https://www.youtube.com/watchREMtrumpendofworld
Great staples to have on hand are rice, dry lentils, dry chickpeas, dried fruit, oats, nuts, peanut butter, honey, jam, coconut oil, GHEE, sugar, flour, wheat berries, milk powder, Ener-G Egg Replacer, chocolate, coffee, tea, crackers, cookies, yeast, salt, canned tomatoes, canned fish, and Kraft diner. Spices really help to have on hand because if you have to eat cooked beans or lentils so many times in a row you are going to want to at least be able to change up the spices. If you don't buy spices then while you are cooking people will be breathing down the back of your neck waiting for you to faint from exhaustion so they can get their hands on something that tastes better.
One million calories would easily get one person through the year without a hitch because they would be able to eat well over 2300 calories per day. If the rest of the world was starving you probably wouldn't want to make it look too obvious that you were getting fat. You'd be the only one going out for a run and flapping your big fat ass around the neighborhood while everyone else was practicing their accuracy with a handgun.
For one person to stock up on a year's worth of calories it would cost $2635.70. It seems like a pretty plush cushion going into things but without a precise daily menu that you have tried to follow at least once I would not recommend proceeding with a ration diet unless your loved ones know how to gently put you in a straight jacket. People realize too late that they just can't cope with having a monotonous food supply. They can cope with monogamy but that's easy to handle with a significant selection of local or foreign alcohol.One way to keep from getting shot is to yell occasionally "I have a special recipe for bannock!"
It would really help to have flavorful teas on hand. I would suggest each person should be able to drown their monotony sorrows in at least one nice cup of tea per day. That is a total of 360 tea bags in one year which adds up to eighteen boxes of tea per person at an extra cost of $63. During the wars soldiers were provided with packets of mustard, ketchup, spicy sauces, soy sauce and plum sauce to give them an alternative to going insane eating rationed foods. Nowadays MREs are far more sophisticated and taste much better. Still most of the MREs are heavily based on corn products which makes them affordable but it also makes it so most people will gradually get weak and feel sick eating them over time. Corn is not a food you eat to feel well. It's that simple.
http://anitasorganic.com/products/organic-whole-grains/wheat-hard-red.php
Buy their wheat berries they store better. 1 cup wheat berries produces 1 3/4 cup flour.
Your new vocation in the case of global chaos would naturally be to become the Person Who Produces Cookies (PWPC). In such a case you'd be wise to look into a solar oven to keep the supply going. In fact, a whole cookie factory could stand by to operate on solar power. Unless you are planning to keep chickens you will want to know about egg replacement options.
http://www.thekitchn.com/5-vegan-substitutes-for-eggs-in-baking-tips-from-the-kitchn-136591
Here is your homework PWPC. Here is your recipe discovered in the More With Less Cookbook on page 287. Recipe submitted by Elsie Epp and Miriam LeFever.
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Makes 28 cookies according to blogger
Oven Temperature: 375 degrees
Bake Time: 9 minutes
Cream together:
1 cup ghee (may use half ghee and half coconut oil)(organic ghee even better)
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup organic brown sugar
1/2 cup organic white sugar
2 servings of egg or Egg Replacer NON ALGAE KIND
1 tsp vanilla
Add:
1 1/2 cup organic white flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups organic rolled oats
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Mix well, make into 28 balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 9 minutes. Each cookie is 196 calories.
If you had enough cookies on hand, you might actually enjoy the end of the world. You might even wish it happened more often. The only question on the mind of a PWPC is how many can be made in advance? Will the absence of eggs and perishable butter make it so these cookies are built to last even at room temperature? Project Munch will try to answer these questions. Project Munch is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and make hundreds of cookies.
Actually Project Munch is just testing two cookies for signs of longevity. The cookie with egg replacer and ghee is squaring off against a "normal" cookie with real butter and egg. They will sit out for a period of one week in a zip-lock bag and then I will test them and see which one wins the longevity test. It's not very scientific but I'm not a scientist nor do I have a lab. The main idea is to come up with a cookie that can be made completely from non perishable ingredients, and doesn't cause an upset stomach. It's been said you should only leave a cookie out for four hours but a batch of 30 would have to sit out for six days in the event of loss of power.
http://www.best-ever-cookie-collection.com/cookie-trivia.html
As a PWPC keeping one person stocked with five cookies per day for one year here is your grocery list:
17 jars of ghee (800grams each $13.80 each) $234.60
Ghee is far better because it's designed to be stored at room temperature. It does not have to be refrigerated.
