April Austerity - Shopping Shenanigans II

Three eggs needed eating by the 9th and I just hadn't managed to fit them into a meal, so I made a cake to take to uni, as I was meeting Roy and Mohamed for a collective study session - hopefully we'll either motivate, or shame each other into getting the essays done!  I think the tea and the cake probably helped in this session, but I am now out of butter.  I don't think they noticed I only put 50% of the sugar in the mix - it vanished!

This is a typical uni day lunch, although I am now down to one apple - I don't think I'll see much fruit this week; I may crack open the tinned peaches and have a few slices on my breakfast each morning.

Dinner last night: I took a flatbread, smeared tomato paste over it and loaded it up with courgette, onion, broccoli and a little bit of cheese.  I wasn't bad and it was certainly cheaper and better for me than fast food.

Ange popped over today.  We had chicken wrap with carrot, courgette, a tomato, cucumber and lettuce.  It was nice to have the variety, but realistically, it was only about 1 ½ portions of veg in total.  Potato wedges went nicely with the wrap.

This is the second time I have cooked for someone else, plus the cake above.   Realistically I shouldn't be doing this, if I only had £45 for the month, but I am a sociable person and sitting down with a nice plate of food and good company is a brilliant way of spending a day.  Someone on this budget would be missing out on this important (no, essential) social side of life.

I made it over to Tosca this evening just as there was s some decent stock in the cut-price veg section.  Avocado - 59p!  Spinach - 59p! Beans -  58p! Rocket  - 40p!  I also picked up three peppers for 99p.  The total spend was £4.09, that leaves £6.45 and I'll need milk in a few days.   If I can get away with not shopping until  next Sunday (milk aside)  I *may manage this.  I still have some Savoy and white cabbages left and ½ the broccoli.   I haven't even cracked open the tins of tomatoes, the freezer still has ALL THAT SOUP and I still have ¾ of the pie, some turkey mince and two chicken breasts left in stock.

Dinner!  Finally - peppers, avocado and spinach - this is definitely more my sort of meal!

April Austerity and Medical Malfunctions

Those of you who know me well enough, will also know well enough that I have a few dietary restrictions.  I think it's about to become a whole world more complicated.

Currently I avoid the following items:

• Grapefruit - this one is a case of 'come hell, or high water'
• Pomegranate 
• Shellfish
• Undercooked meat/fish - no rare steak etc
• Undercooked eggs - anything from boiled eggs to Hollandaise Sauce!
• Buffets - hot, or cold - bacterial growth
• Any 'natural remedies' such as St John's Wort, incase of interactions with my immune-suppressants

I am supposed to avoid the following, but the occasional brush with them would be ok, in terms of the transplant team:

• Cold food in restaurants and at a friend's house, or with family (so that means I am not supposed to eat salads etc outside of my own home - although I do trust my friends to wash a lettuce thoroughly...)
• Soy 

Consume very occasionally

• Deli meats
• Pies/Pastries
• Crisps, biscuits, cakes etc - The usual junk food

Harefield's dieticians generally recommend a lower fat, salt, sugar, calorie diet, tell you to eat your fruit and veg (1 fruit, 5-6 veg) and throughout the last 26 years I have managed to maintain my weight, for most of the time.  I had a 4yr weight problem, just after a major rejection, when I was 11 years out.  Since I got the weight off (11yrs ago), I've maintained myself consistently between 44-47.5kg.  My target weight is 45kg.  My eating regime is not 'that bad'; it's not perfect, I do like chocolate digestives, crisps and home baked goodies, but I do eat a lot of the good stuff.

Unfortunately, on Thursday I was told that the inevitable had probably happened; I've more or less ceased to produce insulin, my blood sugar was up high (non-fasting bloods) - I'm now awaiting an appointment to see a local Diabetic doctor.  Hmmm - in case that is not clear, I am waiting to see a doctor who specialises in Diabetes - not a doctor who has the condition ;)

As an aside, I have never understood why Diabetes is called a disease.  It's not something you catch, like Malaria - it's something you acquire; it's a condition.  In my case, the immune-suppressant drugs have mucked up my body's ability to produce its own Insulin.  A change in diet is not going to make this go away; I won't suddenly start making more of the stuff.  I can only eat to try and stop the blood sugar spiking quite so rapidly.  To complicate matters further, I have a raft of other major medical malfunctions that all come with their own food rules and regulations: some example include high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis (furry arteries), Osteoporosis and it also looks like I have Rheumatoid Arthritis - again waiting to see a doctor.

