Purchasing Good Food to Save Money, Save Time, and Eat Well

I once read an anecdote about a car mechanic who offered service which was either cheap, quick, or good - the customer could pick any two.  If the work was cheap and quick, then it wouldn't be good - if it was quick and good, then it wouldn't be cheap.

In some ways, our food choices are similar.  The "easiest" food choice - simply going out - is rarely cheap.  Likewise, the "cheapest" food choice - boxes of ramen from the discount aisle at Aldi - is not at all good.  Not only will you get way more sodium in your diet than you need, but you might also die of scurvy.  And dying of scurvy is so fourteenth-century.

Our goal, then, is to find a balance which allows us to enjoy what we eat without spending too much money, too much time in the kitchen, or too much time being treated for cheeseburger-induced cardiac arrest.

I hate bad food. The only thing I hate more is good food that's gone bad. The kind of food that's gone so bad that it steals the money out of your wallet, kicks you in the gut, and leaves you writhing on the floor in pain. (Bad salmon can do that to a man. With salmonella, it can.)

An essential part of frugal cooking is to identify the foods you can't and won't eat. When it comes to variety, everyone is different. Me, I'm willing to eat just about any kind of food - where I run into trouble is the age of the food. Generally, I don't trust anything that's been in my fridge for more than a week. This is a sensible policy for chicken and strawberries, and it's too loose for fish, but this policy is just senseless for oranges, apples, frozen foods, and ketchup. And yet it's hard for me to eat an apple once it's been in the fridge for a week - I have to inspect it carefully, remind myself that it's still okay to eat, and then cut it into pieces just to "prove" to myself that is hasn't been contaminated by invisible worms. Not that I would see the worms if they were there, but at least they're easier to digest once I cut them into bite-size pieces.

This is why I don't buy large bags of apples. And maybe you have similar experiences with fruit. If your mother made you eat every pear she ever bought - told you that you weren't getting dinner until those mushy brown things in the bowl were all gone - then you probably shouldn't buy pears. There's a good chance you would just leave them on display until they were brown and mushy and just-like-home. And then you'd feel guilty for not having eaten them yet, which is just not the kind of vibe you need in your kitchen. Or maybe you have an ingrained hatred for all things legume. It's nothing to be ashamed of - sometimes, legumes can be disgusting. Peanuts, lima beans, kidney beans (I mean, I try to avoid anything that's named after internal organs - the lima organ, in particular).

But these items are disturbingly healthy and - worse still - ridiculously cheap. You'll hear these urban legends of delicious chili that's so easy and so good, and then this one-pound bag of dried kidney beans will zip-line its way into your grocery basket, ninja-like, when you least expect it. "Oh," you're thinking, "they're only 88¢ a pound. That's like so cheap."

Don't be fooled - those 88¢ kidney beans will evade all attempts at being eaten. You'll soak them, and then you'll cook them, and then you'll wish you had added more water, and then you'll realize they're soggy and mushy and even more disgusting than before. Before you know it, you'll either be crunching down on chili with the taste and consistency of boiled peanuts, or you'll be tossing your 88¢ in the trash (along with a small piece of your soul.)

This isn't to say that you should avoid apples, pears, or legumes - these are very good foods. I enjoy all three. But if there's a food you "should" eat but still don't feel like eating, then don't buy it. Even if it's on sale. Trust me: a refrigerator that's jam-packed with "good" foods you "bought on sale" is one of the the nation's leading causes of "honey, I think we should order in some pizza..."

To avoid the terrors of bad food and food gone bad, here's a quick list of cheap, long-lasting foods which you prepare quickly.  We aren't talking Fine Italian Cuisine or Thai Delicacies here - just the kind of down-to-earth, keep-you-going foods that will stave off the desire to waste your money eating out.

Noodles and rice represent two of the most dependable foods on the planet.  You can buy them in bulk because they don't spoil, and they're relatively lightweight (in terms of trips to the grocery store) because they come dried.  A ten-pound bag of rice can feed an entire family for a respectable length of time.  And preparation's easy - just add water, heat, and eat.

