Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge...

weezl74 · 30 March 2008 at 12:53PM

Hi Cheerfulness, I use long life cos It's cheaper! You need to add 102ml of single cream to double cream to make the same fat content as whipping cream.

Hope that helps!

Weezl x

cheerfulness4 · 30 March 2008 at 4:45PM

Thanks weezl, thats great. I'm now thinking of all the possibilities with combos. I miss my expensive ice creams.

DenBo_4 · 30 March 2008 at 8:36PM

Hi Weezl74, I shall be looking for the fruit for smoothies tomorrow! Asda won't deliver to us, too far out of their range. But never mind, we are either going to the big one in Milton Keynes, or one in Corby, I can't wait

. Sad I know but I have written a HUGE list, I already know some of the things are much cheaper, I buy their Decaff teabags, £1.50 a box or two for £2 - bargain. I'm specialy interested in the fruit for smoothies, my daughter (25) is very thin and has been advised to eat full fat milk, yogurts etc because she is lacking in calcium, which is affecting her teeth (and bones I would think). She is difficult to persuade to eat much, I will buy full milk and make her fruit smoothies everyday. She usually pops in after work, so I am planning on fooling her into drinking full fat smoothies. I know she is 25 and old enough to look after her own health but I'm her mother, I just gotta help/interfere!!

moanymoany · 30 March 2008 at 8:56PM

Ceridwen is right with the hillbilly housewife. Last time I looked there were links to US government ecook books. There is an Afro American, Hispanic, high blood pressure (lowering that is

) and others. Well worth a look.

I have one of those freeze the base for hours bases ice cream makers. I have 2 good and easy recipes.

The first is to mash 3 ripe bananas with 4 oz sugar - add three quarters of a pint of milk, mix thoroughly and freeze.

The second, get a tin of sweetened condensed milk, mix it with a can ful of milk and freeze. I've added melted dark choccy to this - divine. You can boil the can for 3 hours to make a toffee type ice cream.

Today I made some ice cream with boiled can of milk, equal amount of milk, 2 mashed ripe bananas, and another quarter of a pint of milk. Taste to see if it's sweet enough. I made it then put it in the freezer.

I served it on meringues on bogof at the mo at Tesco's. It was very nice.

weezl74 · 31 March 2008 at 12:44AM

Hi all, back with a bit more rambling,

Thanks to all who've chipped in with thoughts and tips.:A

Good ice cream tips moanymoany, how d'you make enough space in your freezer tho?!;)

A report about day two on the take on the USDA challenge.

A summary of our aims:

Me and Mr. Weezl will attempt to eat a very low cost but nutritious diet, to see if it can be done.

Mr Weezl must not go all skinny, or all our pals will have my proverbials for garters.

If we were on 'food stamps' in America we would get $71.80 a week. This then is the cheapest the US government think healthy eating can be done for. BUT I DON'T AGREE!

My conservative estimate is that this equates to £155.18 a month, but jordylass reckons I could double that because food in the states is cheaper than that. So I'm reckoning I can feed us both for approx between a quarter (my feeble economic attempt) and an eighth of what we would get in state benefits for food in the US.:rolleyes:

So that's the challenge. The US government obviously doesn't think it's possible to live healthily on this amount, or they'd reduce the value of food stamps by 75%. (But then the US govt haven't been that smart about a few things of late;))

So that's the summary, so I'm pleased to report that We both got our 5 portions today (Green bean curry, dhal, sun dried tom. bread):T

The bad news is that the homemade marmalade on Mr Weezl's breakfast toast doesn't count as it has sugar added.:eek:

Worryingly, if I made it again but with sweetener, I could then count it as one of his '5 a day'. Nutritionists for the NHS seem to not have very joined up thinking on that one! (I am going on the UK NHS guidelines for what counts as a portion, since a lot of the stuff on American websites is a bit irrelevant, since we don't have the same food stuffs.:D

Most of the evening meals I've made and frozen for the month contain between 3 and 5 of our portions already, so that's good! Some evenings we'll have to have a pudding with dried fruit in to top us up.:T

Soappie, I think your tips for getting the 5 a day are good, but I don't think I can make this budget of mine stretch to fruit juice! All the other tips are very includable tho, so thankyou muchly! My issue with Value orange juice is that it yields 5 portions of 'fruit and veg' per carton, which is 58p for smart price juice. This sounds impressive til I tell you that would be my whole day's food budget gone on 5 drinks! Also, a 22p bag of currants or sultanas yields 25 of your fruit portions, roughly 12 times the health givingness per pence of the value juice.

Blimey that was a long-winded explanation!

Hope all of this is of use or interest to some of you.

My main hope in doing it is to give some sort of thought-through evidence when we get challenged in real life about whether our budgets can really be that healthy.

Bye for now, Weezl x

weezl74 · 31 March 2008 at 1:00PM

Hiya, Back again.

Having thought about the fruit and veg elements of my tight budget challenge, I've turned my thoughts to protein.

As a 5 foot 6 female, I need 26.6 grams to 47.3 grams protein daily, and Mr. Weezl needs 40.1 grams to 71.3 grams. You can work yours out here.

Right then, are we getting enough protein? It's pretty hard to afford meat everyday, so what about our (4 times a week) veggie days...

Well, I've been amazed at the internet trawl has revealed stuff I'd previously not known. I've been having 2 eggs a day for my breakfast/lunch. I glibly thought this would satisfy my protein requirements. But they only give me 11g, less than half what I need!:eek: More about your daily protein intake and how to make it up from various foods here.

I hadn't thought my HM bread or the rice I have for dinner would help me much, but staggeringly they take me up to the higher end of my daily needs! Baffling stuff...

We also have lentils nearly every day, and our sandwiches contain houmous or cheese, so we are definately both consuming enough protein.:D

Good times:T

Lots of love,

Weezl x

cheerfulness4 · 31 March 2008 at 1:49PM

Its interesting stuff, isn't it? When I was taking Human Physiology with DS1 it was mentioned about the protein in rice (we were doing an experiement to test for it) but I was thinking more in the line of getting energy from the carbs.

Made me realise that I need to learn a lot more about nutrition. I find it fascinating.

Ess-six · 31 March 2008 at 2:12PM

What a fascinating challenge Weezl - good luck to you and the others joining you on this - I'll be watching with interest.

baileysbattlebus · 31 March 2008 at 2:21PM

I holiday in USA quite often and always stay in a villa - and I must admit, I don't find shopping for food particularly cheap, meat is reasonable, as are oranges / bananas / melon etc. But bread, butter milk, eggs are not cheap. Vegetables aren't cheap, there isn't the choice you have here. If you buy supermarket own brand stuff it cheaper than premium brands (same as here).

$71 is not the equivalent of £71 when you shop.

Out of interest I looked at a family of 4 on an income of $1100 per month they would receive $380 per month in food stamps - you cannot live on $1100 per month in USA, especially a family.

And the USA aren't generous in their benefits.

Here is the link to Food Plan

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/MiscPubs/FoodPlansRecipeBook.pdf

weezl74 · 31 March 2008 at 2:38PM

Hillbilly housewife shows how to feed a family of 4 for $70 a week, on her blog listed earlier. She'd get nearly 3 times that amount of food stamps if she were on the lowest income.

I'm not suggesting that anyone on state benefits here or in the US have it easy at all. :eek:I'm just trying to suggest that OS is a better method for eating healthily for little money. That's the point of my little challenge. Sorry for any confusion!;)

Weezl x

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Old Style vs the USDA head-to-head challenge...

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