But I Can’t Afford To Eat Healthy!
Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living

But I Can’t Afford To Eat Healthy!

Sarah

The concept of Make America Healthy Again is polarizing. If I post about it on my personal Facebook page, I get angry strangers screaming. It’s so oddly weird how they want to protect junk food, highly processed food, and bio-engineered/GMO items. It’s great for engagement, and Meta is giving me a few dollars a month for pocket change, but it led me to ponder: Why are they so against eating cleaner? What angers these people so much? Before the Covid years, these same people were railing about how disgusting our agriculture was in the United States and how we needed food that wasn’t poisoning us…but somehow we flipped?

I often argued with Kirk that we couldn’t afford to buy larger quantities of protein and fresh vegetables. Our shopping bills were already high enough. I would rely on carbs to pad out meals so I could feed 5 to 6 people every meal. Stretch the meat and produce, if you will.

I complained bitterly after every shopping trip in the past two or three years. Everything was so expensive. Comparing the prices I had photographed two to four years ago, I could see how prices had changed. It was miserable to shop, to come out with a few bags, and to spend $125 with little to show for it.

But something happened that I wasn’t expecting once we changed how we eat.

I wasn’t paying attention to how many extras went in the shopping cart every trip. It doesn’t matter if it is mainstream brands or organic/non-GMO; it’s a lot of carbs: pasta, rice, tortillas, chips, crackers, pre-popped popcorn, cookies, snacks for lunches, bread, bagels, and granola bars. But once I stopped buying these items? My deal was we could only eat these things if I or one of them made them from scratch. I bought meat, dairy, and produce without raising the bill. Suddenly, I had more money in our budget. I could afford more meat, produce, and eggs in the off-season. We are eating less because of the density of the food. I find I am full quicker during dinner when I am eating grain-free.

When I cook dinner now, it is nearly always keto-friendly, high-protein, low-carb, and focused on fat content (not too much, not too little, and healthy fats only – no seed oils). Some nights, I make a small dish of a complex carb for the boys, or they have tortillas warmed up with dinner. They need enough carbs to grow. I also make bread for them several times a week. I bake sugar-free muffins or cookies using clean-living recipes for their school lunches. Are they always happy? No. But they are adapting. It takes time to change.

This leads to my thoughts on this topic.

Maybe we can afford to eat healthier if we opt out of the system, which relies on us (the consumer) to buy a never-ending stream of processed foods that are often ready to eat.

Why do we feed cold cereal to children before school? When, instead, would two eggs and a bit of meat keep them fueled for hours? Breakfast cereal is quite expensive if it is not on sale. A box for $5 might serve two to three bowls now. And they will crash quickly after the simple carbs wear off. They don’t need that for learning. Eggs, while also expensive (in the western states due to heavy laws recently enacted), are still a bargain due to protein density.

It’s the same for lunches and dinners. Multi-national food companies have indoctrinated us for decades (since the end of WWII) that dinner should look a certain way or that lunch has a sandwich. Portable? Yes, but not necessarily the highest achievement of mankind.

I now spend Sundays batch cooking, so I don’t panic and run to the store to buy treats for their lunches. I make Kirk his breakfasts two times a week. He eats when he is ready, as he is doing some fasting mornings, but it is ready for him.

My big step right now is chopping up, washing, and drying lettuce greens for my lunches. If tucked away, they last in the refrigerator for days, which ensures I make myself a salad many days. If I do the work, I will eat better. Being hungry and not having a solid choice leads to bad decisions.

Another oddity I have noticed?

In the past month, I rarely enter any grocery store aisles. All I am shopping for is the meat, produce, and dairy aisles. If needed, I might wander down the spice aisle.

The other day, I walked into a local grocery store and noticed how oddly colored “food” is in its packaging. We might as well be fish tempted to grab a lure. It’s all colorful; the brighter the coloring, the more entranced you get. It used to be that the “natural” choices had more muted colors, but not anymore. Even brown is vivid these days.

I thought we were an ingedient household for years, I realize now, even that is flawed. Many things I bought then, I wouldn’t buy now. Instead of buying canned vegetables, beans, and even pasta sauce, I have to make it from scratch to stay within how I want us to eat—minimal sugar, minimal wheat, no ultra-processed food, no seed oils, and so forth. I took what I thought was an outlier diet and changed it to a level I wasn’t sure I could do. It isn’t easy, for sure. But I know it’s worth it.

