Eat Cheaper and Eat Better

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How to Eat Well on $12 a Week


EAT CHEAPER AND EAT BETTER (1995 prices. Updates are
welcome.)

If you had to dig into the pocket a little to pay
your internet service provider this month, this page
could help you get your investment back several times
over. When I say, "eat well", I mean "eat
healthfully," not "eat elaborately". Eating
healthfully means a complete but meatless diet of
inexpensive, whole foods. It also means a good
tasting, simple diet that you can live with - and will
live better with - every day. You will not get fat on
these foods, and will easily maintain or reduce to
your optimum weight. How many obese vegetarians have
you met?

You will find that this diet may not require that you
see the doctor as often as you may be used to. A
better, simpler diet means simply better health. Most
people go to the doctor when they're sick. If you've
better nutrition, you are less likely to be sick, and
if you're not sick, you probably won't see the doctor.
Now if you don't choose to really follow, faithfully,
the proposed diet's guidelines, you may have less
success than those who do stay away from meat,
chemical additives, junk foods and sugar. If you
become a "pudding vegetarian", that is, you eat
ANYTHING but meat - lots of starches, desserts,
packaged foods, too few fruits and vegetables, no nuts
or cheeses - and don't eat anything GOOD in place of
the meat you dropped, well, you'll not be successful
at being healthy. It stands to reason that the
vegetarians that doctors see are the sick ones, the
unsuccessful ones. The sickly "pudding vegetarians"
eat no meat and nothing good, either. Of course they
can't be healthful unless they have the "three
sisters" (corn, beans and squash) each day for their
complete protein. But these vegetarian failures are
the very ones that doctors see, because they are the
vegetarians who get sick. If all the "health nuts"
that a doctor sees are sick, the doctor naturally
concludes that all vegetarians are wasting away.

Not so! There are tens of thousands of vegetarians
all around you, but they don't make a big deal about
it. But they exist, and exist well on their sensible
meatless daily fare. It's just that the healthy
vegetarians don't have any reason to go to the doctor,
so they're not medical statistics. My wife, children
and myself haven't seen a medical doctor for years,
except for childbirth or check-up. We watch out for
our own health, and eat right. Is it that much of a
surprise that nature does the rest?

Healthful diet equals vegetarian diet. Vegetarian
diet equals inexpensive diet. Believe me, it's
considerably cheaper to not have to buy meat at
today's prices. We are vegetarian primarily for our
health and personal preferences. Money is not the
deciding factor is our being vegetarian, but if you
can eat better and save money at the same time, why
not?

So vegetarian diet equals inexpensive diet. And what
follows is inexpensive diet:

A Week Of Cheap Eating
Quality budget meals are going to rely on quality,
budget foods. That's why you have to shop right. The
foods to buy include:

Dry Foods:
Brown rice
Navy, or pea beans
Lentils
Split green peas
Whole wheat flour
Alfalfa seeds
Mung seeds
Salt (optional)
Yeast (for baking)

Frozen Foods:
Corn
Green Beans
Squash (any variety)

Canned Foods:
Tomato puree
Pumpkin

Fresh Foods, In Season
Apples
Carrots
Cabbage
Squash, any variety
Onions

Jar Foods
Cayenne pepper sauce (e.g. "Frank's")
Vegetable oil
Unsulfured molasses
Honey (optional)

Beverages:
Water
Herb tea
Cider, in season
Grape juice, or other
100% juice of any kind (optional)

Dairy Foods:
Butter
Cottage Cheese
Other cultured Cheeses

This is your shopping list. With the exception of the
alfalfa seeds and mung beans, you can find all of the
above at a good supermarket. You may need to go to a
health food store for seeds to sprout, and if a food
co-op has better prices on any of the above, I'd
certainly buy those items there, too.

The next portion of this chapter is going to provide
commentary on the foods listed, with prices and brands
given for examples. The listing of brands will be
incomplete, and the prices vary, depending on where
and when you buy. This is 1995 information.

