Freaked out about food

It's almost Halloween! Hands down, my favorite holiday. I like scary stuff and fall stuff and short skirts- all of which abound. Last night we carved punkins and had a weenie roast at my parents' house (those are the punkins Patrick and I did- his is the kitty, mine is the ghetto Jack the Pumpkin King.) This is a family tradition, but this year I had to bring my own hot dogs and buns because I have become a certifiable food crazy.

It started with this book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingslover (get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Vegetable-Miracle-Year-Food/dp/0060852569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320015388&sr=8-1 ). Kingslover is usually a fiction writer but this book chronicles her year living off nothing but locally grown, organic food in her small Appalachian community in Virginia. It is absolutely fascinating- the way she talks about the delicious food inspires food envy the likes of which I have not experienced since I read Julia Child's My Life in France.

It's also an amazingly compelling argument for eating locally and organically. The stats that scared me most were just how much of what we eat starts as mass-produced corn or soybeans. If they aren't directly putting it into our food in the form of syrups and additives, they're pumping our livestock full of it. I love animals but I'm not a vegetarian- but this book has definitely convinced me to do my best to purchase organic, free-range, or grass fed whenever possible. The other scary thing is the sheer amount of fossil fuels used to transport our food so that we can have strawberries in January. According to the book. for every 1 calorie of food in our grocery stores, 87 energy calories were burned to bring it there! That is really scary to me. I won't quote the book or give you every argument in there because you should just get it for yourself and read it (it's pretty popular so it should be at the library.)

I've always been nervous about the hormones and chemicals pumped into our food, but never enough to really read labels. I thought I was doing a good job of eating healthily because I pay attention to sugars, dietary fiber and protein, and I buy probably 60-75% organic produce. But boy oh boy, when you read the labels, you see all sorts of icky stuff they put in there- there is high fructose corn syrup in everything! The way I see it, there are 2 main reasons to go organic/read your labels/eat locally:

1. You are nervous about the additives, chemicals, hormones in food.

2. You are morally opposed to 6 big agrabusinesses getting all the money by running small farmers out of business and growing mass amounts of corn and soybeans that are inedible to humans and only used for feedlots.

I am both of these things. So today I went grocery shopping and only bought stuff that didn't have high fructose corn syrup, didn't have additives, and was organic and all-natural (except the laundry detergent and mascara. I don't know what the hell is in that stuff. Also, there may or may not be high fructose corn syrup in the toilet paper I bought.) I also bought some meat and animal-product substitutes because sometimes that's cheaper than free range, but I'll discuss that in another post. It was a little more expensive, sure. But not by that much. And in my opinion, if you're only buying stuff that's good for you, you're actually saving money on all the stuff you aren't buying, like chips and donuts. So in the end, it evens out. Also, if you watch your coupons or visit sites like http://coupons.com/, you can find a lot of good deals on healthy, organic stuff. Trader Joe's is great too, and Marsh usually offers organic produce for the same price as regular. Kroger, my chain of choice, has almost everything organic that they have regular and it's generally less than a dollar more.

I also really believe that the hormones in our food are making us fat. I think I've said this before, but when I look at pictures of my mom from when she was my age, she is so skinny. Like, her bone structure is so much smaller, and I really believe it's because she was developing in an era when our food wasn't so pumped full of crap. So I'm going to see if, by eating the same things but using organic instead of regular, I will lose any weight.

I'll leave you with an image of me and my adorable cat, Petunia. She is very friendly and takes after me- the other day she bitch-slapped the other cat for getting too close to her food.

