So if you're in a financial crisis with food allergies....

[blueridgewoman]

Help me figure this out.... Well, really, help me rationalize this.

I just got a job today, but right now, my finances are insane (I'm a recent single mom). Until I get paid from my new job in a week and a half, I have very little money. Between the two of us, my daughter and I can't really eat the following things (either we're intolerant or have allergies):

gluten (I have an allergy)
peanuts
rice
corn
beans
pasteurized milk (we get raw, it's paid for, and we can handle milk products in moderation)

So basically, we eat fruits, veggies, meat, cheese, eggs (lots of eggs) and the occasional treat like chocolate. We can handle rice, beans, and corn in infrequent, small quantities, but not peanuts or gluten at all.

Since I have like, zero money, I think I'm going to need to shop at a conventional grocery store and buy conventional meat to last us until I get paid. I don't really see another option.

Tell me first that this won't kill us. Then tell me, are there any brands (okay, I'm going to Walmart probably ) that are better than others in terms of safety, ethics, or hormones, etc? Are there certain meats that are safer than others or less treated but still very cheap?

What's the best and cheapest way to go about this?

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by blueridgewoman

Are there certain meats that are safer than others or less treated but still very cheap?

Buffalo and lamb are the least treated meats. But neither is particularly cheap. In this instance, I'd probably not worry too much about that and go for cheap and large - something like a large pork roast or a whole turkey where you can get a week or more of meals out of it. If I'm eating conventional meat, I definitely choose pork over beef just because pigs are naturally scavengers, so they don't tend to be as sickly on the conventional diet as cows do.

Buy the cheap veggies - brassicas are really good veg to buy conventional, since they don't have many natural pests they're not heavily sprayed at all. And they tend to be cheaper anyway. I'd look up the new Dirty Dozen and shop around that conventionally.

This too shall pass.

[Magelet]

conventional meat won't kill you for a while. Eat as best as you can, avoid the dirty dozen, and realize that by eating TF, you have a) a lot of tools to help you get the best possible nutrition from your food, even if it has to be conventional for a while (things like bone broth, fermented veggies) and b) even conventional meats and veggies are still drastically better than processed food.

Particularly for a week and a half, you will be just fine. You have to do what you have to do to feed your family, and I think that keeping TF preparation, even with conventional ingredients is hugely important. I'd get a nice big cut of meat that's cheaper (and bone in), and some soup bones, and make some stew.

[kavamamakava]

for really cheap rice or bean products, try asian markets. you can get saifun (mung bean thread noodles) and maifun (rice thread noodles) noodles and they make really nice soups when you add your choice of protein and some veggies to it. Cheaper than ramen!
Tillamook cheese (if it's available where you live) and Daisy sour cream are good, relatively inexpensive products that don't use junk in their ingredients. I also noticed that Albertsons and Safeway are having 10/$10 sales on tons of products right now.

Baked potatoes with your fave protein/veg topping and some cheese will be relatively inexpensive and can tide you over. Around here, organic potatoes have gone down in price lately and are like $6 for 10 lbs. You probably don't need that many potatoes though!

I would stay away from commercially produced chicken. Chickens tend to be pumped up with a lot of antibiotics. But I'm sure a few times of eating it won't be a big deal. Sometimes you can get those whole roasted chickens for much cheaper than you can get uncooked chicken. Just go shopping at the end of the day.

Lots of omelets? Fritattas?

[dogmom327]

Might check out this older thread: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ghlight=tf+150

[mbravebird]

Have you looked at Angel Food Boxes? They're food boxes for very affordable prices. You can get meat cuts and vegetable boxes. What's available changes each month:

https://www.angelfoodministries.com/...2010-05_en.asp

Turkeys, I've heard, have to be raised in better conditions because they are more finicky than chickens. So you could perhaps buy a turkey, and make it last all week.

