I want to talk about costs today. The month is almost done, and I am above budget by about $300.00. About $200.00 of this is still intact, in the form of the raw nuts I bought and could not tolerate, so I am going to say I am really about $100.00 above budget. So – is eating raw/vegan really more expensive than the standard Canadian diet? I don’t think so.

Consider during the month I was buying both for my daughter and myself. So we still have in the freezer there is chicken, fish and hamburger patties. There are also 5 cans left of a six pack of salmon. I also bought some cereals and GF cake mixes that were being cleared out, they haven’t been opened yet. So basically, we still have a lot of food in the house. I bought a lot of organic and GF products before this diet and continued to do so through this past month. Yes, organic food can be expensive. This week I felt like eating a pineapple. I certainly wasn’t about to eat the $8.00 one at the organic store, and didn’t even want to spend $2.50 on the non-organic one at the grocery store. I buy pineapples when they are $1.99. Buying when produce is at it’s cheapest (seasonally) helps cut costs. I also always check the clearance racks. Sometimes the food is better off in the garbage, other times there are some good deals on produce or shelf goods. Another way I save is by using coupons sporadically.

I shudder at a lot of the food that I see in other people’s grocery carts. Yes, white bread, pop, chips, cookies and sugar cereals can be cheap, but the nutrient density is low or non-existent, so the value is low. What many people don’t realize when they eat these foods, is that not only are they not taking in many or any nutrients, but nutrients are being pulled from their body to digest the junk. So it is like a double nutritional blow. Anyway, here is what I had to eat today:

Breakfast:

Kale, swiss chard, spinach, strawberry, flax smoothie
Bowl of rice cereal with rice milk

Lunch:

Mixed green salad with kidney beans and eggplant/onion mix from the other day
Dates

Supper:

Beet/Potato salad
Bok choy sauteed with garlic and GF Tamari and tofu

Snack:

Grapefruit with Agave (by the way, my daughter had her usual post-concert treat of ice-cream – usually I do too, but I was OK with the grapefruit)