On the plus side, because this has been a long time coming, I have already started making adaptions to my cooking.  A few examples:

• I tend to use plain yogurt for sauces, instead of mayonnaise (or cream) - but I haven't been able to afford it this month.  
• I grate cheese and therefore need to use less of it
• In scone, or cake baking I've switched 50% of the flour over to ground almonds
• When I make flapjack, I halve the sugar content and add almond flour, mixed seeds and nuts and some fried fruit 

Years ago, being diabetic meant NO SUGAR!  Now it means following a diet, in which you eat predominantly from a set of foods that register as low on the Glycemic Index.  Sugar, in small quantities, is back on the diabetic table...but we should all be watching our sugar intake anyway!  Just in the same way that 20 years ago we were told to watch our salt intake.

The problem for me now in April, is that massive batch of soup that I made at the weekend.  High on the Glycemic Index are swedes, parsnips and potato.  Aside from the fact that I have been eating the stuff for three, or four, days straight and I am BORED OUT OF MY TINY LITTLE MIND, can I now 'afford' to eat the rest that is sat in my fridge, in terms of the probable Diabetes?  In terms of April,  I can't afford to chuck it out, or give it away!  If you were on £10 a week for food and suddenly had to change your diet, you'd have a problem.

The reality of the situation is that whilst I don't have the diagnoses and I am still 'healthy' (in terms of Diabetes), I can probably still eat the stuff. I have one bowl left for tonight and 8 servings in the freezer.  I'll just have to space them out - that should also help save my sanity...

In any case, I guess if I do decide I am not eating any more of the soup, there is always a willing volunteer to help me out.

April Austerity - Stockpiling Syndrome

This was dinner last night.  It was the first time I'd sat down actually hungry!  Because of my medication regime and my exhaustion levels, I tend to graze through the day - I'm not usually one for big meals - but the lack of nuts to nibble on is causing a bit of a problem. 

I had 80g of fresh broccoli; there's still another 4 portions left, so 50p was great!  I had 60g of Savoy cabbage; there's still ⅔ of the original item left and I had the last 50g of a carrot that had made its way grated into a wrap and 4 portions of coleslaw.  Potato wedges went nicely with the pie.

And well done Tosca!  Originally £3 and I paid £2 for this pie.  I didn't look too closely at the ingredients, but on taste alone this can't be faulted for 50p a portion!  That said, I think a normal sized adult may find the size a bit small...  If budgets are tight and you want a little bit of comfort food, then this is not bad.  Obviously, again, you have to cast aside any consideration for the chicken's quality of life before it wrapped itself in pastry, but flavour and texture were pretty good, and who doesn't like puff pastry?  It probably worked out at about 95p for the meal.

Last nights dinner actually happened after a quick trip to Tosca.  I spent £4.92 on this lot.  I didn't have the energy to go over to Aldee to pick up cheaper bits and bobs.  If I had to get by on £10 a week, I'd sturggle for the simple fact that I find supermarkets exhausting.  Normally, Tosca comes to me once a fortnight with a two week supply!

The swede, carrots, onion and parsnip was a deal for £1.  Adding up the items individually bought, it would have been nearly £1.50 - so keep an eye out for the packs with the largest produce as they are not sold by weight!!!  Eight apples? 94p instead of £1.60.  I wish I'd gone a bit later; the discounted produce may have been better!

 So... £10.54 for the month remains - heck!  I won't be going back to the shops until Sunday/Monday next week.

Which is why I spent most of today making stacks of soup.  I took two of the manky Aldee chicken breasts, the turkey bone, some of the soup mix (split peas, beans etc), ½ of the swede, the onion, some potato and the parsnip and made soup.  I also added a bit of the veg stock from the cupboard, a load of dried herbs and seasoning  I was going to put in one of my lovely new carrots, but I decided to keep them and instead spent 5 minutes removing frozen carrots from the veg mix!  It seemed sensible; I'd be getting some fresh veg, but bulk out the soup with stuff that's fairly lame, if eaten just cooked.  I had it for dinner; there's 8 portions in the freezer and about 6 in the fridge.  

Hopefully they'll make life a bit easier as I am becoming too tired to cook again.  I normally only cook 2-3 nights a week; I get too tired to prepare a hot meal every day, so this exercise is already making its mark, from that point of view.  If this was my reality, it would probably have quite serious consequences for my health, especially if I didn't have a car to go to buy goods.  On this budget the shopping is not delivered.