48 containers of organic sugar (900g each) $264
3 bottles pure vanilla (100 ml each) $30
6 bags of organic flour (2 kg each) $63
(for the best assurance that your flour will not go rancid store wheat berries instead and buy a hand crank flour mill for the home.)
12 bags organic oats (1 kg each) $66
1 container soda (250 g each) $2
1/2 container salt (750g each) $5
18 bags of Chipits (1.8 kg each) $324
2 bags Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer NOT WITH ALGAE (453 grams each $15.00 each)$30
2 bags of egg replacer equals 128 eggs which is eight more than needed.
12 jars peanut butter (1 kg each) $96
Total: $1114.60
calories contributed by 1800 cookies: 364,680 calories.
You will have to make a batch of 30 cookies five times a month which means by the end of the year you will have made 1,800 cookies. Good for you! If you have some time on your hands take a whole week and make 150 cookies per day! That takes a big bite out of your caloric requirements! Only 463,320 calories to go to get to 828,000 calories! Why is it important to get to 828,000 calories? Because your daily need might be very close to 2,300 calories and 2,300 x 360 days= 828,000.
Tentative Daily Survival Diet
20 grams coffee grounds 0 cal $0.50
1 tsp sugar (4 grams 15 cal) $0.02
1 tsp non fat milk powder (2 grams 5 cal) $0.02
5 homemade organic cookies 865 cal $3.90 NO ALGAE! PLEASE! NO CORN SYRUP!
1 cup regular jasmine rice (90g) 326 cal $0.21
1 cup regular lentils (100g) 230 cal $0.35
16 organic crackers (42 g) 180 cal $0.40
2 tbsp Adams peanut butter (32g) 200 cal $0.14
1/2 cup regular raisins (80g) 240 cal $0.48
2 tbsp pesto sauce (30ml) 115 cal $0.73
1 cup KD (roughly 1/3 package) (85g) 318 cal $0.58
Calories achieved: 2494
Cost achieved: $7.33
After having made your five batches of cookies per month for a year you will have now produced a grand total of 957,357 calories. To get to that million calorie mark you've been dreaming of just add two more eight kilogram bags of rice. Now you have 1,014,733 calories for your year. That's a surplus of 186,733 calories. That's enough to keep a slave alive so they can run all my errands for me. Divide the surplus by 360 days and that's 518 calories for my slave to eat every day. Wow, they're really going to be mad. That's just a bowl of rice and lentils for them per day and that's it.
Can you imagine what it would be like to shop for all this stuff all at once? You would need about ten shopping carts to shop for the ultimate year's list. The overall mass of all this stuff would be 311 kg, that includes all the food for the cookie recipes. That's a lot of food. That's 685 pounds of food that could be eaten in one year! The process of gathering all this stuff would take one person somewhere around eight hours of shopping. In actuality you would probably have to make eight separate trips to the grocery store each on a separate day to give them a chance to restock.You would have to work on it over time. In an emergency situation you would probably only be able to stock up on one month of food that is if you were lucky enough to get in and out of the store without getting trampled. People have been trampled over a free jar of canola oil which pales in comparison to an actual emergency. It would take one more day of work to transfer all the grains into 5 gallon pails.
The use of five gallon pails extends the life of your survival stash. The bigger the size of the food pieces the better the process works because it gives the carbon dioxide room to diffuse and drive out the air. Put a block of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) in the bottom and then slowly start adding the dried food. The carbon dioxide will start to emanate from the bottom driving out the air. When you see the carbon dioxide gas coming up through the top after you are done filling then seal the plastic lid on there. This is great for things like wheat berries, whole coffee beans, Chipits, rice, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts and raisins. Good! You are good for the year! Lean in closer if you are suicidal. What are the chances of a suicidal survivalist? Not very high.
http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-Dry-Ice
http://www.thefoodguys.com/dryice.html
There seems to be some confusion about how long you should let the bucket, dry ice, and food sit before sealing the lid on. I think the best thing to do would be to try it first and then make sure the whole bucket doesn't split from the pressure of expanding gas. The last thing you want is to end up with 24 split buckets and food everywhere. That would be really demoralizing.
http://realfoodliving.com/blog-post/preserve-and-store-grain-with-dry-ice
I like this link even better. I like their idea of putting a paper plate over the 2oz of dry ice to keep from burning the food instead of just a paper towel. Then once they are an inch from the top they put another paper plate face down and then another 2 oz of dry ice.
