200
As with the taking of a daily cold swim, cold shower or cold bath - or the eating of hot peppers - under which early resistance finds itself vanquished by a habituated second-wind relish of the wholesome fruits of disciplined hardihood, an adherence while at the grocer's over each 30-day cycle to a cost ceiling - $100, say - can apply a whetstone to the blades of the soul all its own. In a time when it is not at all uncommon for urban humans to spend $5 or more each weekday upon the "food" under the black (they're only gold-plated) arches, or at the espresso bar, or double that thus at both, to say nothing of the affiliated drinks budgets, the pursuit of parsimony in gobbing indulgence can seem not so much dourly ascetic as bracingly athletic, with a becoming moderation in the case of each indulgence supplanting a total abstention that even under the cost restrictions proves as pointless as it is puritan.
I mark one prime reversal of polarity when shopping - from an old-days aim of buying a small number of very large items to a latter-day preference for a breadth and variety of items at price-points as low as possible consistent with relatively low unit pricing. I seem to buy nothing advertised on television or highly processed, or items subject to the usual sorts of auto-therapeutic new-age niche marketing, self-consciously green, foodie or locavore, or otherwise after the desiderata of the Mark Bittmans, Michael Pollans, and Alice Waterses of the world, sellers of snake oil of sorts no less deadly when subject to due scrutiny than those marketed under the imperatives of the merchants of death of deep-pocketed, corporate-state, regulatorily-captured agriculture.
Right, then - projected food buys for April under a daily 2,000-calorie requirement:
Fruits and vegetables: 46 pounds total: bananas (4 lbs @.49/lb), broccoli (frozen, 4-lb bag, $3.79), cabbage (3-lb head @ .49/lb), carrots (5-lb bag $2.49), kale (1 lb @ $1.99/lb.), romaine lettuce or chicory (1.5 lbs $1.99) onions (5-lb bag $2.49), oranges (8-lb bag $5.99; eat the peels, too), peppers bell and hot (3 lbs @ $1.49/lb), peas (2 2-lb bags, $1.89 each), spinach (frozen, 4 10-oz boxes @ .79 each), tomatoes (crushed, 3 28-oz cans, .89 each). Total: $36. Daily calories: 300
Grains: cornmeal (2-lb bag $1.29), oats (42-oz can $2.39) whole wheat flour (5-lb bag $3.79). Total: $8. Daily calories: 500
Legumes: 5 1-lb bags assorted beans, lentils, split peas @ $1.39 each. Total: $7. Daily calories: 300
Nuts and seeds: almonds (1 10-oz can $3.49), sunflower seeds (1 7-oz bottle $1.79). $5. Daily calories: 100
Milk and cheese: skim milk (3 1-gallon jugs @ $2.54/gallon; devote half of each gallon weekly to homemade nonfat yogurt), cheese (2 8-oz bars cheddar or colby jack @ $1.75 each). Total: $11. Daily calories: 200
Meat, fish, eggs: beef (1 1-lb package round steak on sale @ $2.99/lb, 1 1-lb. package liver $2.69/lb), chicken (3-lb package drumsticks on sale @ .99/lb), eggs (1 dozen large $1.49), pork (1 1.5-lb package sirloin steaks on sale $1.99/lb.), canned fish (1 15-oz can Pacific sardines in tomato sauce $1.99, 1 15-oz can jack mackerel $1.99, 1 15-oz can pink salmon $2.99). Total: $20. Daily calories: 200
Drinks, sweets: coffee (10 oz brick or can $2.49), tea (100 bags $2.49), beer (2 24-oz cans $1.19 each), ice cream (1 32-oz carton $1.99), bittersweet chocolate chips (1 10-oz bag $2.49), coconut (1 7-oz bag .99). Total: $13. Daily calories: 200
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