Dumb Diets

I am so fascinated by the diets people try. Some have a pretty high success rate, like South Beach (boyfriend lost 30 lbs earlier this year on it- and, a quote from my friend Craig: "Diets don't work. They're all bullshit. Except South Beach, I lost a ton of weight on that.") Others sound awesome yet are not- like the Hollywood Cookie Diet. If eating cookies were a diet, I'd be in the starvation ward right now getting fed through a tube because I'd weigh 80 lbs. No matter the diet, I'll at least peruse the book even if I have no intention of ever following it, mostly because I'm always intrigued by the science and philosophy behind these diets. One I picked up recently is http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Gundrys-Diet-Evolution-Waistline/dp/0307352129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319691980&sr=8-1 - Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution. My good friend Kimberly told me about this when I visited her in San Francisco. The philosophy is that, with the modern diet and methods of exercise, we are activating "killer genes" which make us gain weight and cause a whole host of other health problems. Our current diet, heavily based on grains, sends a message that "winter is coming" and causes our bodies to hold onto fat. The diet advocates eating essentially like you eat when you do South Beach phase 1 or 2 (little to no grains products, protein, tons and tons of green veggies and no sugars other than those found in some fruits.) This supposedly tells your body "winter is now" and forces it to burn fat for energy. The longer you do the diet, the less meat you eat until you are mostly getting protein from tofu, tempeh, and seafood.

I have some really mixed feelings on this after reading some of the book. Kimberly lost lots of weight doing it, and in theory it should work- protein is actually the least efficient way for your body to get energy, because it has to work hard to metabolize it (you burn something like 16% of the calories from protein you consume just by metabolizing it.) And if you are already a vegetarian and really like veggies, than this could really work for you. However, I do not want to live my life eating rabbit food. What is the point of living forever if you can't have cupcakes sometimes (meaning twice a week)? I also have a hard time believing that our "genes are killing us" when we feed them sugar or dairy or grains or fruit- haven't people been eating bread and honey and apples and cheese since Cleopatra was riding around in her litter? Haven't Japanese people been eating white rice since the days of the samurais, and they're outliving us all?

What really disturbed me about the book, though, was the chapter where he advocated fasting on alternate days and skipping meals to further put stress on your body and keep your metabolism on its toes. He even admits that it's against conventional wisdom to skip meals or not eat when you're hungry. My opinion is this- unless you have absolutely iron willpower, there is no way in hell you will succeed on a diet that leaves you starving half the time. The best advice I've heard on this topic is: "the best diet is the one you can actually do." There is no better way to set yourself up for an epic binge than to wait until you're ravenous to eat. I have no doubt that this diet works, provided you can actually do it. And who the hell can do it? Not me. I went to bed hungry Monday night and two hours ago I polished off two bowls of death by chocolate ice cream with Butterfingers crumbled on top out of residual hunger.

Furthermore, I am really disturbed by the idea that, if you just push through it, you'll like the feeling of being hungry and it will make you feel "clean" and "pure." That's the same thinking that they advocate in Skinny Bitch. Let me say that there is nothing morally superior about your ability to not eat. It just makes you hungry and me annoyed with you. There are far better diets, or ways of eating, than to eat nothing but romaine. I'll discuss them later.

That's all for now, but I'll leave you with a picture of me and my new favorite cup. I love cups. And I love Hello Kitty. Where can one go wrong?

On whole foods and nakedness

In less than a month, I have to be naked in front of 400 people.

Not completely naked. I get pasties. And I think my stomach will be covered. But still.

PBS gave my work some nice funding to put together a history of burlesque show in conjunction with the Ken Burns documentaries about Prohibition. I have wanted to do burlesque since I first heard of Dita von Teese and learned what the neo-burlesque movement is about, so I jumped at the chance.

Actually, I'm not that scared about being naked in front of people. The cool thing about burlesque these days is how body positive it is. And really, I don't hate my body. Not the way I did, say, this time two years ago (that was truly awful and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.) I'd say the feeling I have is closer to resentment. I resent my body for not being able to run faster. I resent my body for having cellulite. I resent my body for being hungry again an hour after I eat. But really, it is a perfectly good body. It has served me well. It lets me dance and walk and wrestle and skate and all manner of cool things.

But I realized I have this dumb fantasy of getting onstage in my skimpy clothes and everyone gasping in awe at my Greek God-like body. I know that isn't going to happen, and I definitely know it isn't going to happen in less than a month. But I can attempt to feel good about my body when I get up there. The way I traditionally do this is to diet. Can't help it- dieting is kind of fun to me. It gives my obsessive brain something to do- planning meals, shopping for the best deal, etc. I love that shit.

