Shopping & Budgeting

I often hear people grizzling that they can’t afford LCHF because the food is so expensive. While it is true that it can be, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you can find your grocery bills going down if you do it right. The time you save shopping is already going to have saved you something. As they say, time is money! Remember, this is a long-term plan. How much are you currently spending on healthcare (uh, I mean sick care)? Down the track, these costs are going to plummet, so you need to balance the cost of your medication against using food as your medicine instead. We’re going to break our discussion down into two sections:

• What not to do
• What to do

What NOT to Do

No aisle wandering

You’re going to notice that you won’t need to wander the aisles looking for specials on breakfast cereals or meals in a bag. They’re processed and full of nasties. You won’t need to cruise the aisles, except when you’re running low on loo paper! In most supermarkets, most of what you can eat will be around the walls; the aisles hold what you can’t eat.

No kids, no hunger pangs

Some low-carbers suggest that you don’t go shopping when you’re hungry. If you have a cacophony of kids with you, don’t let them drag you to the lolly aisle. Use your best mommy skills to distract them!

Don’t buy

• Lunch from the café down the road from your workplace
• Exotic imported fruit or veggies
• Nuts and nut flours
• Seeds
• Processed foods
• Snack foods
• Drinks

Just because you can eat some things, doesn’t mean you should eat them.

What to Do

Buy Ingredients Make Food

Buy ingredients. Make food. That’s it!

Get control of your pantry!

First things first. Have a massive cleanout and ditch everything that’s on the verboten list. If you feel you can’t handle the waste, maybe pass them on to someone who ‘needs’ it more than you do. Just remember you’re paying your poison forward. Is that what you really want to do? Bin or donate? Your call.

Do your research

Check out pricing at various outlets. Go for specials. But don’t spend a fortune on petrol to save a couple of bucks down the road!Check the unit prices. For instance, the price per 100g. Sometimes it’s cheaper in bulk. Sometimes you’ll get caught by the wily retailer, and find it’s cheaper to buy the smaller unit.

Grow your own

Do try and grow your own veggies, even if you live in a tiny apartment. You’d be surprised what you can achieve, even in a couple of pots. We live in a desert, so it’s taken a fair bit of experimenting to find what we can grow successfully in beach sand. But you’d be amazed at the kale that would give Jack’s beanstalk a run for its money! Even a few herbs such as basil, thyme and coriander are going to save you dollars at the checkout, if you’re growing your own. Save your seeds (e.g. capsicum, pumpkin and chillies), dry and plant them.

Shop at the markets

Try shopping at markets or local greengrocers. These places are more likely to have locally grown, in-season, organically grown fruit and vegetables. Try online deliveries. Some local guys will put together a Paleo-pack of seasonal meat and veg for you.

Become the queen of leftovers

Take leftovers to work for your lunch. And don’t get hung up on what time of day you’re going to be eating it. If you haven’t enough to fill up your lunch bowl with leftovers, chuck in a few pieces of tomato and cucumber with salad greens. Keep a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil in your desk drawer to drizzle over at the last minute.

Plan ahead

Many suggest planning ahead so you’re not tempted off the rails at the shop. But I find that swinging by on my way home and picking up what’s fresh, in season and special is what helps me plan my food for the next 24 to 48 hours. And you’ll find, when you get to the recipe section, I’ve broken the recipes down by food, not by meal type. So, for instance, you may find cauliflowers on special but you haven’t a clue what to do with them. Most of your recipe books tell you what to make for ‘lunch’ or for ‘dinner’ or for ‘soup’ or ‘dessert.’ I’ll tell you what to do with the cauliflower! Do shop to your lifestyle and menu plan. You’ve learned how to plan a menu so try and stick to the plan. Unless of course you were planning aubergines and they’re really expensive today; then buy that cauli which is on special and change the plan!

