Protein costs, with an update

Protein costs. When I priced various forms of protein (based on the USDA's definition of the usable protein per amount priced), here's what I found:

• Costs less than 2 cents per gram of protein: white and whole-wheat flour, dried beans, tuna, and peanut butter


• Costs less than 3 cents: brand-name tuna, oatmeal, high-protein pasta, frozen whiting (fish), large eggs, fryer chicken, brown rice, organic beans, 2% milk (gallon)


• Costs less than 4 cents: higher-end tuna, pork roast, powdered skim milk, chicken-leg quarters, cheddar cheese, ground beef (80% lean), beef chuck roast.

So your family wants to include some meat in the Cook for Good plan and still keep the costs down, you could substitute frozen whiting for large eggs, a fryer chicken for milk, or pork roast for cheddar cheese and still have about the same costs. What about tuna? Eat it rarely, if at all (see below). The costs above show a snapshot for one particular week; you'd want to buy what is on sale and use meat sparingly. Most adults eat far more than the recommended 55-60 grams of protein a day.

[Update: the prices show cheapest meat available. That's meat that would fit into my thrifty plan, if it had meat. This is the sort of factory-farmed meat that you would have sworn not to eat again if you saw Food, Inc. or Fresh. Kindly raised animals eating wholesome food cost more and are worth more. When you start saving money by using Cook for Good methods and if you eat meat already, put some of your savings to work by eating less but better meat.]


Unfortunately, tuna is easy, delicious, cheap ... and dangerous. The risk of harmful mercury levels is so high that the Mercury Policy Project asked the government to exclude light tuna from the WIC program. Albacore tuna, being larger and older, has even higher levels of this heavy metal. The MPP says that "the USDA cannot guarantee the safety of the mercury levels in canned light tuna because the FDA fails to adequately screen canned tuna and remove high-mercury canned tuna." MedicineNet describes the symptoms of mercury poisoning, warning that the effects are most severe for fetuses and infants:

Impacts on cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills have been seen in children exposed to methylmercury in the womb.

When I was in high school, my best friend had canned tuna with mustard every day for lunch as part of her Weight Watchers program. Thank heavens she wasn't pregnant! But mercury toxicity is cumulative, so even now I've got mercury in my body from the cheap tuna-curry dinners I made in college.

Dried beans still the winner. Even organic dried beans cost less than 3 cents per gram of protein. And they are superfoods, loaded with fiber, calcium, and folate, essential for early fetal development and good for us at any age.

Resist call to passivity from Big Oil

A plume of news stories has started to seep into the media, telling us that we can't make a difference. They say: you can't avoid oil and petrochemicals. You can't fight BP at the pump. Nonsense.

It's easy to conserve and don't let the oil industry tell you otherwise. Replace the "fast-food milkshake ... with a petrochemical-based thickener" with one made from real local milk and ice cream. Cook dried beans at home instead of driving out to McBurger for beef. Eat local produce. Drink tap water, not bottled water. Carpool. Turn off your motor when your car isn't moving. Quit buying things you don't need. Bring cloth grocery bags. Borrow or buy used when you can. Oil is valuable and finite, so save it for products we really need, like medicine and even shoes.

I know that even people who talk the environmental talk often don't want to walk the walk ... and I don't mean just Al Gore. I used to be a member of district and state political committees that met several times a year. Almost no one carpooled to these events. We had a chance to save oil and to increase community (or network, if you prefer). But instead we chose convenience.

Oil-covered beaches and birds are inconvenient. Poisoned shrimp and oysters are inconvenient. Global warming is very inconvenient. Make a change to today to reduce the demand for oil. You can make a difference.

$36 a day for a "low calorie diet"?

Here's that old myth again: obesity is an economic issue because poor people can only afford to eat high-calorie food. AOL reports the latest version in Skinniest People Grocery Shop HERE. Seems that Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiology professor at the University of Washington claims that:

People who are poor and have less to spend on food try to get the biggest calorie bang for their food buck. That means they not only shop at cheaper stores, but also buy less healthy food.

They do not have to get the biggest calorie bang for the buck! Ideally, they will be trying to get the biggest nutritional bang for the buck. Obesity indicates in nearly all cases that too many calories are being consumed, which would permit purchase of fewer, more nutritious foods on the same budget.

You can afford to shop at Whole Foods even if you are on food stamps ... and I've got the data to prove it. Last month, my green meals averaged $1.83 per person. The North Carolina food-stamp allowance is $1.99 per person or 27 cents more. And my plan includes buying everything every month, including salt and cooking oil, and does not use coupons. Yes, my thrifty plan costs less at $1.18 per meal, but I could have spent less at Whole Foods if I hadn't chosen organic ingredients whenever possible.

But Dr. Drewnowski must consider Evian water or reduced-fat foie gras to essential Weight Watchers fare. How else to explain his study results that say:

a calorie-dense diet costs $3.52 a day, compared with $36.32 a day for a low-calorie diet.

That's more than $12 a meal, including breakfast.

I agree wholeheartedly that access to good ingredients isn't enough. People need the money to buy food plus the skills and a place to cook it. But you don't have to be rich to be thin.