Dry Foods Commentary
Brown Rice
(e.g. "Uncle Ben's Brown Rice" or "Riceland Brown
Rice," etc.) Two pounds (dry) at $.85/lb
Brown rice is high in protein, carbohydrates,
B-vitamins, and roughage. White rice is high in none
of these things except carbohydrate alone.
Three-fourths of the world's people start and finish
their day with this one food item. Alone, it's not
enough to live on for optimal health. The entire
house doesn't have to be built of cement to still have
a good foundation. Rice, when cooked, expands to
about four or five times its dry weight and size. Two
pounds of rice will yield a lot of meals.

Navy, or Pea Beans
(e.g. "Smith's Navy Beans" or "Jack Rabbit Pea Beans",
etc.) One pound (dry) at $.79/lb
Also high in protein and carbohydrate. Use for baked
beans, refried beans, bean-burgers, etc.

Lentils
(e.g. "Smith's" or "Jack Rabbit" brands, etc.) Two
pounds at $.85/lb
Very high in protein. Expand when cooked as rice
does. Make burgers, soup, hash, lentil-loaf, etc.
Please see recipe section.

Split Green Peas
(Same brands as before) One pound at $.65/lb
The cheapest green vegetable, best as pea soup.
Cooks in several pints of water to make ten servings
of hearty soup. Add onion, cloves, salt to taste.
Split peas, rice, beans and lentils do take a while to
cook (45 min. to 1 1/2 hrs.) so allow plenty of time
in preparation, and soak overnight to reduce cooking
time to a minimum. Keep leftover soup in serving-size
jars in the refrigerator, so whenever you want an easy
meal, just open a jar of soup instead of a can.
Canned soup is much more expensive and loaded with
salt. Homemade tastes better, too. Pea soup is high
in protein and potassium.

Whole Wheat Flour
(e.g. "Robin Hood" or "Pillsbury's" Whole Wheat Flour,
also called Graham Flour) Five pound bag at $1.89
The "staff of life". Make bread, pizza, rolls, etc.
Heavy but healthy, with B-vitamins, minerals, protein
and fiber. Twice as expensive as bleached white
flour, but you can live on 1/4 as much. I can eat
many slices of white-flour pizza, but only a few
pieces of whole wheat pizza will fill me. Good foods
support life, including other forms of life as well as
ours, so keep whole wheat flour in the refrigerator
for best shelf life. For baking, or for a finicky
family, you may want to lighten your product and might
can add some Unbleached White Flour in place of all
whole wheat.

Alfalfa Seeds, for sprouting
(at any health-food store) 1/4 lb at $3.95/lb
Don't be dismayed at the high per-pound price until
you count the number of seeds in a pound. A
tablespoon of alfalfa seeds makes a wide-mouth jar
full of alfalfa sprouts. All you need is water; rinse
twice daily. Sprouts are one of the best raw foods
you can eat. High in protein, all vitamins especially
Vitamin C, and minerals. 1/4 lb. of seeds will last
you for several weeks.

Mung Beans, for sprouting
(At any health-food store) 1/2 lb at $2.99/lb
Like alfalfa seeds, generally will found at a health
food store. Sprout a tablespoon at a time and eat raw
or, in the case of mung beans only, lightly steamed.
Excellent food, traditionally in Chinese dishes.
Canned sprouts are expensive, overcooked, and
tasteless. As with alfalfa, a small volume of beans
makes a large volume of sprouts.

An excellent sourcebook for health and an outstanding
guide to cheap, easy sprouting is Survival Into the
21st Century, by Viktoras Kulvinskas, M.S. published
by Omangod Press). It costs about $20 and is well
worth it. The author has lived for years on sprouts
and fruit... and describes the advantages of doing so
in his book.

Salt, to taste
(e.g. house brands or Morton, Sterling, etc.) 1 lb for
$.49
Optional, and use sparingly for best health. Salt is
important for taste, especially for those folks who
think that their cooking is too bland. It's better to
eat your home-made good food with a little salt than
to eat commercial, processed food that's loaded with
salt. Soups and bread in particular need salt for
most palates. When you add salt to your cooking,
remember that it's still much less than a food
processor uses. Salt is a big ingredient in
"convenience" foods and restaurant or fast-foods.
Iodized salt is preferable to insure some iodine in
addition to what's in your daily multiple vitamin.
Most salts contain anti-caking ingredients (chemicals)
which rarely are really needed. If you can get pure
salt, put a few grains of rice in the salt shaker to
prevent caking. The rice grains absorb moisture that
causes caking. Iodized salt always has a chemical or
two added to "hold" the iodine. If you eat a lot of
sea vegetables or continue to eat seafood, you get
quite a bit of iodine that way. Sea salt is good,
too, but not as a source of iodine, unless mixed with
powdered kelp. Adelle Davis wrote that you can cheaply
get iodine in your diet by adding ONE drop of iodine
tincture to a half-gallon of orange juice or other
fruit juice.

