How’s Your Health Been Lately?

That’s the question I have to ask when I see article after article pushing people into bulk buying of things that aren’t even necessary to the healthy human diet as a way of “making the budget go farther.”

Which budget are we talking about here? Are we only tackling ONE budget at a time?

You can buy all the 50 lb. bags of beans, flour, oats, and spices you want, but in the end, life will always intervene, making those purchases white elephants in one form or another. Let me give you some examples:

1. rancidity

2. food allergies

3. new or ever-changing dietary restrictions

4. relocation

Instead of only relying on bulk purchases to save me money, I borrow a trick from Doris Jantzen Longacre (the author of More with Less): shorten the shopping list.

I have spent countless hours researching medical and nutrition journals trying to find THE foods we should eat, and believe me, the Food Guide Pyramid isn’t even close! The Pyramid is loaded with recommendations that are politically motivated and ingrained into our medical establishment as dogma, and that dogma has been around for over 50 years. The Pyramid has never really had a good update, only the graphics have been spiffed up and exercise has been added—no new (or fewer) food categories, no new (or fewer) servings of anything (I believe less carbs in our diet is very much in order), and never, NEVER an entry for water, the most important food in our lives.

Too many times, the food focus has been on “cheaper” rather than “fewer and more effective.” Just like less is more when it comes to junk and clutter, it also pertains to food and nutrition. Too much focus on “cheaper” is what got us into the China dependency—just about everything we wear, virtually all our toys, nearly everything we use for furniture, and about ¾ of everything we eat comes from China (or nearby countries) in search of “cheaper”. We now know that we’re putting our lives at risk by falling for “cheaper.” You get what you pay for eventually.

As many have already done, make the switch to QUALITY rather than “cheaper” by learning to garden or buying locally-sourced food (organic or not) where you know where the farm is, or who owns the store and where the items in it ultimately come from. Like an L.L. Bean jacket or a Land’s End flannel shirt, you want your food to deliver as much quality to you in the form of nutrients your body can use, and this isn‘t done with “cheap” foods. The fresher the food is, the more nutrients it delivers to you—this means gardening or buying locally (organic or not).

More often than not, the very people crying out for universal health care are the same people who say they can’t afford fresh produce—do you see the connection yet? The fresher and more raw your produce, and the more you eat it, the less likely you are to need health care beyond the basics. Food (especially fresh and nutritious) is your medicine, and it does double-duty beyond your food budget—it also covers your health care insurance.

The vegetarians and hippies of the 60’s and 70’s had it right all along—the vegetarian diet is the healthiest and most preventative with some exceptions. For the most part, however, this covers all we really truly NEED to eat—we don’t need grains, meat, and dairy products for the comparatively sedentary lives we lead today, and nutritional yeast can make up for the missing B-12 from eliminating meat.

I did come across a couple of nutritious grains—quinoa and amaranth. These two contain actual protein, vitamins and minerals, and are low in carbs compared to rice, pasta, potatoes, and other commonly used carb-laden starches. Quinoa by itself is a complete protein, making it a good alternative to meat or protein combinations made with grains, seeds, nuts, and dairy.

As one who personally eats this way due to food allergies, it sure has gone a long way to helping MY budget far and beyond what bulk-buying by the pound did for it. I even went so far as to narrow down what specific produce would give me the most bang for my buck nutrition-wise: berries (black- blue- and straw-), plums, navel oranges, red bell peppers, broccoli, and carrots. Out of all the vast arrays offered in grocery stores and farmer’s markets, these foods have the most individual nutrients and anti-oxidants to offer, and that’s where I choose to put my money. I do eat extremely lean meat and mixed greens, but that’s because I like salads. The meat I grind, add reconstituted TVP, cook in a large pan, drain, then stir in nutritional yeast, spices, and psyllium powder (or sometimes flax meal). I then sub-divide the meat into 2-serving portions and freeze, making one measly pound of meat go for five meals. The leaner cuts I get, the more goes into the freezer at the end.

Most of our health problems today stem from a very few items (although the doctors would never tell you this for fear of unemployment):

1. too many calories

2. too little actual nutrition

3. too much protein

4. too many carbs for the activity level

5. too much marketing influence by various food lobbies

6. too much acid in the blood

Consequently, this also coincides with the results of going “cheap” in order to save on groceries and the food budget. Pre-packaged foods happen to contain all of the above problems plus a few more, like off-the-chart sodium levels.

If you are really interested in doing better for yourself and your food budget, I suggest you hone your food parameters to what your body REALLY needs instead of what your taste buds, spouse, or children WANT. It may sound boring, but it sure answers the call of the budget, the body’s need for nutrients, and less energy consumption—it takes less time to prepare (little to no cooking required), and less room to store (no pantry required). Save the canned goods and dry foods for emergencies, because that’s about all they’re good for!

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the nutrition labels and count the number of 0% numbers in the %DV column and the additional vitamin designations just below the label—the more zeros your food has, the more zeros you put into your body. Time after time, I pick up and turn over foods that have more carbs and fat in them than anything else—the most nutritious canned foods I have yet to find are organic kidney and black beans. Even salsa is mostly zeros for nutrients, meaning it’s a junk food by the time processors have had their evil way with it. All these zeros are the empty calories doctors, nutritionists, and gym trainers talk about, whether in their own books, on the radio, on TV, in the paper, or face-to-face, and now you can see them for yourself.

The most nutritious foods are ones without a nutritional “warning” label, and this means fresh produce (I already named the most beneficial pieces known to date), fresh meats/eggs/nuts, and clean water. If you feel the need to bulk buy, concentrate on these foods—you’re taking care of hunger, health care, and the budget all in one shot. The rest is just bad habit, and we all have bad habits we need to break.

Now that the shopping list is shortened, I’m sure your time, space, energy, and monetary budgets are happier for it—no coupons required, because these foods rarely go on sale. They don’t need to—they’re pretty much already at rock-bottom prices, unless you grow them yourself.

You can't pull health off a shelf somewhere and put it in your cart unless you know exactly where it is and what it means to you, "bargain" or no.