Another thing to watch is eating in season. Do I want blueberries in November? Sometimes, yes, and I will pay for that luxury.

This is forcing me to look at produce when shopping. Buy North America first. Potatoes, apples, onions, and garlic are all US-grown! You don’t need to buy imported all year long.

But maybe I should only use bell peppers in season and not buy grapes from Peru in January.

Because that alone will save me money and allow me to buy more California-grown romaine lettuce!

So yes, I can afford to eat now, but it comes with tight restrictions. Maybe we should all try this: Eat in season, buy as little processed food as you can, and stay out of the inner aisles of the grocery store. You might find your shopping trips faster, more affordable, and better for your body. For me, just eating a lot less has also helped. It’s helping me feel better.

~Sarah

Handcrafted Lemon Bars
Recipes

Handcrafted Lemon Bars

Sarah

Our middle son made these lemon bars the other day while I was out. At 14, he is a talented baker. I was highly impressed with these bars, some of the best lemon bars I have ever tasted. I was so good that I only ate one square, no matter how much I wanted to wolf them down. They are not diet-friendly, to say the least, and quite high in sugar. A treat here and there is OK, and this I really enjoyed. But it’s a very rare treat!

Handcrafted Lemon Bars

Shortbread Ingredients:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • 2 cups + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Lemon Filling Ingredients:

  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 6 large eggs
  • 1 cup lemon juice

Optional:

  • Powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325° and line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper (leave a little for overhang).

Mix the shortbread ingredients together; it will be thick. Press firmly into the prepared pan, so it is even.

Bake for 20-22 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.

Remove from the oven and poke holes on the top (but don’t go through to the bottom).

Set aside.

Meanwhile, to make the filling:

Sift the sugar and flour into a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice until combined.

Pour the filling over the warm crust. Bake the bars for 22-28 minutes or until the center is relatively set and no longer jiggles like gelatin.

Let cool completely at room temperature, then chill for 1-2 hours before cutting.

Once chilled, lift out by the parchment paper onto a cutting board and cut into squares.

Dust with powdered sugar (use a small sieve to shake it through) over the bars.

Store chilled, and eat within a day or two for best results.

~Sarah

Handcrafted Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Soup
Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living · Recipes

Handcrafted Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Soup

Sarah

Thanksgiving and Christmas are troubling holidays—not for what most might think of. For me, it is the food. Every corner of the grocery store is a minefield of highly preserved “food” that most of America serves without blinking. Canned cream of mushroom soup is easy to grab. Just scrape out the can, add a can worth of milk, and in a few minutes, you have green bean casserole ready for the holiday oven.

But what is in that can? There are many ingredients we could avoid. Cheap GMO/BE seed oils, soy protein concentrate, MSG, and yeast. For me, yeast (think nutritional yeast) often causes me to get a niacin flush across my face. It is why I cannot use many ready-to-use chicken broths. I don’t enjoy flushing, for sure.

Ingredients (Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, 10.5-ounce can)
Water, Mushrooms, Vegetable Oil (Corn, Canola, And/Or Soybean), Modified Cornstarch, Wheat Flour, Salt, Cream, Whey, Soy Protein Concentrate, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Dried Garlic, Natural Flavoring.

The thing is, we can replicate that added MSG with fresh mushrooms, giving the savory flavor – but naturally. Instead of a few tiny dice of mystery black fungi, this soup is full of tasty bits! Enjoy it. And no protein concentrates needed, nor wanted.

If you need dairy-free, use your favorite unsweetened and unflavored non-dairy milk. I wouldn’t suggest coconut though, as it tends to be naturally sweet.

Handcrafted Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

  • 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 8 ounces button mushrooms, chopped finely
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder
  • 1 tsp low sodium vegetable bouillon powder*
  • ¼ tsp fine sea salt and ground black pepper

Directions:

In a large, heavy saucepan, heat the oil over medium. Add the mushrooms and saute, stirring often, until they are fully cooked and have let out all their moisture.

Add in the milk, cornstarch, broth powder, salt, and pepper, mixing well with a whisk.