Recently I picked up a cookbook about whole foods. I always hear famous people talking about "well, my diet is mostly whole foods." Yeah, asshole, mine too- a whole pizza, a whole donut, a whole hamburg. But by reading this cookbook, I think I have a better grasp of it- it essentially means using less processed, pre-packaged stuff, using more veggies. I think why this sounds hard is that, as I have learned, lots of people can't cook. Not just, they aren't very good or don't know how to make many things- they just plain can't cook. They must have never been hungry enough to learn (my dad once asked me, "How did you learn to cook?" to which I replied, "One day I was hungry and all we had were ingredients." It really is that easy.)

I already cook dinner every night so I thought I'd give it a shot. For the first time in years, I'm going to cook tofu for a main dish. I'm looking forward to it. But eating whole foods isn't really my diet- counting calories is. Counting calories is really the only thing that works for me, because I can't do South Beach or any of that stuff because if I don't have ice cream and tacos I'll go crazy and murder my family. But I find that eating this way makes it a little easier to keep my calories in check- in part because I include lots of vegetables and they're low calorie, but also because I think I know I'll feel better.

At present, I'm doing the unhealthy thing and telling myself this healthy eating and calorie counting nonsense is only until I'm done being naked in front of people. But I'm doing more burlesque in January (where I will be far less naked, but still) and regardless, I'm sick of being uncomfortable with my body. My goal is to lose weight, sure. But maybe it will make me happier. Happier than ice cream, though? Maybe not.

CUPCAKES! And running. And sobriety. Which is more fun?

It's been some time and I've sure you've all missed this blog as much as I've missed writing it, which is probably a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. The truth is, I kinda stopped caring about eating healthy. Seriously. I woke up one day and was like, "Eh, screw it." I was born with a big ass, I'll always have a big ass, so who gives a damn? It's true what they say- the older you get, the less you care about your body. I was in a show in the fall and shared a dressing room with a lovely, tiny girl who once said she was going to do something annoying and complain about her weight, to which I said, "No, you aren't, this is a body hate free zone." And it felt good. When I say I have a big ass, I'm not saying that I hate my big ass, and I'm not trying to get you to tell me that I don't have a big ass. I'm simply stating a fact. I still work out, though. Religiously, some might say. I love working out. It makes me feel like I'm doing something. And with all the crap I've been eating, if I didn't work out, they'd probably have to extract me from my house with a crane and wrecking ball, which would be embarrassing and also not good because I rent my house and my landlords would be pissed. I was feeling kinda frustrated, though, because though I was working out for at least an hour every day, I didn't see my body getting any firmer. Now, I can still have a big ass, and that doesn't bother me, but I'd at least like it to be a kind of muscle-y big ass. Enter my darling KC. Hi, KC! He's my roommate's best friend and he is the tits. Like, drive to Chicago in the middle of the night with no iPod or cigarettes in order to pick me up from the airport when my plane stranded me kinda tits. KC ran a half marathon last year and is doing it again in about a month. Now, KC, my roomie Nick, and I all gave up drinking for Lent this year. Yeah, I know. We've had to confront some things about ourselves that we really, really did not want to confront. KC and I also gave up smoking cigarettes (hopefully this one will last forever, and not just for Lent), and because I am a masochist and like to punish myself, I told KC I'd train with him. What could make your butt more muscle-y than running? So KC and I have been running. Running everywhere, to and fro. I'm running more than I thought possible, which means all that cardio work must have been good for something. And because I'm running, I've felt kind of motivated to eat better. And whaddya know? I've lost about five pounds. My abs look great. My ass, however, is still as fat as the day is long. And why? CUPCAKES. Oh, sweet Jesus in the sky. I love cupcakes. There is a place called Flying Cupcake where dreams go to be made into sweet baked goods to enter my face hole. They have so many cupcake varieties it's ridiculous. And I have sampled them all. Last weekend KC and I ran and did power yoga (oh, the hilarity of watching KC do power yoga) and afterwards went to his workplace, Mesh, for lunch. After that I fairly skipped down the street to Flying Cupcake.... only to find it closed because it was Sunday. I woulda thrown a brick through the window if I could have found one. Burn, baby, burn! The next day I drove past on my way to TOTS and literally whispered aloud, "I think about you all the time." I made it back there today and introduced KC to the glory of Flying Cupcake. He nearly cried. So again, it's sweet crap that keeps me from being skinny. Or whatever. Who really cares? I guess I kind of do- bikini season is coming, and I have all kinds of boys to impress! Oh, wait. Not really. But regardless, if I'm going to be running (and KC gave me a month membership to his gym so you best believe I'm gonna be all up in that place using the fancy equipment I can't afford to buy for my exercise room at home) I might as well attempt to not eat as terribly as I have been lately. So I'm semi-on the wagon again. One great thing is that now that I'm both at IHS and Beef & Boards, I have some extra money, so I can go to the healthy places to eat or buy better groceries. I also found a great app for the iPhone called MyFitnessPal. I'm tracking my calories (which I loathe and find leads to unhealthy food obsession, but what the hell, I'll try it for now) in order to make sure that when I'm eating 3.5 cupcakes a day, I'm attempting to make up for it by eating something green for dinner. I guess it's working. And the sobriety? It's going swimmingly. I survived St. Patty's AND a vacation to LA/San Francisco without even a drop of alcohol. I kind of like it because it's keeping me from going to the bars and staying out too late. I have to say, though, I do miss the bars because they are the main social place for my friends. But I'll be back before long! Until then, I'll try to stay relatively healthy for the next few weeks. Let's see!

