Egg while omelet on whole wheat bread does have nutritional value, though you might not like it… Egg whites are pure protein; whole wheat bread gives you complex starches that take a while to be processed so they keep you full for quite a bit. It also has big variety of B vitamins that help your nervous system work (and do lots of other things for you); gives you nice amount of fiber so your intestines work fine. Now, add some roasted or fresh veggies on this, to give you the other vitamins you need, and you have a full meal there!

Having the yolk in this won’t be bad idea too, ‘cause even on most rigorous diets, you still have to take in essential fat acids so your body functions properly. Some can be found in vegetables, some in animal products (animal products, not necessarily meat).

You can find lots of useful proteins in vegetable food, whole grains, potatoes and beans. The key is eating big variety of food, not getting stuck on only one type of veggie, so your body gets all it needs.

Also, you get blood sugar/insulin swings when you eat large amount of simple sugars found in cakes, cookies, ice creams, commercially prepared juices AND lots of precooked items or fast food you buy (it’s used as conservative and taste improver). If you know anyone that got insulin swing from eating whole grains, I’d sure love to hear the story.

Talking about “human native diet”, there are many scientific researches that claim that the human race lived on fruits, vegetables and roots they found long before they learned to hunt or raise animals for food themselves.

My point is, people CAN live on vegetarian diet and have normal live and good health. They can live even on vegan diet, but that requires much more attention on proper meal planning.

Just to make it clear, not that it has any reference to the stated above, I am not strict vegetarian. My fiancée likes meat so we have it on regular basis. It’s all a question of choice. You eat what you like. But don’t try to justify it with false facts.

If you want to have cheaper and healthier meals, try this… Start cooking at home. Get a deep freezer, buy bulk meats instead of a pound each few days (buy a whole cow if you think you’ll eat it in few months, chop it to pieces and freeze it, you’ll save a whole bunch of money), buy seasonal vegetables when they’re cheap and freeze them. Guy a big bag of potatoes instead of buying few pounds a week. Now, this will make you spend a lot less money than buying 4 tomatoes, carrot and a can of beans each day, trying to avoid spending money on meats. There are other ways to save money, aside from giving up things.

thanks!

When you “just cook tons of chicken breasts at once. We cook several pounds of chicken breasts in the crock pot at one time” do you put anything else with them? Or just throw them in there? How long do they take? I have lots of recipes I love that ask for cooked chicken breast, but I avoid making them very often because it’s a pain to have to cook just to create the ingredient for the recipe. Any advice would be much appreciated!

I, too, am “thisclose” to the lacto-ovo veggie thing.

Tip: I’ve been baking potatoes in my crock pot this summer to avoid heating up the kitchen/house by baking. And potatoes are way cheap. Sometimes I eat them plain; sometimes I put chili over them.

If you are switching from meat to veg, make sure you consciously add way more protein to meals than you initially would think that you’d need. It will help ease the transition and once you have been at it for a while you will have a good idea of what you need.

Also, although a veg diet can be way cheaper than a meat diet (not I said “can be” not “always is), I find it helpful to occasionally splurge on soy fake meat products. The fake meat isn’t necessarily cheaper than deals on chicken or ground beef, but it has less fat and is better for your health.

Using the soy meat was a helpful crutch for transitioning my boyfriend into a veg diet. Now that I have been cooking veg for him for 4+ years, he has learned that he likes a lot of veg foods that he initially had a false preconceived notion about. We hardly ever go back to the fake meats now, but it was indispensable for the transition period.

That is exactly what I was thinking. If I was a SAHM chasing deals would be a great excuse to get out of the house. My little one loves to go grocery shopping too.

As a mostly SAHM, I would agree with this. My time without my child is precious (since there is so little of it!), but grocery shopping is something that I can do with the baby in tow. And during the day, we have so much time to burn, and going to multiple grocery stores actually gets us out of the house. My son loves to sit in the cart and stare at things. If I worked full time, I doubt I would spend this much time chasing deals. And I wouldn’t need to, since we would have two incomes.

You can also go to Hot Coupon World and look under forums for grocery stores in your area. This idea that couponing takes loads of time is just not true. Also, in many suburbs now, all the grocery stores are within a short distance of each other, so it doesn’t take that much time to go from one to the other getting the best deals.

Basically, I know a good price when I see it and I stock up. Eventually everything I need will be on sale at my regular store. When it is, I buy enough to last a while. Maybe my grocery bills are higher, but at least I’m not going to the store 2-3 times a week. That is not what I want to spend my time doing. I suppose that if I was a SAHM I’d feel differently, but as a working mom, time is too precious.

Shopping farmer’s markets for in-season produce has saved me a bundle. At first the bottom line looked like I was spending more, but the food is more nutritious and denser so we actually eat less of it. Once I adjusted for the smaller portions, I find I’m not really spending more at all. Example: I bought grassfed and finished rib eye steaks for dinner one night. Three steaks cost me almost $30 (it was a special occasion) but fed six people with leftovers. The meat was the best I’d ever eaten, too.

Jonni’s companion volume “Miserly Meals” is very good, if you keep an eye on the processed foods she uses occasionally.