Topic Tuesday!
Today we take Kelsey groceries shopping. Going through isle after isle - we talk food. Veg, meat, fruit, diary, canned goods, freezer section. Any tips on reading labels? What does Kelsey need to know to navigate her way through all the healthy claims and labels? Remember - in terms of teaching Kelsey you are an expert in the field!
What about
Do you plan your meals before going to the store? Do you shop with list? Do you schedule time to go food shopping? What is your healthy food shopping looks like?
Serving Size and Number of Servings. A food that is 450 calories per serving sounds great till you read that there are 8 servings in a container that can not be resealed so relistically are you going to eat 1/8th and then put the rest in something else to store in the fridge for later. For a lot of people that is a NO so now that food is 3600 calories so maybe the food item that is 475 calories but has 2 servings in the container is a better choice because it comes out to 950 if she goes I don't really want to put the other half of this in the fridge and save it for later I will just eat it now.
Words that end in OSE are sugars (Sucrose, dextrose, maltrose, galactose to name a few) and lose is a chemically made form of one of those sugars the most common one being sucralose aka splenda in the US.
Ingredients are listed by weight so if you see the words contains no sugar and the first item is water, high fructose corn syrup, tomatoes,vinagar, spices it is might as well have sugar in it because the body treats HFCS as sugar when it breaks it down in very simple terms. it has a ton of sugars in it. Look at another brand and see that it is listed as water, tomatoes, sugar, vinagar, spices now which is the better choice. Oh and points if you know which common food in a lot of american households this is.
What fruits and vegetables are in season because while you can get strawberries in MT in January they are going to be pricy and they are going to go bad within 2-3 days compared to buying them in June when they are in season and going to cost you less and stay nice in your fridge for 7 days. If there is something special such as it's a friend's birthday and I am throwing a surprise party and my friend just loves strawberries so I am going to serve strawberry shortcake made with an angel food cake and some whpped topping and sliced strawberries Wednesday night than getting them if they are in the budget would work.
Buying preprepped vs prepping your own when is it a good idea even though the cost is more. Example in most cases a single person can not eat a whole pineapple before it goes bad so buying the precut in the produce section if you want fresh pineapple would be a better use of your money. Now most people can eat an apple so even if slices are prefered over whole apples teaching her to use an apple corer and slices and making sure she has one if she does not or using a paring knife to cut slices and in both cases a good cutting board is a better choice.
Simple recipe subsituions that can be done such as in most cases regular yougart can be ran through the blender and subsituted for greek at a much lower cost. Or if making a chinese dish and you can't use corn starch because of an allergy subsituting potato starch or arrowroot is going to be a better choice over subsituting flour or xatham gum. The former is great if you are making gravy provided no one is allergic to wheat or gluten intolerant and the later one needs to be mixed with a number of different non glutten flours such as almond and rice and is most often used for breads. All these were listed on a resource I found for subsitiutions for corn starch and resulted in a lovely discussion with my county family and consumer sciences home economics extension agent when I called her to ask which one would be the best just to confirm what I was thinking was the right one to use.
I do a rough meal plan as in this week we are going to have enchaladas one day, cheesy chicken mac soup another (it is calling for sub zero wind chills around here and that is a favorite), either a ham or a pork roast another day with some sort of potato either baked or mashed or even rice the next three days with a day of left overs and a day of breakfast at dinner we have sausage and eggs and pancake mix in the house if for some reason I don't get to the store on Friday when DH gets paid. Right now I am down to a little over $26 for groceries plus about $15 that DH has on him. We need for sure a couple bags of mixed vegetables, a family size container of frozen mac and cheese, a container of blocked processed cheese, and possibly need a can or two of enchalada sauce. Yes I have a rotissary chicken in the fridge plus chicken breasts in the freezer, I have pork roasts and ham in the freezer along with plenty of sausage 3 different kids breakfast, maple, and italian. I can also do something with either pork chops or pork steaks and I have a bunch of venison in my freezer still. Bacon is another story all together as we are out of the good bacon and I have one container of higher priced bacon from the store. Waiting to hear we have another hog coming which are usually anywhere from mid February to late March very early April and then again in August/September. My parents tend to get a beef in October/November so if they need freezer room we get some of the previous years one. All the meat is well wrapped in butcher paper not in the plastic covered from the store.
Next trick to teach Kelsey how to buy meat in bulk such as 10 pounds of burgar getting at least 80% lean but if she can swing 95 or even 98 that is even better and then if the store does not have a sale with a limit and you order what you want at the butcher counter how to divide it at home and wrap. No sticking it in gallon freezer bags.