BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Low Carb Working Poor are Obese on High Carb

My sister (the one with triplets and a fourth) was just talking about the coupon issue last weekend - that at first it was a great adventure but then she sort of lost interest - even though she was easily saving 60% of her grocery bill while she was gung-ho. So I suppose the challenge is keeping it interesting - maybe involving the family somehow?

I definitely know how a new business and new baby can take all your energy! Not to sound too much like a cultist, but really, I used to DRAG when I lived on potatoes and pasta. I would eat some and fall asleep. I was really surprised when I changed to all veggies and fresh foods just how much more energy I had. So I really think it helps a lot with general energy levels, to eat fresh veggies, fresh chicken and fish and keep those vitamins in you <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

After while, coupons were useless to me. I was cooking from scratch and making my own cleaners. I found the coupons too often were for convenience items that I never or I rarely used.

I like and feel best on a balanced diet myself but I think I could do with fewer carbs. My husband's needs are very different from mine. He is facing diabetes. He hasn't gone to have his blood drawn in too long a time so we don't know if he has really progressed into diabetes or if he is still lingering on the borderline. Either way, a low carb diet will keep him healthier.

My son is a big veggie fan. He is not overly fond of many meats. He will however eat chicken, especially legs and drums. I would very much love some recipes/tips on cooking these pieces in different ways.

My daughter is a problem all her own. She is 13 and a junk food addict. I am thinking she may be really hooked on the carbs and sugar, yes?

It definitely sounds that way for your daughter! You'll want to try to break that one early - I was reading today that to be overweight for a teenager has the same emotional pain as being in chemo! That's a pretty sad statement on how mean people are to overweight people, that they would make them feel that badly.

I think you're right on most coupons - I watch for things like tuna fish and frozen veggies and such, things that will last a nice long time. Our freezer and fridge is now chock-full of stuff and we have to eat our way to find some space in it. I think we have over-frugalified ourselves <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But I think it really helps you stay on a diet when you see you have lots of healthy choices there to choose from. It's not like "oh well we have to eat THAT because that's all there is ..."

I'll look into leg and drum recipes for you. I remember my mom made something delicious with red wine, maybe I can get her to give me the recipe.

On the blood testing, I actually bought a cool home blood tester because my boyfriend hates to go to the doctor. It worked really well and can calculate HDL and LDL and total cholesterol levels plus blood sugar and the rest. I'll have to write that up sometime soon. If your hubby just needs blood sugar tested, don't they have tons of those home tests? Or did he want something else tested?

My junk food addicted daughter is fortunate, she is a thin person. She is physically active so she burns off a lot of what she takes in. She may find that changes if her exertion decreases but her bad diet remains the same.

I miss my full pantry and freezer. Meal preparation was cheaper and easier when I had options at my fingertips.

I have been cooking mostly with white meat as that is what my husband and I prefer. It would likely be cheaper to add in dark meat to meals at least for the kids. Do you think cooking the legs/drumsticks with the same recipes I was using breasts in would work ok?

We have toyed with the idea of home tests but hesitated at plunking the money down. To be honest, he is absolutely stubborn about this...he doesn't want to discuss it with his doctor often and refused to get the tests done. We now have to pay for everything out of pocket so money has become an issue. I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think my ultra macho manly man husband is scared to know for sure.

Sure I'd toy with different meats and see how it comes out! Especially with stews and such, the actual meat doesn't make much of a difference. Again a benefit of the crock pot, it just turns into 'tasty stuff'.

I am QUITE with you on the husband-afraid thing. My boyfriend refuses to go to a doctor and I'm really sure most of it was that he would "know" rather than just being afraid of bad things "maybe" being true. He was up to 300 lbs and quite overweight. Now that he's down to around 225 or so he's feeling so much better, looking so much better and I think will be more open to going in to get checked.