Off the Wagon

And man, am I ever. Last time I wrote about quitting sugar forever. I did pretty well, too, for about a month. Then I realized that I hadn't really lost any weight, or noticed any other changes other than that the one time I cheated to eat birthday cake with Robert and Jason, I felt like total shit all night long. I can't remember exactly when I decided to eat sugar again, just to suffice to say that I did. And I'm done playing around. Girl Scout cookies? Donuts? Peeps? Bring that shit on. I still have moderation issues, and probably always will- you should have seen me tearing into those Thin Mints the other night like a hungry dog on a hambone. I'm now trying to limit my sugar intake to every other day, so that I'm getting roughly half the sugar/calories I would be getting. It's a start.





Something I Never Would Have Touched with a Ten Foot Pole that I Now Worship


Last week I was making one of my many trips to the supermarket and wandered into the natural foods/fake meat/crunchy people section, as I often do. I almost never stop to browse the first aisle, where they keep all of the body builder bars and protein powders- mostly because I am still working my way through the big cannister of chocolate protein powder that I bought 2 years ago. But I had recently read something about egg white protein powders, blah blah, and wanted to see just how overpriced they were. It was there that I saw the rack of Cliff Bars.



I never would have eaten these things about a year ago. First off, they say 'snack' to me, and I never was a big snacker- and really, I'm still not. I've pretty faithfully done the "4 small meals" thing for years, mostly because I find that snacking quite often makes me even hungrier. Second, even if I would eat them as a snack, I have this weird thing about '200 calories or less' for a snack, because otherwise you might as well just add something and make it a meal. Cliff Bars have between 220 and 260 calories per bar. That just seems like a lot for something you can finish in about 7 bites. As a matter of fact, I bet that if a year ago I saw you eating a Cliff Bar and I knew you weren't about to go run a marathon, I'd slap it out of your hand and into the gutter.

But there they were in the store, on sale, $10 for 10. And they were in so many delicious flavors. White chocolate macadamia nut. Maple nut. Peanut toffee buzz. Chocolate brownie. I couldn't take it. I had to buy them. And now I'm addicted. I can totally rationalize my decision, too. First off, for the same calories as a candy bar, you get (in general) 20% of your daily fiber and 22% of your daily protein (PS- always eat a protein with your carbs. Always.) This also makes them a great breakfast, especially for me- now that I'm back to my job at the historical society I'm finding myself constantly rushing to get out the door, leaving no time for a sit down breakfast, or even anything that needs heating up (big change from the Children's Museum, where I had a microwave right on my dressing table and was never more than an hour away from a break to eat.)

