Has the poverty food strategy changed?

[lucille]

There are many dishes or types of cuisine that are considered poverty food or at least good cheap to make dishes. Things like Irish recipes, many of the southern foods like beans and rice or Indian food.

With milk, butter, eggs and many other things continually going up in price many of those options are also going up quite a bit in cost. We used to rely heavily on eggs to supplement our eating when we were starving artists. The high price of eggs has really thrown that out of whack. Then there are dietary concerns with many of the high carb and high saturated fat in many of the cheaper menu options.

Were planning a larger than usual garden this year but it is those other food stuffs that still seem to be going up every week.

[amandajane]

You know, I was just thinking about this last night. I have a Malaysian lady living in the apartment above, her food smells yummy! She made some chicken liver curry and gave me some yesterday.

Now I'm not too keen on chicken livers, although I do like liver and onion sometimes. I was wondering if I could find some recipes for cooking the cheaper cuts of meat. Povery food is a great name for this, I'll be doing some research on it shortly I think.

Well done on the veggie garden, I've planted heaps in containers and I'm hoping it will cut the cost of my food bills within the next couple of months.

[leslieinbham]

b/c the recipe is just yeast, water. flour, sugar, and salt for the dough and then pasta sauce or salsa or whatever and just a bit of cheese and olive oil. That seems to do it for the kids and I can hide stuff in the pasta sauce. Oh, also we have fresh rosemary pretty much year round and that makes everything taste lovely. I used to buy the little pizzas to keep onhand when they were on sale, but then some of them were recalled in a botulism thing. So much for convenience food.

leslie

[1littlething]

Unless you can grow your own foods even frugal eating seems to cost so much more. The basics keep going up more and more. I'm lucky enough to live in a very rural area so I can get eggs and such for slightly cheaper. But there are still some staples that are either getting expensive or just unhealthy.

[lucille]

I did discover over the weekend one staple that doesn't seem to have gone up as all the others have. Oats! The big cans of instant oatmeal and old fashioned rolled oats are still running about $1.88 a can here. I made a double batch of granola yesterday and was digging around trying to find the meatloaf recipe that uses oatmeal as the filler. Then it struck me that oats have not gone up.

I try to find recipes that use things other than wheat since I am allergic to it. Rice and oats are much cheaper than spelt flour. I may have to dig up more oat based recipes. Since wheat is going up also those options might be useful for everyone.
Here's the meatloaf recipe.
Cooks.com - Recipe - Oatmeal Meatloaf

[Finally_Frugal]

As for the oats: I found quick oats sold in the bulk section of my grocery store that actually turned out to be cheaper per unit than the packaged kind. Plus, I can just take a plastic bag to the store and fill it up----transfer it to packaging at home (I use a tin) to cut down on on waste. I'm no longer buying Quaker Oats instant oatmeal packets, too, saving a bit there. . . .

[purplefdu]

Oats have indeed not gone up yet. We are big fans of meatloaf with oats as well as oatmeal cookies and hot oatmeal in the winter and it makes me happy it hasn't gone up. We don't have a bulk bin at our grocer that isn't full of uber expensive organics which stinks.

We've cut down on eggs for breakfast on the weekends and go with pancakes or french toast instead, and I definitely think twice about baking a dessert. I was hoping to dig up some recipes from the Depression Era as I know they went through similar issues and managed to successfully. It doesn't help my recipe box with my grandmothers recipes has been mysteriously lost since I left it at my mother-in-laws a few years ago and she has since past so I can't get new copies.

[Tightwad]

I was standing in Kroger today trying to decide whether or not to spend $2.50 on a carton of eggs. I remember not too long ago, I paid .79 for a dozen of them. Of course, I also remember what a stink it caused when the postage stamp went up to .19.

Less milk, no eggs, and forget about corn products. Mac & cheese is starting to get really old.

[1littlething]

I think I'm still fairly young, but this thread has made me feel old. Eggs for less than a dollar, stamps for 19 cents. Remember when gas was less than $1 per gallon and you had to walk to school uphill, barefoot in the snow?

[Miss Rosie]

Cheap food = health problems. There isn't much getting around that.

I know I spend too much on food, even though I make most of it from scratch. However, my illness makes me more aware than most of how fragile our health really is, and I don't want to stack the deck against either of us any more than I have to.

I cut back on other things before I cut back on grocery bills.