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/howmuchinthebucket
For a family of five you could expect to spend $13,142 to famine proof your family for a year. A family of five would mean a backup of 120 buckets of food. You could just about fill a whole room in the house with that. During that year you could alternately sprout your lentils which adds a great source of greens which might be otherwise unavailable. Sprouting increases the available vitamin content in the lentils and that is where you will get your vitamin C. It's important to try sprouting green lentils in advance as there is a bit of a trick to it. You don't want to waste food. Do not attempt to sprout red lentils because they have had the hull removed. They cannot be sprouted no matter how hard you try. Practice cooking lentils and rice to make sure you've got it right. Experiment with different flavors of cooked lentils to avoid monotonous flavor. It doesn't seem like a hardship until you're on day seven of rice and lentils and then someone is going to want to put you in a straight jacket and the sad thing is you will probably enjoy life more once they have restrained you.
Having comfort foods on hand that are pleasing like coffee is something that can never go wrong in fact being able to produce a pot of coffee even when there's no power to boil water or run a coffee grinder you will be a hero without question. In terms of a year's supply you need about 8 kg of coffee beans. Based on my own daily tracking I use 20 grams of coffee per day. Coffee beans are easy to store by the bucket and dry ice method because there is more than enough room for the carbon dioxide to diffuse around the beans and ensure the air is driven out. Put in a tsp of powdered milk in your coffee every day and over the course of a year that adds up to 720 grams. You want at least 1 kg of sugar just for sweetening coffee or tea.
http://www.eater.com/drinks/handgrinders
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sprouting/how-to-sprout-lentils/
Don't forget your Luminaid and your Life Straws!
http://eartheasy.com/lifestraw
http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/luminaid-solar-powered-inflatable-light/6000189653111
I tried this Luminaid pillow one summer. It lasted all summer and it may have lasted longer if I'd been more diligent about putting it in the sun every day. They have such a soothing glow.
One Person Eats For 360 Days With Left Overs
17 jars Nanak Desi Ghee (800 grams each $13.80 each 7008 cal each) 119,136
49 containers organic sugar (900 grams each $5.50 each 3375 cal each) 165,375 cal
3 containers pure vanilla extract (100 ml each $10 each 243 cal each) 729 cal
6 bags organic white flour (2kg each $10.50 each 7000 cal each) 42,000 cal
15 kg wheat berries ($3/kg 3270 calories per kg) 49,050 cal
12 bags oats (1 kg each $5.50 each 3750 each) 45,000 cal
1 container baking soda (500 grams $1.32 each 0 cal each) 0 cal
1 container sea salt (750 grams $5 each 0 cal each) 0 cal
18 bags Chipits (1.8 kg each $18 each 8400 cal each) 151,200 cal
2 bags Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer (453 grams each $11 each 1920 cal each) 3840 cal
24 jars peanut butter (1 kg each $8.00 each 6250 cal each) 150,000 cal
4 bags jasmine rice (8 kg each $19 each 28,688 cal each) 114,752 cal
(I've seen 8 Kg bags of rice sell for $11)
36 bags GREEN lentils (1 kg each $3.50 each 3,500 cal each) 126,000 cal
90 boxes organic cracker (200 grams each $2 each 857 cal per box) 77,130 cal
29 bags raisins (1 kg each $6.00 each 3000 cal each) 87,000 cal
57 jars pesto sauce (190 grams each $4.60 each 728 cal each) 41,496 cal
30 kg pasta (136 boxes KD 225 grams each $1.50 each 840 cal each) 114,240 cal
2 cases of Bob's Red Mill powdered milk (2492 grams each $37.39 each 12,360 cal each) 24,720 cal
18 packages coffee (454 grams each $12 each 0 cal each) 0 cal
360 tea bags (eight boxes $7.80 each 1 cal each) 360 cal
2 bottles Sriracha hot chili sauce (750 ml each $4 each 750 cal each) 1,500 cal
Total Cost: $2,635.7
Cost/10,000 calories: $20
Total calories: 1,313,078
Left overs: 485,078 calories
5 gallon buckets required: 24
Cost of buckets: $131.28
Cost of dry ice: $24 for six pounds. You want four ounces per bucket.
