Save 60 pecent on food

Throughout my life, the one thing I cut back on when I
was short of money was food. I would buy the cheapest
things to eat that I could find. Now I see that the
"savings" were not savings at all. They were big expenses
because of the chunks they took out of my health.

What I wish I'd known, and did, actually, but I didn't
consistently use what I knew, was that beans and rice
may be more expensive than Ramen noodles and
spaghetti, but they are much healthier.

I don't mean VanCamps Pork and Beans, I mean cheap
beans from the grocery, dry and in bulk, and brown rice
(Organic Lundberg organic br is best, in my opinion).
There are black beans, navy beans, pinto beans, black
eyed peas and more. (The only kind to be extremely
careful of is raw kidney beans because if they do not
reach a boiling temperature for a certain amount of time
they can be poisonous. I learned this when I lived in
England and people who cooked them in Slow Cookers
were dying because at that time Slow Cookers were not
hot enough to eliminate the poison.)

Slow Cookers have actually played a part in my way of
saving money on food. They do that by making healthy
food easy, and by warming my home as well as my
spirits. It's emotionally comforting to have my home
fragrant with herbs
cooking in my dinner.
(The candles I use now
that I have solar, are very
similar to Slow Cookers.)

In any case, after the utility company shut off my heat
and lights on April 4, 2007, I would be shivering and
chilled to the bone by the time an evening meal was
delivered (I'm housebound). But, after I ate I would feel
warm and comfortable even though my house was colder
because it was now dark and the temperature lower.

That reminded me of London, when I was a silversmith.
There were days when I'd pick up my little son from
play-school and I'd be so exhausted I didn't see how I
could go home, make dinner and not yell at him if he
wanted more from me than my attention to making food.

What I would do on days like that was take us to the
"working man's calf" -- that's what John the Topologist
called it -- and order us a slightly soggy but warm and
effortless meal. (It was fun because Sadler's Wells
Theatre was nearby and dancers and actors from the
companies performing at Sadler's regularly ate at the
restaurant. Once it was particularly embarrassing because
the lead Rambert Ballet dancer was talking about doing
lifts and how hard it was if the female dancer was tall. I
accidentally stood up to leave just as he and his friends
did, and I towered over him and felt my height and
weight to be more unwieldy than I had ever felt before.)

What's important though, is the consistent way it was
relaxing and reassuring to eat there because it eliminated
things that were harder than I could handle.

From that experience, I can see why people go to
McDonald's, Burger King and the like, even though the
meals are expensive in terms of money. Far exceeding
the money involved is the value of the relaxation they
afford and the sense of reward that they may instill for a
hard day's work.

This being true, think of how great it is to make food at
home that gives you the same sense of comfort and
reward but without the restaurant cost, and with far
better pH level nutrition.

You can do it so easily, too: when you go food shopping
buy dry beans, brown rice, lentils, thyme, sage, bay
leaves, rosemary, allspice, celery, carrots, yellow onions
and olive oil. Yellow onions are good because the
quercetin in them reduces the incidence of skin cancer.

Then, in the morning before you go to work, quickly
chop an onion, a couple of carrots, a celery stalk. Add
that to beans and rice in your Slow Cooker. That takes
about five minutes from start to putting the finishing
touch of olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage, a
bay leave and maybe an allspice or two into your Slow
Cooker, covering the ingredients with water, turning it on
and forgetting it till you come home in the evening to be
greeted by the rich aroma of a lovely home cooked meal.

If you aren't familiar with beans they may seem as if they
need a bit of meat to jazz them up. But in reality they are
wonderfully tasty and very healthy for us, to boot.

You can change the meal by adding

tomato

one

day, a bullion cube

another (I use only a portion of a

cube at

a time),

different kinds of beans and no

brown rice

still another day.

When you think about it, you don't

order vastly different

things each time

you go to McDonald's. Mainly you

order

the convenience and that greasy good

taste we've

become accustomed, if not

addicted to.

Speaking of that rich, oil texture and flavor, if you're not
used to olive oil you may find its taste a little odd to begin
with, but it totally ratchets up the flavor and richness of
the beans. You could use other cooking oils, however it's
good to remember that olive oil is really good for us --
check it out on the pH scale.

Brown rice is very healthy, too. If you have digestion
problems or swollen ankles, it helps. Plus, brown rice is
great for slimming because it makes us lose weight. (You
want to get a good quality brown rice, or you won't be
enamoured.)

When I first heard that brown rice makes us lose weight
a group of us tried it and it worked for each of us. At that
time it was touted as "the brown rice diet" which said you
could eat anything you wanted with the brown rice and
still lose weight, even if you ate the brown rice with
sugar, raisins and whipped cream. For those of us that
tried that extreme, even it turned out to be true.

The great thing about brown rice is that it has a sort of
dumpling and gravy consistency if you cook it with
chicken. I totally love that! (But, I don't always have the
money for chicken.)

Brown rice takes several hours to cook, so it's great in a
Slow Cooker, just be sure to cover it with a lot of water
so it can plump up and not burn.

When I compare how I feel after eating brown rice and
beans with how I feel after eating a Ramen Noodle
dinner, or spaghetti and sauce, there's a huge contrast.
Eating rice and beans leaves me feeling satisfied. Perhaps
that's because they are naturally rich in nutrients, besides
which they are known to reduce the incidence of cancer.

Recap:

Rice and beans are satisfying and

when

cooked in the fall

and winter in a

low

Cooker

while you are out at work

they make

your

home warm and inviting

for

when you return.

I have brown rice cooking right this

minute, as I do most

days

, but I use a

candle due to my solar.

One neat thing is that if you get into the

habit of cooking

fresh every day you

won't have to run your refrigerator,

and

that's a

big

additional savings.

Conversely

, you can

freeze what you

don't need

at a

particular

meal, so that

later you can

prepare it as

quickly as a frozen dinner from
the grocery store, only WAY more
healthy and WAY less costly.

Stop paying for "factories" to
prepare your meals. They don't
love you and your family the
way that You do!