I really like Cliff Bars because they make me feel healthy. Maybe it's the little rock climber man on the package. With all that delicious, peanut buttery protein in my tummy, I too could climb a rock! They make me want to go camping. Of course, for me, camping is an excuse to smoke and drink wine and play cards and listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd and go swimming topless, not to rock climb or anything, but still, I could enjoy these whilst in a tent. They also burn pretty slowly, so I'm not ravenous by lunchtime. They're also surprisingly low fat, which I've said before isn't a huge deal to me, but that's just another reason why they are far superior to Snickers. If you love yourself, you will go buy a Cliff Bar.


Another Foray into the World of Calorie Free

I've made the ill advised journey down the 'sugar free' aisle at the grocery store many times, but I thought I had learned my lesson when I had the misfortune to try the sugar free caramel syrup. Well, I clearly don't learn, because today I purchased a jar of Walden Farms Marshmallow Dip. Last weekend some friends and I were discussing our favorite binge foods, and one of them was marshmallow creme. That shit is so good, but damn, is it LETHAL. So how could I turn down marshmallow dip that claims to be calorie free? That's right, no calories. I don't even know how that's possible. It's like a dream. So I bought it. Of course, I had to buy graham cracker sticks to go along with it.

You guys are so lucky that I sacrificed myself so that you wouldn't have to. This stuff is NASTY. It tastes like congealed sugar free vanilla coffee creamer, and has about that consistency. It tastes nothing like a marshmallow, I'll tell you that much. Luckily, the cinnamon flavoring in the graham crackers covered up the foulness of the dip, and Lord knows I'll probably give it another shot, but good Lort. Don't waste your money. I feel so bad for diabetic people. They have no choice but to eat this crap.

That's all for now! What calorie free things have you tried?

No more sugar EVER!

Happy New Year, all. I spent mine at a punk bar and then at a swanky hotel party and finally in bed with two of my gays watching Sondheim- the common events of my life, all compressed neatly into six hours. I already had one resolution- to learn to read music and play piano (not that I feel the need to do any of these things well, but I do a damn mess of singing so it's time I learn a little.) I think last year's were to get more sleep (which I do- I just can't hang like I used to in my younger days), to quit smoking (yeah, that happened) and to eat healthier. I definitely ate healthier this year than I ever have before, but I still have this nasty habit of overdoing it. I think I have gluttony or greed issues. I can't be content with one piece of pizza or one scoop of ice cream- I have to eat it until I'm full and couldn't eat another bite. This is why I tend to cook just enough for one (or 3, if I'm feeding the family.) But I realize my worst trigger, and now that I have seen the light, I know the truth and wonder why I was blind for so long. So I bit the bullet.

I gave up sugar.

I told this to a friend last night and his reply was, "We need sugar to live." Well, I know that, but it's way more dramatic to say, "I gave up sugar" than "I gave up dessert-y type things." Which is actually what I mean. I am powerless over desserts, especially cake, candy, cupcakes and cookies, and especially when they're at home because I can eat as many as I want without the waiter staring at me like I'm a fat ass. Don't judge me because I'm fat, dude. Judge me because of my horrible habit of calling waitstaff 'honey.'

I first discovered the secret to not binging on sugar over Christmas, when I made all my Christmas yummies but did not partake in them. Except for that one time when Bill and I get all drunk and maudlin at the bar and the only thing that could console us was to eat a few handfuls of ginger cookies. But anyway, I knew that if I had one white chocolate raspberry bar, I would not be satisfied until I had five. So I just didn't eat them at all.

I've read before that if you can go a week without eating refined sugar, you won't crave it anymore. I don't really crave sugar so much as once I put it in my mouth, I can't stop myself. It's kind of like smoking in a bar. It's really hard, once you've lit up one cigarette, to keep yourself from pretty much chain smoking when the opportunity presents itself. If you don't want to chain smoke, it's better to just avoid it altogether in those situations. So I've given it up, cold turkey.