97 pounds of sugar fits into 3 buckets.
26 pounds of flour fits into 1 bucket.
33 pounds of wheat berries fits into 1 bucket.
26 pounds of oats fits into 2 buckets.
71 pounds of Chipits fits into 2 buckets.
70 pounds of white rice fits into 2 buckets.
80 pounds of green lentils fits into 3 buckets.
40 pounds of crackers fits into 2 buckets.
64 pounds of raisins fits into 2 buckets.
66 pounds of pasta fits into 4 buckets.
11 pounds of milk powder fits into 1 bucket.
17 pounds of coffee beans fits into 1 bucket.
https://www.homedepot.ca/foodgradebucket
If you stack them six wide and four high they would fit neatly against any wall.
Note: This stock list was constructed for a specific set of recipes for one year. After the one year was over it would leave a person with a very unpleasant selection of foods. They might be left eating milk powder and peanut butter on day 361. That is not what we want so just think of this as representing one year even though there is a caloric surplus.
Don't ever underestimate the power of sriracha hot chili sauce to take something bland and make it palatable. A really motivated person would make their own crackers and cut the cracker cost by half. A really motivated person would make their own hard tack but that involves a specific drying process. If a person doesn't achieve the exact amount of dryness in a cracker or hard tack they will just go bad and you will waste food. Conversely if you store too much without taking care to store food in an oxygen free environment then the food will go stale, you won't want to eat it, and you will waste food.
There are some varieties of sources you can purchase large quantities of wheat berries.
www.saanichtonfarm.com/grains.html
$36 for 12 kg wheat berries. They charge $3 per kg for wheat berries although I read that the red hard is for bread not so much for cookies so the PWPC project is a little bent out of shape about that.
www.bobsredmill.com
If you just buy the small bags available at the grocery store it actually only costs $4 more for 12 kg than going direct through the mill. That is a pleasant surprise.
http://goldforestfarms.blogspot.ca/p/flour-and-heritage-grains-sales.html
12 kg of wheat berries would be sold for $72.
Project Munch Reflects on Ten Days on a Non Perishable Diet
I guess to call it a "ration" diet would be wrong because a ration implies there is not enough to go around and a person is eating less than they need. This diet provides enough of what I need but it is simply based on items that can sit on a shelf for months at a time. A person could continue on this diet if they had these food items in the pantry and they had water, and a method of baking. Even if it came down to a fire there's ways to cook food as long as you have it on hand. The old survival adage is "what you have is what you will need."
As you can tell I gave up on shopping for organic food unless for my precious chocolate chip cookies. Those will forever be golden. I'm really not comfortable substituting egg replacer for egg or ghee for butter unless for the occasional experiment. It takes away too many things from the finished product. I guess that means I will have to be really good friends with someone who keeps chickens and dairy cows.
The oats knocked the wheat berries off the shopping list. I eliminated crackers, peanut butter, and raisins from the menu and replaced that with morning oatmeal. The good news about the morning oatmeal is that it's getting easier to appreciate the flavor. Two tbsp of applesauce go a long way to make oatmeal really enjoyable. The actual menu plan looks slightly different than the original sketch. Lets look at how it adds up over a year. It ends up being around $243.42 more per year. When it's analyzed for cost per 10,000 calories it amounts to $23.80/10 000 calories.