Tonights dinner: homemade, plenty of veg, all blitzed together and it was pretty good, if I may say so myself.  Nothing unpronounceable in this bowl and the chicken passes muster like this.

Au

April Austerity - Cheese and Chooks

I've said it so many times before, but not all chicken is created equally.  Aldee, you fall way short of the mark as far as frozen chicken is concerned.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say (and I can't believe I am saying this), that the Aldee frozen chicken (and not their cheapest) was several levels below the taste, texture, smell of Tosca's Everyday Value.  Wow.  

Putting aside all thoughts of battery farming, life quality of the animal in question and looking only at the situation people sometimes find themselves - having to chose the cheaper option - if this chicken is the standard of meat that I would have to eat, then I would turn vegetarian.  Yes, I'd rather go through the rigmarole of discussing this with my medical team and then trips to Harefield for regular blood tests to make sure my immune-suppressant level hadn't dropped.  Yes, the person on a restricted diet would drop yet another food-group off her eating list, rather than face the thought of such poor quality.

In case you are wondering what made it so bad, I can tell you it was dry, rubbery, lacking in flavour and didn't have a particularly nice aroma.  How they managed all of that, I don't know.  

Hmm, whilst we are on the subject of last night's dinner, Tosca's frozen everyday vegetables? 50% win and 50% lose.  The carrots were diced and vaguely carrotty, the broccoli florets were green - and that's the best thing I can say about them.  The peas were peas and fine, but the cauliflower actually held it's shape, was firm to the bite and actually tasted like cauliflower. 

The best thing about this dinner was the pesto, and the savoy cabbage!

Tonight's dinner should be more appetising, especially as I know what's in the vast majority of it.  I made courgette, cheese and herb scones; a couple of those will be accompanied by coleslaw made with cabbage, carrot, onion, courgette and Tosca's everyday mayonnaise.  We'll just ignore the Asorbic Acid for now ;)

April Austerity - Perfect Pizza

Well, I've survived three days of Panebello Pizza: two dinners and a lunch.  I have to confess that I caved last night and made a very basic Coleslaw, to try and mix things up a bit.  

I missed throwing a handful of seeds, or nuts over the salad; the tomato, pepper and avocado were also conspicuous by their absence.  I wasn't hungry after dinner, but I could have eaten a bit more - sure enough, ten minutes later my hand was reaching for the packet of Disodium Diphosphate (or Ginger Nuts) and two quickly disappeared.

So, if I am a little unsure about eating unpronouncable additives in biscuits, I thought I'd use this rant to see what was in that boxed pizza that I won.  I have to say, I NEVER buy frozen pizzas and I am not a fan of deep pan pizzas; the topping to bread ratio is simply not satisfying.  The topping on the Panebello wasn't bad, it tasted ok (damned by faint praise?) and I could see vegetable representation in the form of several large chunks of pepper.  Unfortunately, they sort of dwindled into nothing upon cooking; a real shame considering my liking for peppers.

You can follow the link underneath (or copy and paste), if you wish ;)  The first 'thing' is that the Dr Oetker site says the pizza contains four portions - my bad.  Well, actually at the time of picking this up, the Tosca website said the pizza should serve two.  Um.  Cut into four this would not feed a gnat, or a homunculus like myself.  Heaven help you if you happen to be a normal sided adult!  

In the crust there are some more of those sodium phosphates, so I'll ignore that for now.   Let's rummage a little further.  

1) Mono and Diglycerides are present.  That's a cunningly disguised E number - E471.  It's commonly used as a binder.  Funny thing is, when I make pizza bases, I don't reach for the bottle labeled  E471.  I wonder how I manage?   The pizza that I ate was a pepperoni one.  But veggies and vegans beware:  E471 is usually derived from vegetable oil, but it can come from animal fat and no, they don't have to say which...buyer beware!  If you want to avoid animal products, then your best bet is to avoid anything with this additive.

2) Ascorbic Acid was also present - E300, another one hiding under a title, so unsuspecting consumers may not be aware that the product contains E-numbers.  This one is generally used as an anti-oxidant food additive.  What they don't tell you, is that it can also be used as a reductant in photograph development and in the production of plastics. 

3) Amylase: E1100 - yes, this is a naturally occurring enzyme found in human saliva.  But, again, veggies beware; in food it can derive from the pancreas of a pig.  

