One way to reduce waste is to find recipes that will use up things you have left that are near pull dates. There is some discussion about pull dates being deceiving, but I find it a bit more comfortable just to use things before the pull date. Sour cream is a example in this house. The Betty Crocker on line cookbook gives you the option to plug in an ingredient and it will give you ideas.
I have been watching a lot of food hauls lately, gleeming the prices in other parts of the country. We are supposed to have one of the highest COL in the country. What I have noticed is that 1/2 of the food hauls are bottled drinks and snacks. Growing up, snacks were not heard of. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner and you had better eat, because there was nothing more until the next meal. These same thing as true at the rehab (aka nursing home ) I went to when I broke my hip.
Snacks and bottled or boxed drinks as well as individually portioned snacks and drinks will increase your food budget dramatically. Water from the tap, home made lemonade, herbal iced tea are great alternatives. Air popped pop corn, pretzels. Veggies and hummus works. Homemade ice pops work on the summer. Fill them with yogurt mixed with juice, or a fruity herbal tea. There are pop cycle forms at the dollar store. I also got some inexpensive on sale at Fred Meyers. They are so much better than the sugar water freeze pops.
Snacks and pop are one of the impulse buys that the grocery stores make the most money on. It is not healthy for a child to gorge themselves oj a whole bag of potato chips- full of fat and salt. The potato chip amd snack companies have studied how get you to eat more. --just say no !!
There is a growing concern in this country about kids becoming obese. Snacks are at the heart of it. Change snacks to healthy snacks, Have some good protein at mealtimes. Protein sticks with you. Starch does not. There are a lot of sources of protein; that doesn't mean a child needs to eat a whole roast beef. Lol.
All this is not a popular subject, but it is a much needed one. To stay at the USDA stats or lower ( snap funds) you need to stick to the basics. Adjust your diet if your doctor recommends that you do so and find creative low cost alternatives.
It is my intention to find the most well balanced, healthy , low cost foods I can find so that we eat as healthy as possible while maintaining a less than four dollar a day budget. It certainly helps when you pay 1/2 price for your food- or less.
Groceries on the cheap is looking at the Put Dinner On The Table meal train from a different
perspectBive. Tshe emphasis is on purchasing good food( shelf- stable/ freezer staples )at the lowest possible cost and purchasing enough to last you until it goes on sale again -- Keeping a controlled non-perishable stock of the things you use on a regular basis. It means that when you shop, rather than purchasing just what you need for a day or a week, you buy a loss leader protein, produce you will
need on sale, a stock item if it's a RBP, and dairy instead. This allows you to put well balanced meals
on the table consistently for a four dollar a day budget per person. You spend more time on the
planning and shopping end of the meal train and less on the cooking end by cooking efficiently.
Four dollars a day is the target amount for people on snap. My premise is that of you can do it on four dollars a day, spending more isn't hard. You still get more bang for your buck.
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