A New Day's Diet
2 heaping tbsp ground coffee (20 grams) $0.50 0 cal
1 tsp sugar (4 grams) $0.02 15 cal
1 tsp milk powder (2 grams) $0.02 5 cal
1/2 cup raw oats (40 grams) $0.20 150 cal
into the cooked oats add:
2 tbsp apple sauce (30ml) $0.14 14 cal
1 tbsp hemp seeds (11 grams) $0.36 56 cal
1/2 tbsp flax seed (4 grams) $0.04 20 cal
1 tbsp chia seeds (10 grams) $0.34 46 cal
1 tbsp raisins (10 grams) $0.05 39 cal
1/4 tsp cinimon (1.5 grams) $0.01 2 cal
3 chocolate chip cookies $1.71 552 cal
1 cup cooked white rice (90 grams) $0.21 326 cal
1 cup cooked lentils (100 grams) $0.35 230 cal
1 tsp miso (6 grams) $0.12 15 cal
1 tsp Bragg seasoning $0.18 0 cal
1 tsp olive oil $0.16 40 cal
2 tbsp pesto sauce (30 ml) $0.75 115 cal
2 cups sprouted green peas (100 grams)$0.25 310 cal
2 rice cakes $0.40 180 cal
2 bags herbal tea $0.50 2 cal
2 tbsp honey $0.50 120 cal
Daily cost: $7.95
Daily calories consumed: 2,237
Monthly $238.50
The Resulting Shopping List for One Year
26 bags of organic oats (1 kg each $5 each 3750 cal each) ($130 all 97500 cal all)
17 jars apple sauce (650 ml each $3 each 300 cal each) ( $51 all 5100 cal all )
8 containers hemp seeds (454 grams each $15 each 2775 cal each) ($120 all 22,200 cal all)
2 bags ground cinnamon (400 grams each $3.70 each 988 cal each) ($7.40 all 1976 cal all)
3 bags flax seed (500 grams each $6.00 each 2666 cal each) ($18 all 7998 cal all)
8 bags of chia seeds (454 grams each $15.50 each 2088 cal each) ($124 all 16,704 cal all)
4 bags raisins (1 kg each $6.00 each 3000 cal each) ($24 all 12,000 cal all)
5 bags jasmine rice (8 kg each $19 each 28,688 cal) ($95 all 143,440 all)
36 bags green lentils (1 kg each $3.50 3500 cal each) ($126 all 126,000 all)
17 jars Nanak Desi Ghee (800 grams each $13.80 each 7008 cal each) ($234 all 119,136 cal all)
49 containers organic sugar (900 grams each $5.50 each 3375 cal each) ($269.50 all 165,375 cal all)
3 containers pure vanilla extract (100 ml each $10 each 243 cal each) ($30 all 729 cal all)
6 bags organic white flour (2kg each $10.50 each 7000 cal each) ( $16.50 all 42,000 cal all)
1 container baking soda (500 grams $1.32 each 0 cal each) ($1.32 all 0 cal all)
1 container sea salt (750 grams $5 each 0 cal each) ($5 all 0 cal)
12 bags Chipits (1.8 kg each $18 each 8400 cal each) ($216 all 100,800 cal all)
2 bags Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer (453 grams each $15 each 1920 cal each) ($30 all 3840 cal all)
NO ALGAE!
12 jars peanut butter (1 kg each $8.00 each 6250 cal each) ($96 all 75,000 cal all)
20 bags whole green peas (1800 grams each $4.50 each 5,580 cal each) ($90 all 111,600 cal all)
55 bags rice cakes (241 grams each $5.50 each 910 cal each) ($302.50 all 50,050 cal all)
57 jars pesto sauce (190 grams each $4.60 each 728 cal each) ($262.20 all 41,496 cal all)
36 boxes of tea (20 tea bags each $7.80 each 20 cal each) ($280.80 all 720 cal all)
15 containers honey (1 kg each $12 each 3000 cal each) ($180 all 45,000 cal all)
6 containers miso (400 grams each $8.00 each 1000 cal each) ($48 all 6000 cal all)
10 bottles Bragg seasoning (180 ml each $6.49 each 0 cal each) ($64.90 all)
5 bottles olive oil (375 ml each $12 each 3000 cal each) ($60 all 15,000 cal all)
Total cost: $2882.12
cost/10,000 calories: $23.80
Monthly cost: $240
Total calories: 1,209,664
Calories available per day: 3360
Calories needed to cover yearly deviation: 144,000
Expected caloric deviation per day: 400
Excess calories available for slave per year: 237,664
Excess calories available for slave per day: 660
Calculations for deviations was based on two months of data
Best monthly deviation over 2300 calories: 400
Worst monthly deviation over 2300 calories: 600
Average of best and worst deviation: 400
On a second peruse of my yearly grocery list I spotted a few things. Two tea bags is affordable but three is not. I added honey and miso to the yearly shopping list because originally I skipped those items in my investigation. Switching between ghee and organic butter isn't that notable a change in cost over a year to really stress too much about it. It's a $24 difference to choose one or the other.