Continue whisking as it thickens – it will become very thick.

Take off the stove, transfer to a storage container, and chill.

Use in place of one can condensed soup as called for in recipes. To use in a green bean casserole, stir in 10 ounces of milk, then proceed as normal.

Notes:

*Making your own low-sodium vegetable broth powder is easy. Here is one recipe for it.

~Sarah

Bread Machine Soft Dinner Rolls
Recipes

Bread Machine Soft Dinner Rolls

Sarah

Our 14-year-old and I made these rolls for Thanksgiving dinner. Using our bread machine, it was so easy to make the dough. Let it do the heating, the kneading, and the first rising. Hands-on time was less than 15 minutes, meaning I wasn’t bogged down with even more labor-intensive work in the kitchen, especially on a day when I was cooking all day long.

Soft Dinner Rolls

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup milk
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 large egg, whisked
  • 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt
  • 360 grams of all-purpose flour + up to 60 grams additional
  • 2¼ tsp instant yeast

Directions:

Add ingredients in the order listed, nestling the yeast in the flour in a bread machine. If using a non-Zojirushi bread machine, follow your machine’s directions. The Zoji heats the liquids before it kneads; one that doesn’t you will want to heat the milk and butter to about 110°

Set the dough setting. (On our machine it takes 1 hour 50 minutes.)

Once it starts kneading, add flour as needed until it produces a tacky dough (not wet) and forms into a single ball.

Near the end of the cycle, plug in a heating pad to medium and take out a 9×13″ glass baking dish—oil lightly with olive or avocado oil.

Take the dough out and cut into 16 even portions.

Gently form each section into a round ball. Place into the dish.

Cover the dish with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel. Place on the heating pad for 60 minutes to rise.

In the last 15 minutes, preheat the oven to 350°.

Bake for 25 minutes or golden on top.

Let it cool on a rack before using a thin spatula to break it apart.

Store any uneaten rolls in a plastic bag or airtight container for up to another day.

Makes 16 rolls.

Note:

Instant yeast, also sold as “bread machine” yeast, is different from standard dry active yeast.

~Sarah

Ranch Seasoning Mix/Ranch Chicken Salad
Recipes

Ranch Seasoning Mix/Ranch Chicken Salad

Sarah

We eat salad greens topped with chicken salad quite often for lunches. It is an easy lunch, so I can add whatever I want to it. Usually, I mix canned chicken with Greek yogurt and use that as the “salad dressing” for the greens. I decided the yogurt needed more flavor, and this easy, dry mix quickly pulled together. Just enough to remind you of ranch dressing without the negatives. While one can buy ranch dressing mix at most stores, the ingredients are not your friend.

Hidden Valley dry mix:

Maltodextrin, buttermilk, salt, monosodium glutamate, lactic acid, dried garlic, dried onion, spices, citric acid, less than 1% of: calcium stearate, artificial flavor, xanthan gum, carboxymethylcellulose, guar gum, natural flavor (milk, soy)

You can skip the maltodextrin, MSG, lactic acid, citric acid, calcium stearate, artificial flavor, xantham gum, carboxymethylcellulose, guar gum, and natural flavor (milk, soy). You don’t need the dried buttermilk (which is fine) because you don’t need it if using Greek yogurt. The fewer ingredients you use that are heavily processed, so much the better. For you, your GO tract, and your health.

Pulling the herbs together.

Ranch Seasoning Mix

Ingredients:

  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp dried chives
  • 1 tsp dried dill weed
  • 1 tsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tsp granulated onion
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt

Directions:

Mix the dry ingredients, add to a blender, and process until finely powdered.

Store in a sealed jar, such as a 4-ounce mason jar.

Makes 3 portions of about 1½ tsp each.

Powdered seasoning mix.

Ranch Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

  • 1½ tsp dry ranch seasoning mix
  • 12-ounce can of chicken breast, drained
  • ½ cup Greek yogurt*

Directions:

Break the chicken up with a fork, then mix the seasoning and Greek yogurt in. Cover and chill for an hour for the best taste.

Use up within 2 days.

Serves 2.

*When buying Greek yogurt, read the ingredient list. It should only contain dairy and live cultures. Avoid those with pectin, gelatin, or gums added.

~Sarah