Yeast
(e.g. "Red Star") Three packets together, $1.29
Read the yeast label; some dry yeasts have
preservatives in them. Red Star does not. It's good
to bake bread regularly, considering the high cost and
low quality of almost all commercial breads. If you
want to save on yeast, use a sour-dough system: save
out a fistful of your risen bread dough and put it in
the refrigerator. Keep it until you bake again later
in the week, and then use it instead of yeast. Mix it
in with the new flour-water mixture, and it will
culture all the new dough to rise. Then save a
fistful of that dough, and continue on. You can even
freeze dough, so that if you want bread and don't have
the time that day to mix it up, just take some frozen
dough out of the freezer as if you'd bought a
commercial frozen dough, let it rise and bake. This
way, you can prepare dough only once every week or
two, and always have fresh baked rolls, bread, pizza
or whatever you make with it.

Canned and Frozen Foods Commentary
Frozen vegetables are to be only slightly cooked, or
"blanched" and packed without water. Vitamin
retention is high. Canned vegetables are cooked
longer, packed in water, and more vitamins are usually
lost. I would tend to recommend frozen over canned,
and fresh over frozen. It is easier and cheaper to
buy tomatoes as puree and pumpkin already prepared,
and both of these are usually sold canned. It is best
to cook all vegetables lightly, if you cook them at
all. Save that cooking water for soup: it catches a
lot of water-soluble vitamins and minerals. Steaming
requires the least amount of water for cooking with
the exception of sautéing, (a low-temperature
"frying") in a bit of butter or vegetable oil.

Jar Foods Commentary
Vegetable Oil
(e.g. "Caruso", "Wesson", etc.) Price varies; approx.
$2.79 for 24 oz.
Vegetable oil is the vegetarian's source of fats and
maybe a very small amount of vitamin E. You'll need
oil for cooking and baking. We buy whatever oil is
the cheapest, and that is usually soy oil. You may
wish to use sunflower or olive oils for salads and
other special uses, but they will cost somewhat more.
If you can get them, cold pressed oils (slightly
cloudy but therefore minimally processed) are best
because they are least refined. You may have
difficulty finding cold-pressed oils anywhere but at a
health food store, and they cost more. Most
commercial oils today are refined for clarity, by an
extraction procedure which removes nutritious
"impurities" which hinder keeping qualities of raw
oil. (Remember: good food spoils.) At least oils
today are largely free of additives and preservatives.
Still, I'd always read the label. Smell oil to be
sure it's not rancid (old and spoiled) and avoid
high-temperature frying; these two destructive states
make oil valueless as food.

Honey
$1.69/lb (any brand; local farm brands are fresher and
less refined than national, commercial brands. Raw,
dark and cloudy honey is most desirable.)
Honey is a great all-purpose sweetener, and although
it costs more than refined white sugar, you use less.
Two-thirds to three-quarters cup honey equals one cup
sugar; use slightly less liquid in the recipe.

Cayenne Pepper Sauce
$1.59/12 fl. oz. (e.g. "Frank's")
In moderation, cayenne is actually beneficial to the
body, even the stomach. Mixed up as sauce with
vinegar, garlic and salt, it's our favorite condiment.
I'd like to mention that the sweeteners, condiments
and spices are all optional, and if you will enjoy
your food without them, that's very good. Many
natural health authorities would agree with you.
However, I think it is important that we be sure that
our meals taste good, as well as be good for us.
There is no point in being a vegetarian and hating it.
Without overdoing it, it's possible to prepare tasty
dishes that you and your family and friends will
really enjoy, which will have the added advantage of
being good nourishment and pure.