The problem is that this means I can't ever have refined sugar again. Again, like smoking, once you've quit you can't just casually pick it back up and expect to not be buying a pack the next morning. So I shall not be tempted. A few weeks ago I gave up tonic after I was horrified to learn it contained just as much sugar as regular Coke- now it's strictly gin and soda for me. So that was a start. Now my go-to stuff for craving sweets is my beloved Coke Zero, jelly or jam on toast in the mornings, honey, and fruit with Cool Whip. It's actually not so very bad- I've convinced myself that since I don't do desserts anymore, I can be more flexible with my 'real' food, so if I want bacon on my salad, it's cool, or cheese fries, that's cool, too. It's a fuckin free for all! Except no desserts. We'll see how long I can keep this up- I've already noticed the return of my insatiable craving for peanut butter, which is probably largely because of the sugars in it. But I've gone a week now with no desserts, so I have some hope.

But perhaps I'm going about this wrong. Sugar can be a great diet dodge, so says this ad, and who am I to question the wisdom of the 1960s diet industry?



On denying oneself

Oh, forcing myself to obey a strict set of rules always motivates me. Thus, I have been inspired to detox. I love detoxing, or else, I love the busy work of choosing food and feeling all righteous because I'm drinking water and the inevitable debauchery that follows when the detox is over.

Recently, I was rereading Skinny Bitch, which I now regard as largely the Bible for aspiring anorexics, meaning the vast majority of it is utter crap. The stuff about the horrible conditions that farm animals are raised in and all of the scary hormones in our food is absolutely true, but the idea that you should wait until you're starving to eat in the morning or at lunch time, or that most people actually eat too much protein, or that a big plate of vegetables for every meal is adequate caloric intake is all total bullshit. The main goal of the book is to promote veganism and organic eating, which is an admirable goal, and if I had unlimited money with which to buy groceries I'd definitely give veganism the old college try. But as it stands, it's highly unrealistic for a lot of people. However, the book did kind of motivate me to give this detox a whirl. I never regarded the organic eating part as crap, just as not important- when I eat organic, it's usually because the farmers markets I shop at tend to have organic crops. But since I have decided to detox, I figure, what the hell, let's try eating at least some organic stuff, and less meat while we're at it.

So today at the store I picked up organic waffles, organic pumpkin seed and granola cereal and soy nog, along with a big assortment of fruits and vegetables. Tomorrow I'm looking at black bean cakes with guacamole for dinner, later in the week no cheese pizza with a mess of vegetables, and portabello mushroom caps stuffed with pesto and pine nuts. I also have my absolute favorite tortillas in the world, Extreme Wellness, to make all kinds of wraps (seriously, follow the link- best tortillas ever.) I'm being extra ambitious and trying to lay off the cigarettes and booze, too, which isn't so very hard if I avoid the bar, which is the hard part. But today my show closed, and I still have one more week until school starts, so I'm going to dedicate all my time and energy to the detox until I get tired of it and quit, which I'm predicting will occur on Wednesday.

Comment and tell me how much fun you're having with your New Years resolutions! And while you're at it, tell me why I feel the need to capitalize New Years when I don't think of it as a real holiday.

I'm a sociology major. Luckily I am not planning on doing anything with this degree, as I already know what I want to do with my life and I'm pretty much doing it at the moment, but I've always felt it was important to get a college education if you have the means to do so because it speaks of an ability to follow through and finish what one starts. Besides, I love sociology, and I seem to have an innate understanding of it which makes it an enjoyable course of study. One class I'm taking this semester is on the sociology of work, which seems to mean the sociology of the inequality of work; not that I'm complaining, as I seem to have developed a spidey sense for gender, racial and socioeconomic bias. No good discussion of the new American workplace would be complete without talking about Wal-Mart, which was our topic today. Among other things, I find Wal-Mart abhorrent because it has forced the very people who it put out of a job (domestic factory workers, independent business owners) to purchase their goods because they are the cheapest. These people are put into a very sad position, because they literally don't have the money to shop elsewhere, and so must buy their necessary items within the Jaws of Hell; it doesn't very well work for us to tell them to shop somewhere else. While we were making this point in class, someone piped up with, "It's like when we tell poor people to eat healthy, but they can't because it's cheapest to get a 1 dollar hamburger from McDonald's."

