More False Economies

This week there is a wonderful Dollar Stretcher contribution about false economies. I’d like to add some more, one of which I have mentioned before in my own repertoire of frugal lore.

The original article above mentioned things like stocking up to the point of overstock, shopping at warehouse stores when you only have an average-sized or smaller family, not getting enough out of a warehouse membership for the cost, being forced to repeat purchase something because the item in question was so cheap (cheaply made) to begin with, and waste in general. Oh, the waste!

I’d like to share one of my most controversial favorites—the one that gets me the most hate-mail: carcass meats like whole chickens and whole turkeys. I’ve been preaching about the inefficiencies of whole-carcass meats for some time, such as the cost per pound when the carcass is frozen and filled with ice (which adds weight), and the amount of actual usable meat compared to the amount of bone, fat, and other waste.

Bone-and-broth devotees will write me and say how wrong I am about avoiding buying bone-filled meats, because you supposedly can’t make gelatin for soups and stews without boiling bones, and they state how much healthier those soups and stews are with the gelatin. I’m here to inform you that I, too, make gelatin without a bone in sight—you don’t need bones at all to do it. Meat drippings from browning, broiling, or roasting are all you need—drain the drippings into a bowl and refrigerate overnight, so the fat can rise to the top and harden, leaving pristine gelatin underneath it. The fat layer can be easily removed intact or mostly so, leaving the same gelatin you so fondly crave.

I do this with regularity—I make my own cat food, and the drippings from the meat I brown get strained into a bowl for overnight refrigeration. The next batch of cat food I make after that automatically has a bowl of fat-topped gelatin waiting for it in the fridge—I just remove the top fat layer, and add the underlying gelatin to my food processor, along with the rest of the recipe ingredients. I’ve never used any kind of bone for this, and have all the gelatin I could ever use just by saving my meat drippings and refrigerating them overnight. If you need gelatin sooner than the next day, cook your meat early in the day and refrigerate those drippings NOW—the earlier you can get them into the fridge, the sooner you’ll have evening gelatin. Placing the bowl in the back of the fridge helps cool it down faster.

Rubber chicken devotees will also e-assault me with their stories of how many ways they were able to stretch a carcass after most of the usable meat was already eaten, and again, this points to the waste issue: after you’ve made casseroles, soups, stews, gravies, and gelatins out of your poor bird, what’s left besides WASTE? You paid for those bones, that fat, and that cartilage, and at a per-pound price too. Waste is waste, and if you’re throwing anything at all away when you’re done, it’s waste. If you aren’t grinding those bones up into calcium for the garden, then it’s waste—I can’t think of another way to use bones, other than possibly for a kid’s science or art project.

I leave that particular waste at the grocery store, letting them deal with it instead. I buy (and continue to buy) boneless and 100% usable cuts of meat, and get my gelatin too—no bones about it.

If you find boneless cuts too expensive for daily feeding (and many of my hate-mail writers do), then learn the fine art of price-per-serving and portion control. The Food Guide Pyramid says we only need 3 oz. of meat twice a day, so multiply the number of people you’re feeding times 3 oz., and you get the amount of meat you actually need for your dish—too many people think a whole “family size” package is the norm for a family meal, and it’s meat overkill for many of us. Too many people are guilty of eating more than their fair 3 oz. share of meat at a meal, too, and this is the ultimate waste—right into your toilet! A 1-lb. package of hamburger, before cooking, yields 16 oz., or 5 1/3 raw servings. When cooked, it yields somewhat less, due to the meat/fat percentage. However, this can be remedied by adding reconstituted TVP to the meat, using beans to add protein and fiber, or a handful of nuts, a cup of cheese, a scrambled egg or two, or tofu. The point is we consume way too much meat in one sitting, and our cholesterol profiles are proof of that. Getting a tighter rein on our meat expenditures and portions will go a long way toward minimizing waste, possibly eliminating it altogether.

Avoid the false economies of rubber chicken and bones for gelatin. Instead of buying a whole bird to ultimately make your soups, try using only a portion of that boneless meat family pack, subdividing and freezing the rest. I find a cut-up single boneless chicken breast, boneless beef rib, or boneless pork chop more than adequate for a pot of soup.

Some more thoughts: unplanned leftovers are also a waste—it means you cooked too much to begin with. If you’re packing lunches, then serving the meal, and STILL have leftovers with absolutely no plan for their use, you’ve wasted time, energy, and money—especially when those leftovers get lost in the fridge, and you end up throwing them out a couple of weeks later. Amish people have no refrigeration for their leftovers, and use them to feed the family pig instead--at least SOMEBODY'S getting the benefit of that food!

Those “green bags” that are heavily marketed all over TV currently are another waste, and I’ll tell you how: the lady says that her carrots look like this (wilted and dried out) after 18 days in the fridge, and her other various produce looks even worse for wear after so many days in the fridge—what is her food doing in the fridge for so long? Buy your food to EAT, not to store! In other words, if you have to resort to green bags to keep your produce fresh, you’re buying too much. If her family couldn’t consume that little bit of carrots in 18 days, or the strawberries in 10 days, she just plain bought too much produce, didn’t have a plan to use it, and it became waste. How can this happen when we’re all supposed to be eating 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day? Spending good money on her bags (in my opinion) is creating more waste. Learn to buy what you need, or can use in a week, and have a plan for it all. The best food storage plan I know of is "on the vine" (so to speak)--it doesn't rely on anything but sun, good soil, and some water.

That ethylene gas she talks about is occurring because the nutrients inside are slowly decomposing—the object here is to eat the food before it loses all those vital nutrients. Make soups, salads, and chop or dice sturdy vegetables for the freezer, like peppers, celery, and carrots. Emphasize nutrients rather than using another petroleum-based product that will eventually stop working and become waste itself. Besides, what if you lose power due to a weather emergency? Not only have you lost 2 ½ weeks’ worth of produce, but the bag is now useless too, because it’s lined with rotten produce. Had you purchased correctly, you’d have lost less than a week’s worth if you had a chest freezer— that would become a refrigerator after a couple of days, and last a couple more days.

Just remember you buy food to EAT, not to store, and certainly not to throw away.