Fresh Foods Commentary
These are best when truly cheap and truly fresh.
Neither may be possible with today's high supermarket
prices and long-term storage procedures. I think that
turns a lot of people off to fresh fruits and
vegetables. There is a fine alternative, though, and
that is to grow your own. For just a few dollars
worth of seeds, you can easily grow enough lettuce,
squash, spinach, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, beets
and beans to last the entire summer at least. A
15-foot square garden can produce a tremendous amount
of available-anytime fresh food. Even a window box
or cold frame will grow quite a bit of lettuce and
fresh salad greens through at least half of the year.
Crop freezes, shortages, labor disputes, cash-crop
market price fluctuations and all those pricehiker's
excuses don't matter to the self-subsistent home
gardener!

There are some fresh vegetables that you can buy
nearly year-round at fairly low cost: carrots, onions,
potatoes, cabbage and usually celery. These can be
eaten lightly cooked or raw, except for potatoes.
Squash, broccoli, greens and corn can be bought fresh
in season at very low prices. Out of season, frozen
vegetables may be cheaper and even better quality than
stored or trucked-in fresh ones. You may be better
off getting your fresh fruits at a roadside stand,
farmer's market or orchard. Prices are usually
somewhat lower, and the fruit fresher when you buy
directly from the producer. Apples are a good
example. I've seen red or golden delicious apples for
well over $1.00/lb in a supermarket, and there are
very few apples in a pound! At the same time of the
year, at an orchard not far from the city, most apple
varieties are seldom more than $10 a bushel. A bushel
would price out at only a fraction as much money per
pound. If you have any backyard at all, the trees to
plant are fruit trees. Dwarf varieties are easy to
maintain and to pick, are ornamental, and provide a
great low- or no-cost fruit source.

Dairy Foods Commentary
Butter
(unsalted contains no artificial coloring, e.g. "Land
0' Lakes" at $1.79/lb)
Over the last 15 years, the price of butter has
actually come down, and now more than ever belongs on
the "eat cheap" list. Butter to a vegetarian is an
important article of diet for fats and for good taste.
Sauté vegetables - just plain old beans or zucchini,
for instance - in butter and a dash of soy sauce and
see how tasty they are.

Cottage Cheese
Two pounds at $1.79/lb (preservative-free, uncolored
brands only)
Cottage cheese is about the cheapest cheese there is,
and also among the most efficient sources of calcium
and protein for your body. Cottage cheese, like
yogurt, is very digestible and contains many
beneficial enzymes. We eat a good bit of cottage
cheese, and so do our kids. Plain yogurt is also
inexpensive, if you buy it in the quart-size
container. In my opinion, cottage cheese tends to be
somewhat less mucus-forming than yogurt. Other
cheeses such as aged Cheddar, Swiss, Provolone,
Mozzarella and Muenster are also very good if somewhat
more costly. Sometimes you can place a bulk order
through your local health food store or supermarket
and get really low per pound cheese prices. Some
stores will charge very little mark-up on such special
orders for good customers. You might try getting
together with a few friends and sharing the amount,
because cheese commonly ships in 15 to 30 pound blocks
or boxes.

Even if you buy a few pounds of cheese as you need it
at the grocery store, it is still overall a good
value. There is no waste due to trimming or cooking,
as with meat. A couple with two kids might go through
3 to 5 pounds of cheese a week; if you were a meat
eater you'd certainly go through more meat than that,
at the same or higher per pound cost. A few ounces of
cheese is also more filling than the same amount of
meat. Cheese can really dress up a vegetarian meal.
It is also a good transition food and can temporarily
replace meat on your road to a low- or no-dairy diet,
if you wish.

Beverages Commentary
Various Blends of Herbal Teas
24 bags for around $2 to $3. ("Magic Mountain",
"Celestial Seasonings", etc.)
More and more grocery stores carry herbal teas all
the time, and health food stores always have many
varieties. Herb tea is very pleasant, very
inexpensive, and very easy to prepare. Most are
caffeine free, and all keep indefinitely. Try getting
two cups of tea from one bag. If you have a tea ball
or strainer, you can purchase herb tea in bulk packs
and save even more money.