The reason I had to get us the home test was that I was really worried about his health and wanted to know if it was really dangerous and he wouldn't go in. I agree it's sort of pricy for some of the tests. They do have ones where it's very cheap - $15 I think - and you mail in the blood and they send you back the results. Since that's anonymous and nobody will 'yell at you' or such, maybe that would work out. You can position it more of a "let's just find out" sort of thing, between you two. You could even say it's just to make a baseline before you try a set of diet changes, to see if it goes up or down from there.

BTW my boyfriend actually turned out to be quite healthy as far as the bloodwork went, so that was a real relief to know, even for him. So doing the test ended up being a good thing as far as morale.

I definately agree with this. In fact, the reason I'm low-carb dieting now is to work off years of eating hamburger helper, mac and cheese, other pasta dishes, etc. My parents fed us these things because they were cheap and easy. My father was overly frugal with the food budget, having to feed three kids, and its pretty safe to say that's what caused my childhood obesity.

This is such an interesting thought for me. There are just SO many quick cooking books out there (and we have a site here at BellaOnline) but I think our society has really turned into one where we want food instantly. I know two different people who would both be quite happy living on frozen food because it doesn't involve thought. They push a microwave button and eat. But on the other hand both of them complain that they're bored at night with nothing to do. So it's not that they don't have time. It's that they think food should be easy, and they choose that over either nutrition or flavor or even cost.

So they go for the easy food - but actually they could have better food if they wanted to spend the time on coupons and choosing foods, and cooking it. And they're also malnourishing themselves, both are definitely *not* getting healthy foods in them. So they're saving a few pennies - but their own health is failing as the results.

My grandmother went to college and studied nutrition so she was always very keen on having balanced meals. So if we were fed just mac & cheese she'd be very upset!

It's so ironic that before and during the potato famine in Ireland that people knew just eating potatoes and starch was unhealthy and they dreamed of being able to eat healthy meals with meat and vegetables. But in the modern day, we've lost touch so much with healthy eating that we feed those meals to our kids because it "saves money" - but the skimping we're doing is on our kids' health (and on our own too). And I don't think many of us even realize this *is* in essence malnutrition that we're causing ...

Should the US government have done a better job these past 30 years or so, telling people to REALLY eat all 4 food groups? They tried to tell people to eat ample grains and veggies - how did we end up living on white bread and potatoes?

YOu can definately eat well on the cheap. we are on food stamps right now, but i spend it all on fresh and frozen meats and veggies, and lots of cheese. I wait for tuna and such to go on sale, then i buy lots of it to stock up.

I have tons of free veggies all over the house from my container gardens. Several kinds of tomatoes, which are always producing, plus greens, herbs, zucchinis, summer squash, eggplant and scallions.

Dan and I are going to be moving soon, and we are thinking of giving our normal houseplants away, and having only food for houseplants in out new place. Container gardens don;t require any more effort than houseplants. for fertilizer, i just pour my used fish water in the pots of veggies. that's all it needs and you don't have to worry about overdoing the fertilizer and burning your plants.

I also enjoy making my own butter and cheese which are great for my low carb diet. These are really easy things to do - you can make a whole crock of butter while you watch TV. And cheese does its thing all by itself.

Like most things, these things just require re-setting your time priorities. All these things are cheap to do and can accomplished while multi-tasking (like on the phone, watching the news or a DVD, in between doing laundry, etc).

I have this problem too.. but thank God I have food stamps now... though not all of the working class qualifies, this is going to help me buy the meat and vegetables needed for myself and my kids, as well as water and other needs... I am also on WIC, which helps with milk, cheese, juice, etc... though i realize i am part of the VERY poor population, at least it will now ease the depression at consuming mass amounts of bread and mac n cheese in the shapes of Spongebob all day <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Meg

what vegetables do better growing indoors. Zuchini goes wild! Do you grow the same vegies all year long? Also, I would love to learn how to make my own butter and cheese. Can you tell me how?