“Green is not the colour of money, it is the colour of life…..’ – VANDANA SHIVA
There is one thing that is really helping me during these challenging times and that is eating simply. Wartime rationing has taught me how to do this, I can eat simply and healthily and extraordinarily cheaply.
Todays menu with costs:
Breakfast: 1/2 dry cup of organic porridge oats with water/milk/sugar (20 cents or 12 pence)
Lunch: stir fried veggies on wholewheat toast ($1 or 62 pence)
Dinner: wartime potato and lentil curry with a large side salad (60 cents or 37 pence a portion)
Supper: 2 eggless pancakes and jam (30 cents or 19 pence)
Bedtime: mug of cocoa (50 cents or 31 pence)
Total cost = $2.60 or £1.62
Calories = Just under 2000
I looked at the ingredients I used. My oats and flour are always organic as are my lentils and I always use an organic non- dairy milk like almond, flax or hemp. This of course bumps the price up a little but I still like to buy organic when I can. I do not agree with the Monsanto monopoly on seeds, world food and it’s GMO’s so always try hard to buy localish or organic whenever I can. We have a lot of power as consumers if we all do our bit…
I got sidetracked there didn’t I… 🙂
But looking at my diet today, its been practically chemical or processed food free which has to be a good thing doesn’t it? We DO have a choice what we put in our mouths and we can eat a fairly nutritionally balanced diet cheaply if we take the time to prepare and cook.
It’s not easy I know, hell I struggle quite often, but it’s doable.
And doable is keeping me healthy and helping me hang on in there financially while I can’t get a job here in Canada.
If it’s doable, I’ll take it!
C xxxx
PS: I hope you don’t mind my insertion of the videos that are not directly wartime related but FOOD is something I am so very passionate about. Food is so important to us all, everyone should be able to eat food that doesn’t make them ill…
I’m so happy to have discovered your blog. I am also very passionate about food and wholeheartedly agree that ‘everyone should be able to eat food that doesn’t make them ill’. I love this post as I think too often ‘healthy’ and ‘organic’ are equated with ‘expensive’. You do a great job of mythbusting, here.
People complain that healthy food is expensive but it really isn’t. I’d like to share one of my tips – I’m sure everybody does it anyway, though! I like to have sandwiches for my lunch but never keep the bread in the bread bin. I keep it in the freezer and take the bread out as I need it, so it doesn’t go off. I make the sandwich on frozen bread and then by the time lunch comes round, it’s nicely chilled.
I also think buying takeout food is expensive – you’re paying for somebody else to make it and also buying packaging, which is rather wasteful.
Sorry, now I’m going off on a tangent!
What a BRILLIANT website/blog! I just discovered you when I was looking for WW2 images! I am writing a weekly meal plan over at my blog, where I plan to live off rations for 1 week as a way of marking the 11th November, Armistice day! Karen
http://www.lavenderandlovage.com/
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now (congrats on the weight loss!), but I do need something clarified: Do you eat four meals a day? Or what is the difference between dinner and supper?