Switching back and forth between eggs and egg replacer isn't too big a savings either. Ten dozen eggs per year costs $45. Going with egg replacer saves $15 over the course of a year. The Umeboshi plums are where I could take a beating financially if I wasn't careful. I could potentially spend $403 per year if I eat a plum per day. A more affordable choice would be to eat two umeboshi plums a month, or reserve them for times of sickness. I will look around to see if there's a cheaper alternative. Even one tablespoon of maple syrup per day drives up the monthly cost by eight dollars which is why I am considering eliminating it completely.
The Camino chips are also too expensive in the long run. At first blush it seems like using less Camino chips in a recipe might make them comparable in cost. The only way you could switch from Chipits to Camino chips without financial difficulty would be if you drop from 351 grams down to 100 grams of Camino chips per batch of cookies. That's a little less than half a bag. That is $3.50/100 grams every recipe, $17.50 a month (just under 2 bags) and $216 per year (27 bags per year).
January 31, 2017
Today marks an exciting day in Project Munch history. Today is the first day a longevity taste test will be performed for two competing types of chocolate chip cookies. The results are in. The cookie with the egg replacer and ghee has undergone a dramatic transformation. The taste is mind blowing. It is sweet and rich. It kicked the regular chocolate chip cookie's ass. The cookie with butter and egg is good but it's only just that, good. There's nothing notable about it other than it's good. It hasn't gone bad thus it is good.
Project Munch will test these same cookies again at the two week mark, the three week mark, and the four week mark. Project Munch may attempt to find the point where these cookies become total crap, in other words the point at which they become inedible. That will provide valuable information ultimately indicating how many batches could be made in a certain time period without risking a loss of stored product.
Acid Alkaline Balance
The umeboshi plum is extremely acidic which has the paradoxical effect of making the body alkaline. Project Munch is proud to announce that there are many alkalizing foods on the yearly survival menu. Flax, cinnamon, miso, and raisins all help in promoting an alkaline balancing effect. Ginger and apple cider vinegar are also great for promoting alkaline adjustments but so far they haven't made it onto the official menu. Ginger isn't exactly non perishable but apple cider vinegar keeps well. Because umeboshi plums are so expensive I might try some other ideas that were suggested to me.
Eat an umeboshi plum or drink one of these drinks:
1) plain water
2) 8 oz water with 1/2 tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate)
3) 8 oz water with 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
4) mix 2 tbsp lemon juice with 1/2 tsp baking soda. Once it stops foaming add 8 oz of water and drink right away.
5) 8 oz of water with 1/2 tsp food grade hydrogen peroxide.
http://www.naturalnews.com/038749_alkalize_pH_balance_disease_prevention.html
https://www.youtube.com/watchwaterfountain
https://www.youtube.com/watchcowpee
https://www.youtube.com/watchcamelpee
https://www.youtube.com/watchwatertemple
http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/Whats_the_issue.php
If you go for the convenience of palm oil then people, forests, and animals will all die. You will live a short happy life while the rest of the planet suffers and then it will all pay off because you will have a heart attack and cost the medical system a lot of money.
http://empoweredsustenance.com/canola-oil-excuses/
Canola oil is a "freak of nature."
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/170-scientific-reasons-to-lose-the-soy-in-your-diet/
Don't eat soy. It will kill you starting with your thyroid.