You may wonder why I am bothered about potentially non veggie products in a meat dish - just check the 'cheese' options, in case they are in there.  If there is no meat, is it vegetarian/vegan?

I'm pretty certain I remember general 'flapping' about the presence of E-numbers and additives in food.  If I can make pizza bread with flour, yeast, salt and a dash of milk, then surely big companies can use simple ingredients too?

Do we *really know what we are eating, when we buy pre-made food?  

http://www.oetker.ca/ca-en/our-products/panebello/pepperoni/pepperoni.html

April Austerity - Food Forecast

What's on the Menu?

So this is what it boils down to; can someone live (not just scrape by) on £1.50 of food in a day?

Breakfast!

Porridge - made with the following:
40g oats (serving is 50g) 3p
25g sultanas  - 4p
100mls water                  
100mls milk - 4p
Total - 11p

Calories: 279
Fat:         4.4g
Sugar:     23.2g
Salt:        Trace




Based on this, I think I'll be increasing the oats to 50g and reducing the sultanas to 20g!


Lunch!

Mission Herb Wrap: - 6.25p
Tosca Everyday Mayo: -1p
Lettuce: - 4p
Cucumber: -5p
Carrot: -4p
apple: -31p
Total: -51p


Calories: 313
Fat: 8.7g
Sugar: 20.2g
Salt: 1.2g



I haven't worked out the calorie content etc. of the veggies as they would be negligible!  The wraps are now off deal and I haven't found any more coupons to replace them - clearly, I'm now hunting for vouchers for next month!

Dinner!

I had this last night and owing to not wanting to waste anything, it looks like tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch as well :S

Panebello Pizza - Free - I won it!
(whole costs £2.50 - ⅓ = 83p)
Lettuce: - 4p
Cucumber: - 5p
Carrot: -4p
Onion: -1p
Tosca Everyday Mayo: - 1p
Total: - 15p


Calories: 347
Fat: 13.7g
Sugar: 3.5g
Salt: 1.62g

This would have cost me 98p, had I had to buy the pizza.  Half a pizza is a portion; this was divided into three.  The cost would increase again. 

Teabags and Milk allowance - 15p

My Daily Food Spend 
- with the free pizza  - 77p 
- 'paying' for ⅓ pizza - £1.60
- 'paying' for serving of ½ a pizza  - £1.87

Daily Consumption:

Calories:  939
Fat:          26.8g
Sugar:     26.9g
Salt:        2.82g

I'll probably have a couple of those ginger nuts this evening, but which ever way you cut it, there is not enough food on the plate to sustain most adults, on the available £1.50.  I won't do this mathematical working out every day; it's taken too long and it's tedious to read, but I will once a week, on a random day work it all out. 

My weight was 46.4kg this morning.  Harefield likes me to be 45kg and they advocate a lowER calorie, lowER fat, lowER sugar, lowER salt diet.  This selection ticks that box, even if the sugar percentage is high.  I sense this weight coming off fairly quickly.  If it drops too low, then I may have to abandon the fruit/veg in favour of keeping my weight stable - just as the government FINALLY catches onto the idea that the English really, really don't eat enough of the healthy stuff!!

April Austerity - Tea Tasting!

Everyone, who has half an idea about what makes me tick, knows this: I drink tea, therefore I am.  Or something like that...

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner ladies and gentlemen:  Aldee tea at £1.99 for 160 teabags is brilliant.  It is as strong as the £2.69 for 80 box that PG Tips produce, or the £4.76 box of 160.  At the time of typing this Tosca are also selling 240 PG Tips for a deal of £5.00 and 460 for £6.99.  Which ever way you look at this, the Aldee box is the cheapest!

As for the Ginger Nuts?  Well, actually, they're not bad either.  Your options at Tosca at the moment are the Everyday Value 300g pack for 25p; the 'normal' Tosca pack of 200g for 39p, or Mcvities packs of 250g for £1.09 (or 2 for £2).  On a budget?  My money is on the 25p pack.  It's the cheapest and it's the biggest!

But... I looked at the ingredients of all three varieties and they all contain Disodium Diphosphate - otherwise known as Disodium, Pyrosphate (sounding even less appealing).  Aside from being used as a raising agent, this little charmer can be used in the treatment of leather, to remove stains off the hides.  It's also used to remove the scurf and hair off of pig skin.  NOM!

I wish I hadn't had that second biscuit now...