[ps4624]

It's tough, but try and make things that you can spread out - how about a whole chicken? You can roast it and have it for dinner. The leftovers can make a good lunch. Use the carcass to make broth - throw in some veggies and you'll have a lovely soup.

Also, frozen veggies can be a lot less expensive than fresh.

Good luck to you!

[blueridgewoman]

Oh! I TOTALLY forgot that I have a couple frozen turkeys buried way under everything else in the freezer. If I buy some decent oil (I have a gift card to a fancy oil place in town for like $15-- what's a good oil for mayo? maybe avocado?), I could make turkey salad, we could have soup, and roasted turkey, and then I could make broth.

Thank you guys! So, crappy battery eggs are on sale at Kroger, 54 for $5 (3 pks of 18), so I could do frittatas, etc. Cabbage, which is on the conventional "clean" list.... etc.

Keep the ideas coming, thank you! And great point about pork vs beef, cristeen. I hadn't thought about that.

Thankfully, my new job is at Panera (funny for someone who's allergic to gluten, no? ) and I think the discount on food during the shift is like 65% or something. I could buy enough salad for my break AND for after shift, I think, and frankly, if it's 65%, a Fuji Apple Chicken salad would be $2.66 which is PRETTY cheap considering that it's reasonably healthy and has antibiotic free chicken, and comes with an apple.

[Kelilah]

I would avoid the battery eggs unless the only alternative is Top Ramen. Battery eggs aren't just crawling with disease, they're also pretty thin on the nutritional front. There's just not enough nutrients in them (because the chickens aren't getting the nutrients to put in them) to justify the disease risk. Have a look on Craigslist - there might be someone in your area with chickens who might sell you eggs on the cheap. If you do go with battery eggs, assume that they're all infected with salmonella and treat them accordingly. Cook the everliving daylights out of them!

Anyway, our nearest supermarket sells 10 lb bags of organic carrots for $9.99 every so often. We stick one of those in the fridge and it lasts for months. You can cut up a carrot and throw it into just about anything, even burger meat or casseroles, for a nutritional boost. (I'm eating a homemade knish with ground beef, potatoes, and carrots right now.)

Oh, and speaking of ground beef, that's a definite DO NOT BUY. Supermarket ground beef can have hundreds of animals per package, from countless countries and factory farms. They grind it all up together and sometimes get spinal tissue in the meat, which is how people develop Crutzfeld-Jakob disease (mad cow) - and that is NOT a pleasant way to die. Burger meat just tends to be pretty dirty in general and you never know what's actually in it, so if you're shopping at the supermarket instead of a trusted farm or butcher, I'd skip the ground beef entirely and stick with the stew cubes.

I second the Tillamook cheese recommendation. No hormones or unnecessary antibiotics given to the cows, and the cheese is good and reasonably priced. Tillamook is our standard cheese around here, and also our standard butter.

If I were spending that gift card, I dunno that I'd splurge on avocado oil. I might be more tempted to get the biggest container of olive oil that I could find. It's more versatile and it'll last you longer, and a decent olive oil from a store like that will cut down dramatically on your need for sauces and other condiments. It'll just be good on its own.

: Good luck! I know you'll make it work.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by blueridgewoman

Oh! I TOTALLY forgot that I have a couple frozen turkeys buried way under everything else in the freezer. If I buy some decent oil (I have a gift card to a fancy oil place in town for like $15-- what's a good oil for mayo? maybe avocado?), I could make turkey salad, we could have soup, and roasted turkey, and then I could make broth.

For mayo I use sunflower - it's the only reason I have it in the house... it's a totally neutral flavor.

I also don't think I'd splurge on avo oil - it's so expensive that even $15 isn't going to go far. I'd go for something a bit lower on the spectrum that you could get a larger quantity of and would do more good (a pint jar of CO is $6 here, a small bottle of local olive is $7, etc.).

For mayo though, animal fat works very nicely. Duck is my fave, but I've heard bacon grease is nice also. Any would work.