Looks like all signs are pointing back to the homemade cookies. Once I make cookies again I can eat butter, sugar, eggs and peanut butter and be really happy and a few more people in the world will be happy and drop hints all over the place that I should make them a batch of cookies because they are whipped. Like a good kitchen bitch I'd crawl through the kitchen on my hands and knees, totally unable to resist the massive flavor sensation of a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Then the demand would increase from regular sized cookies to giant cookies and pretty soon they wouldn't even fit in the oven anymore! Then I would need a thermal oven fed from the fires of hell. Then I would gradually use up the heat in hell and then hell would freeze over. Then I could start an ice cream business.
It's almost a week to month end but Project Munch has enough findings to initiate another entry. The most amazing thing I have discovered is that even at an average of 2500 calories per day my weight has not changed at all. Since I have been aiming to eat for maintenance then it was a smash success. The highs of 4000 and lows of 1500 all balanced out even though each day I tried to keep an eye on 2300 as the finishing number. I've come to expect the peaks and valleys as the metabolism's natural way of working. My intention of reaching the 2300 calories mark every day is sort of the regulating mechanism around which the rest can change as it needs to. I still think having a finishing number in mind is a great way to challenge preconceptions of how much food is needed in a day. Age is creeping up on me and my metabolism roars more like a mouse than a lion. Getting old has really come in handy as I really needed a break in spending so much money on groceries. When I was in my twenties I could easily spend $700 a month on groceries although that was eating pre-packaged organic food. People looked at me like I was insane when I told them how much I spent. Now who has the last laugh. Maybe in another ten years I can whittle it down to $4 a day.
Cost wise things are even more on track than I expected. With a diet that has dropped back to 50% organic I have been able to achieve a steady cost of $8.40 per day. This month I spent $300 on groceries but since nearly all of the money went towards non perishable items, $150 of that food can continue sitting in the cupboard. Any of the perishable items became soup and now provide a further $37 worth of food in the freezer. This month I ate some of what I put away in the freezer last month but I always add more so the cycle can continue. No doubt some extremists can eat for far cheaper but I think it's important to hit on as much nutrition as possible and keep bringing home the organics even if it's only organic flour, sugar and coffee to start with.
I'm interested in a diet that can fit into one of the tightest budgets a single woman will ever face, but not result in a body that's so pissed off that it's going to threaten mutiny. Rice and lentils are not cool with the body day in and day out. It's okay for a week, two weeks is a stretch but longer than that variety becomes crucial. I found that the easiest thing to do is wake up, drink coffee, and eat the oat preparation. I make sure that every week I measure out the chia, hemp, flax, raisins, and cinnamon into ziplock bags so in the morning when I'm at my laziest all I have to do is pull the bag out and empty it onto the cooked oats.
The apple sauce is more than sweet enough and I find over time I enjoy it more and more with the oats which is of vital importance. It's interesting the longer I stick to the oats the less I need. I've dropped from needing 1/2 dry cup per day to only 1/3 cup per day. I wonder if it's because once my body becomes attuned to what I've decided to eat it gets very efficient and only wants what it can digest efficiently. To this day my body has never argued with a home made chocolate chip cookie. They are here to stay. No matter what I ask myself to do during a day, all is forgiven as long as there's chocolate chip cookies on the menu.
Since I last constructed the diet with the oat preparation, cookies, lentils, rice, sprouted peas, rice cakes and pesto sauce some things changed. The diet has mutated to look more like this:
breakfast
2 tbsp ground coffee (0 cal $0.55)
1 tbsp sugar (45 cal $0.06)
1 tbsp milk powder 4.25 grams (15.3 cal $0.05)
1/3 cup dry oats cooked and served with 2 tbsp apple sauce and:
1 tbsp hemp seeds, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1/2 tbsp ground flax, 1 tbsp raisins, 1/4 tsp cinnamon
(all together 272 cal $1.20)
snacks
3 homemade chocolate chip cookies (501 cal $1.71)
80 grams Hawkins Cheesies (432 cal $0.60)
lunch and diner
3 bean burgers (300 cal $1.00)
One box organic Nudge mac n cheese (660 cal $3.00)
Total calories 2225
Total cost $8.17
0/5 I think my stomach might explode
3/5 taste
5/5 fully nourished
5/5 overall satisfaction
Homemade organic cheese sauce is good but lacking in a zesty taste. I added a tsp of garlic powder, a tbsp of pesto sauce and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper. It's definitely pleasing to the senses once you've tweaked it to your individual taste. To me it tastes better with extra garlic powder but that's just my personal taste. The most recent batch I would give 5/5 for taste. I made four batches at once and added 2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tbsp chili paste, 1 tbsp pesto sauce, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, and 1 tsp cumin. The second batch was so good that it was holding its own without any noodles. You could eat it as a cheese soup. This meal delivers a lot of extra nutrients and leaves the body feeling rewarded in a really smart sort of way, not the dumb way that requires getting run over by a Kraft Diner delivery truck.