Make your own

Buy budget cuts of meat, fish and chicken. Do you really need fillet steak, or will brisket do? Full fat mince is usually considerably cheaper that premium low fat stuff. Buy organ meats such as kidneys or hearts; I dare you to try brains or bone marrow. Meat off-cuts are often much cheaper (our local outlet for instance, sells ‘lamb flaps’ for a couple of dollars, which is a whole bunch cheaper than a whole roast which is more like $20 or $30). Buy whole cuts, such as a whole chicken, rather than just breasts. You can make it go so much further: roast today, chicken ala Ingz tomorrow, and a broth with the carcass.

Buy in season

I’ve left the most important advice for last. In season veggies are usually stacks cheaper than out of season items, which have required cold storage to preserve them. Remember our little chat about how the liver is designed to cope with seasonal fluctuations, and how local, in season fruit will be more likely to have the vitamins required by your body? It might be tempting to go for that fruit which has been in cold storage since the summer, but do you really need mangos in winter? There’s really nothing to stop you from buying heaps when the price is good and freeze for the winter, if you really want to.

Deciphering the Labels

The fact that you’re stopping by to read this section means you’ve probably glossed over the bit about buying ingredients and making food, and ignored the bit about only heading down the centre aisles for loo paper. So, it’s worth our time to tarry a while and talk about labelling. In general, if it’s got a label, it ain’t ingredients. The only labels you’ll find on fresh fruit or veggies are usually something like organic or sizing. First the good news, swing back to the Fab Food lists and you’ll find acceptable condiments like Passata or tomato paste. In general, these have usually only got one or two ingredients: tomatoes, and maybe salt. But flip them over anyway, because sometimes you’ll find an added preservative, which you should avoid.

Check the carbs

Check the net carb content on the label and make sure you read the per 100gm column, not the per serving column. The latter is designed to trick you into thinking it contains less sugar in it than it actually has. Rule of thumb, if it’s over 5% net carb, don’t bother reading the ingredients on the label.

Check the Ingredients

Identify any nasties. If its got anything like these in the package, drop it back on the shelf like a hot potato!

• Preservatives
• Fancy E numbers
• MSG
• Wheat
• Soy
• Corn
• Artificial sweeteners
• High fructose corn syrup
• Something with a vague abbreviation which means absolutely nothing to you—chances are it’s a big nasty

Don’t be misled

• Lite or low-fat is not healthy—they’ve stripped out the fat, and along with that the flavour, which invariably means they’ve added sugar to improve the taste
• Heart Foundation ticks and stars are usually the worst options
• Fortified probably means they’ve processed all the nutrition out of the ingredients and had to add back some vitamins or minerals
• Sugar-free probably means they’ve added one or more artificial sweeteners

Swaps for the Staples

Bread

• Nut flour bread
• Sweet potato toast
• Try bun-less burgers! The buns are just a method of getting the food from the plate to your mouth. Fingers or forks work too!
• Portobello mushrooms instead of burger buns
• Grated parmesan or pecorino instead of bread crumbs
• Desiccated or flaked coconut instead of bread crumbs
• Grated pork crackling instead of bread crumbs
• Crunchy lettuce or cabbage wraps
• Cauli wraps

Cereals

• Nut granola

Couscous

• Cauli couscous (grated cauliflower, either used raw or added at the last minute so it doesn’t turn to mushy mash)

Crackers

• Cucumber
• Seed crackers

Flour

• Ground nuts (such as almonds, pecans, macadamia)
• Coconut flour
• Psyllium husk
• Pumpkin seed (pepito) flour
• Vegetable gums

Milk chocolate

• 85% or higher dark chocolate

Pasta

• Konjak noodles
• Spaghetti squash
• Zoodles (spiralised or julienned zucchini or other veggies; try raw julienned pumpkin for crunch in a salad)

Pizza

• Fathead pizza

Potatoes

• Cauli mash
• Aubergine or other veggie mash
• Sweet potatoes
• Pumpkin or squash

Rice

• Cauli rice (grated cauliflower)

Sugar

Plan to work the sweet tooth out of your lifestyle, but if you must:

• Stevia
• Xylitol
• Erythritol