Now, here's the part where most people go wrong: they try to "cheap out" on the the cheapest foods you'll find in the supermarket.  Don't do that.  You can be store-brand semolina pasta for a dollar a pound (or less) in most areas, so skip the ramen.  Instant noodles are very, very easy to cook, yes, but they have the nutritional value of damp cardboard.  Mac'n'Cheese isn't much better than ramen nutritionally, and you end up paying premium prices for the "bonus" of a packet of artificial cheese.  So get the good, plain pasta, splurge a bit on some real cheese or some olive oil, and take the fifteen minutes or say it takes to boil the real stuff.

Likewise, take pride in the rice you buy.  A giant bag of discount rice is kind of like buying a bag of sawdust - not even the cockroaches will eat it.  I recommend buying jasmine rice for the flavor, or you can go to specialty stores for yellow, black, or sticky rice.  Brown rice is better for you from a fiber perspective, but white rice tends to be fortified with added vitamins as a way to kind of "make up" for the plain-grain nutritional value.  Honestly, I won't buy brown rice anymore.  I don't like the taste very much, and it takes at least twice as long to cook as white rice.

Have you ever tried Mac'n'Cheese with tuna?  It's ninety percent better than plain old Mac'n'Cheese.  That's due to the tunaliciousness of awesome - tuna is literally jam-packed with protein, and it has the kind of flavor that complements a high-carbohydrate meal.  The downside is that tuna is relatively expensive per pound, meat-wise.  You can usually get pork chops and chicken for much cheaper.  But tuna does have the advantage of shelf-life - it's the perfect food for your pre-winter stock-up.

Next we have olive oil.  Yes, it has some saturated fat - that's okay.  Contrary to popular belief, our bodies do need saturated fat in order to maintain healthy brain function - not to mention the liver, kidneys, pancreas...well, you get the picture.  Plus, olive oil adds a light undertone of flavor that goes particularly well with pasta, salads, and even sandwiches.  I particularly recommend a plate of pasta sprinkled liberally with basil, drizzled in oil, and then served with a side of spinach or bell peppers.

Now for the real heavy-hitter of flavor: butter.  Yes, saturated fat galore.  But the flavor of real butter melted over your pasta or smeared over your bread just can't be underestimated.  I've become a strong proponent of butter because it helps me eat foods that I wouldn't otherwise eat.  Like if you have a kinda-stale loaf of bread - it isn't moldy, but it isn't much good, either.  Easy fix: toast a few slices, smear them liberally with butter, and devour.  Yes, I know, this isn't supposed to be healthy, but it's no worse than eating at a restaurant.  Restaurants are also familiar with the flavoring goodness of butter, and they use it generously.  So don't be afraid to use a little butter in your cooking - if it helps you eat what you've made, then it's helping you save money.

Don't forget that salt is still life.  Yes, sodium has become the villain of modern eating - so much so, in fact, that I was raised to never use salt in my cooking.  Now, this isn't necessarily a bad approach to cooking - if you eat out once or twice a week and supplement your cooking with ready-to-eat meals from the frozen section, there's a good chance you're already meeting your RDA for sodium intake.  If, however, you only eat foods that you yourself cook from scratch and you're only drinking water and salt-free juices, then you'll need to add salt to your food.  Plus, salt makes everything taste better - especially meet.  If you use ground hamburger or you're making any kind of soup, make sure to check the recipes for salt.  When cooking a bulk meal - anything that makes-for-our-more servings - then don't be surprised if you need a teaspoon or maybe even a tablespoon of salt to make the food taste right.  According the RDA, you're supposed to get about a teaspoon of salt a day, give-or-take, which seems like a huge amount of salt if you're a health-conscious individual.  Trust me, it's not that much.  (And if you want a true energy drink, mix in a quarter-teaspoon of salt with a cup or two or orange juice - that will give you a healthy start to the day.)

Spaghetti sauce in a jar isn't exactly essential to life, but it does make pasta taste better.  And tomatoes happen to be a good source of antioxidants, so you can't really go wrong there.  I recommend actually spending decent money on your spaghetti sauce - find one that has little or no corn syrup, but still has enough flavor that you enjoy eating it.  And note that almost any sauce in a jar has more than enough salt already added, so you won't need to salt these meals.