Making organic cheese sauce is pretty expensive and time consuming. There would have to be a pretty strong motivation for a person to go ahead with it, like say a commitment to exploring diet options. Kraft Diner is one of the cheapest foods you can buy and you can even get the feeling of being run over by a truck without leaving your house. Most people these days are likely to confuse that feeling with having achieved the proper amount of nutrition. For this blogger it's fun to believe that for a couple of hours but then reality hits home, I failed to feed myself properly.
Making cheese sauce with organic cheese is an excellent idea if your goal is to feel really thrifty while bringing organic foods into your home. If you don't turn that block of cheese into a cheese sauce it will mysteriously disappear within hours of its debut as a product in your fridge. It's far too delicious to last very long and eating really good cheese by itself just stimulates a craving for wine and before long that $8 day has become a $16 day. Two hundred and six grams of organic cheese costs $8.60. Inside that block of cheese is the potential to make seven batches of cheese sauce. Each batch would cost $2.38 with all organic ingredients. If you put the cheese sauce together with 127 grams of organic pasta you can achieve 716 calories for $3.38.
Annie's organic mac n cheese just doesn't fit the bill for a low cost diet. It definitely leaves a person with a sense of nourishment. Unless you want to give up your fifty cents for coffee it's hard to rationalize $3.50 for one meal item. Nudge recently started making organic grass fed mac n cheese for only $3 a box and you get 660 calories. They even make gluten free mac n cheese. At that price it's hard to argue. In the end it's all a question of how much time do you want to put into meal preparation.You could make the portions and freeze them for convenience or just buy a box of Nudge and avoid standing at the stove with a whisk trying not to snack your way into tomorrow as the sauce thickens. It's practically neck and neck with the boxed Nudge mac n cheese coming in fifteen cents cheaper than home made pasta and cheese sauce. Anyone with depression era financial guilt can throw their guilt to the wind.
http://www.nudgefoods.com/
http://www.dinnerwithjulie.com/2010/04/23/homemade-cheezies/
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cheddar-cheese-sauce
0/5 My stomach is going to explode
5/5 Taste
5/5 feeling nourished
5/5 overall satisfaction
5/5 good price
Two Cheese Soup
makes 4 servings
whisk in a pan:
1 cup organic milk
2 tsp salt
5 tbsp and 1 tsp organic flour
6 tbsp milk powder
1 tbsp chili paste
1 tbsp pesto sauce
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Once it's mixed well add:
3 cups organic milk
bring to boil then simmer two minutes. Take off heat and add:
140 grams grated organic sharp cheddar cheese and a pack of the Nudge powdered organic grass fed cheese mix.
0/5 I feel as good as road kill
5/5 Serve this soup and people will love you forever
With the weather feeling rather chilly and some flu viruses trying to jimmy their way past my immune defenses, it's really comforting to fill up on this organic cheese soup with some organic crackers thrown in for good measure. I did a little sleuthing in between bowls of cheese soup and discovered that if a person is careful about finding the best price in town for organic cheese and milk then they could easily make a batch of organic cheese soup or sauce for $1.63. That means that if you are really careful you can make your own homemade mac and cheese for $2.63 for one serving. No company is any match for the home made version at that point. I just couldn't help it I had to try this with a pack of dry cheese mix thrown in. It jacked up the price to $10 but jacked up the flavor to an amazing level.
In the center is Rassogulla which is an Indian treat made of sweet cottage cheese. Surrounding it are four mini Chinese fruit pudding cups. Add a small bag of Surf Sweets organic jelly beans and stay on top of your vitamin C in the most delicious way possible.
Chomp, munch or gulp it for $3.20
calories: 390
