Some thoughts from the field....more like a nutrition rant?

We’re on day 11 at the moment. This is when the original One Dollar Diet people started to lose heart. Kerri said at the start of her post that day, “Today was the first day that I really felt like asking, ‘Aren’t we done yet?’”

How are we doing? There are a lot of things that I wish I could eat. I get cravings for cake, chips, crisps, cheese, pizza, and probably other stuff. I’ve had a horrible urge to buy a Snickers from the vending machine a couple times while at work. BUT, am I feeling rubbish? Am I waiting for this month to be over? Do I feel that I’m lacking something? No, not really. I get hungry in between meals, but I always do. I probably need to think of some good cheap snacks that I can eat, but it’s not too bad. Maybe I could alter my biscuit recipe to include honey or a tablespoon of maple syrup and a few walnuts spread throughout the batter…. I don’t know. Something would be nice because I’m more of a grazer than a 3-square-meals kinda gal.

I’ll have to ask Mac to weigh in on how it’s going. He said the other day that he thought he was wasting away from not eating any dairy, but I think he’s full of it.
I do think there is probably a BIG difference between £2 spending power in the UK and $1 in the US. We’re probably eating bigger meals, which is helping. BUT we’re also focusing on the quality of the food more—that’s why the bar was set at £2 instead of £1—we wanted to keep our organic veg box. Kerri and Christopher did an amazing job with what they had. It’s a shame that they won’t share their month’s of meals because they say it’s not nutritious and potentially dangerous". I wish they had added to that comment by saying that nutrituious and inexpensive meals ARE possible, but for a bit more than $1 a day (a quote I read recently said that average food stamps allow for about $3 a day, and some people are eligible for $5 a day… not that I would claim that being on $3 a day on food stamps is easy, but surely it begs the question as to why more nutrition education isn’t out there.)

Talking about nutrition education, I found this bookletfrom the USDA. It’s for healthy, inexpensive meals. They give recipes AND two weeks’ worth of meal plans.

Awesome, right?

EXCEPT they want people to eat meat twice a day. Honestly?!?!?

Beans/lentils/legumes are SOOOO much cheaper per portion than meat, and provide just as much protein. The USDA should be split into a number of separate groups so that the pressure from the agriculture (and, in particular, meat) industry doesn’t interfere in their advice to consumers. It’s a shame that all these people are being told they have to eat meat 12 out of 14 lunches and dinners to have a balanced diet.

Recommended daily protein requirements for women is 45.0g and for men it’s 55.5g. (This is something I've worried about a litle because we're not eating as much cheese. . . well, not eating ANY cheese) Eating tons of meat isn’t necessary to get those amounts. And if you’re seriously on a budget, you might skip fruits and vegetables (with important vitamins and minerals) because you spend too much on meat. Not to mention the fact that cheap meat (the only kind available on a tight budget) has SOOOO many environmental and ethical problems. Seriously NOT happy with that booklet.

Just to give you some facts, here is a chart (that I cobbled together) that goes through major forms of nutrition. The site on nutritiondata.com not only looks super high-tech, but it's full of useful statistics AND can tell you about a food's amino acids (whether it's a complete protein or not). Most things are 100g.... but some (1/2 pint, 2 slices of bread etc) I took what was on the original list. . . . oops. Check someone who knows their stuff for better information!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_protein.shtml
www.vegsoc.org/info/protein.html

www.nutritiondata.com