I hear this argument a lot. In fact, I think I actually made it at some point on the blog here (I say I think because actually looking to see if I did would require opening another tab on Firefox and I'm too lazy to do that.) I've done some thinking, though, and I was wrong if I ever said that. Yes, it may be cheaper that day to eat at McDonald's, but in the long run, you save a lot of money by cooking at home. To illustrate my point, I thought of how much it would cost to feed one person for a week with groceries. This list was made using groceries from Kroger, and how much things cost in Indianapolis. Some of these things were on sale if you used your Kroger Plus Card, which is free to get so you should get one. Also, always shop at Kroger because they are unionized.

Milk: $1.25/half gallon
Generic Cheerios: $1.88
8 apples: $2.00 (4/$1)
1 lb grapes: 93 cents
1 lb sliced ham: $2.19
1 carton eggs: 77 cents
1 jar peanut butter: $1
1 loaf wheat bread: $1
1 lb ground turkey: $2.50
1 lb box wheat pasta: $1.00
1 14.5 oz can Hunt's pasta sauce: $1.00
Salad mix: $2.50
Generic salad dressing: $2.00

Grand total : $20.02
Cost per day: $2.86
Rough price of a meal at McDonald's, off the dollar menu, which includes a protein, carb, and fruit/veggie: $3.00 plus tax

I'll analyze how I did the list: The milk, Cheerios, grapes and eggs are for breakfast- a handful of grapes, a bowl of cereal and an egg or two is grain/carbs, lean protein, calcium and vitamins from fruit.

The lunch meat, peanut butter, bread and apples are for lunch. Again, any combo of these will give you the essentials for a filling, healthy meal. At the end of the week you'll have an extra apple and likely extra meat or peanut butter to eat as a snack at some point.

And the pasta, turkey, sauce and salad are obviously for dinner. Again- trifecta of good carbs/fiber, protein and a veggie.

I get that this is not exactly the food pyramid, but no one will starve on this, and what you'd be eating is a hell of a lot better for you than fast food. Also, Kroger generally has a lot of 10/$10.00 specials every week- for example, this week in their ad I see tuna, English cucumbers, cottage cheese and 1/2 gallons of orange juice, and that's just the healthy stuff. Add those to your groceries for the week and you get a little more variety, for only $4 more (remember, food isn't taxed.)

As you can see, the idea of being too poor to eat healthy is crap. I don't know how many actual poor people use this excuse; it seems to be used more by broke (different from poor, as broke often has to do with poor money choices) college students/young people. Look at it like this: I will assume that the average college student, or single poor person, works 20 hours a week at a job that pays $9/hr. If you assume that 20% of the weekly paycheck is taken out in taxes, we are looking at an income of $144 a week. By cooking at home and eating healthy, you are spending a little less than 14% of your weekly income on food. Even if you sprung for the extra $4 in groceries, you're looking at less than 17% of your weekly income. If you are eating out at every meal, even the dollar menu, let's assume you spend $9.00 a day (3 items off the dollar menu, 3 meals a day.) That's 43% of your weekly income! Holy crap! Now, I'll go ahead and assume that most people don't spend $10 a day on food and eat at home at least some of the time- but still, if you ate at home for every meal, you could eat really healthily for very little money. Did I mention that the only thing you'd need to eat at home on this plan is a pot to cook stuff in? I realize that a lot of people don't have money to buy fancy kitchen things, so I controlled for that. You do need a stove/oven, but almost anywhere you rent or live in will have these

So, ain't nobody too poor to eat healthy. Thank God we have things like WIC and food stamps in the USA so that people who have to work low wage jobs can provide food for their families, especially healthy food. I appreciate that if it were not just you, but you and say, your two children, this $20 in groceries would not quite cut it. But I do firmly believe that eating at home and eating healthily are really easy if you're willing to do it.