When speaking of tea as a beverage, we are talking
about everyday, commercial mixtures of teas to drink
for taste, not for therapy. Still, in moderation,
many herbs are undeniably helpful healers, and an
herbology book will tell you which are good for what
ailments. Catnip and chamomile are settling to the
body and good before bedtime. Peppermint and
spearmint teas calm the stomach. Raspberry leaf tea
is given to pregnant women and is known to ease labor
and delivery. Boneset helps do what its name implies:
mend and strengthen bones. There are many more uses
of the herbs which date back hundreds and even
thousands of years in history. You may find that your
taste preferences lead you to the herb tea that will
best benefit you. Nature is like that sometimes!
Validate your instincts by checking The Herb Book
(Lust, 1974).

Apple Cider
($1.79 to $2.89/gal.)
Fresh cider is a raw food, full of minerals and raw
food enzymes. I think it is one of the finest foods
you can drink. Beware of supermarket "fresh pressed"
cider that reads in small print on the label,
"preserved with 1/10th of one percent sorbic acid" or
any other preservative. Real cider is just pressed
apples, cloudy, dark and perishable. Buy it fresh,
read the label, and keep it cold. You can freeze
cider if you are sure to leave 1/5 of the container
unfilled to allow for freezing expansion ("head
room"). I can easily drink three gallons of cider a
week by myself. You might think that you'd get the
"runs" if you did that... and you might at first. As
your body gets healthier through daily natural
vegetarian diet, you'll find that it won't need to
have the "runs" to clean itself out anymore, because
it is already clean inside. Cider, diluted half and
half with water, is ideal for juice fasting.

Other 100% Juices, Canned or Bottled
(e.g. "Juicy Juice", Pineapple Juice, Apple Juice,
Tomato Juice, "V-8," etc., prices ranging from roughly
$1.50 to $2.00 for 24 to 48 fl. oz.)
When you can't get fresh, canned or bottled pure
juices are the next best. Some frozen concentrates
are good too, but watch for added sugar. Insist that
the label says juice or 100% juices or pure juice, and
nothing else. "Juice Cocktails" and "Juice Drinks"
are not even close to all juice; they're mostly sugar
water. If you're going to pay nearly as much anyway
for water and sugar and coloring, why not spend the
extra $.30 or $.40 per can or bottle and get real
juice?

What Was Left Out On This Listing
Eggs
Eggs are certainly better than meat, but are shunned
by many natural health authorities. Metabolism of
large amounts of eggs seems to toxify the digestion
and body, they say. An egg or two used in cooking
seems reasonable to me, but we rarely make a meal on
eggs in our family. Some persons avoid eggs because
they feel they could have been taking lives from
potential chicks. Some persons avoid eggs because
they fear heart trouble. This last reason is actually
the weakest of the lot, for although eggs contain
cholesterol, they also contain lecithin. Lecithin is
an emulsifier (something that breaks up fats),
naturally occurring in yolk, which helps keep
cholesterol from becoming a problem in the body. If
you didn't eat any cholesterol your body would make it
anyway. Persons wanting to cut down on harmful fats
should cut out meat, not butter and eggs, as their
first choice. Cut out eggs, too, if you choose, but
for a better reason than cholesterol fears. Studies
have found no significant relationship between a few
eggs per week and any disease. Eggs are also very
cheap. Thirty years ago, a dozen small eggs was very
nearly as much as the same dozen today. Only with
eggs, and perhaps home electronics products, has price
effectively declined as much as with eggs. If money
is tight and you have a house full of teenagers to
feed, buy them to insure meatless, complete protein.

Spices
I've said little about spices because some people
think we're better off with our food the way it is,
and other people think spices are important for flavor
and palatability in our food. Most folks have spices
and use them in cooking and baking as they see fit,
and I doubt if much worry is needed about them. We
use oregano, garlic powder, nutmeg, bay leaves,
cinnamon, cloves, basil and many other herbs or spices
in our home food
preparation.

Milk
Milk is absent in this listing because cheese is
present in this listing. Everything good in milk is
concentrated in cheese, and the enzymes, culture,
bacteria, etc. in cheese make it a more efficient and
often more agreeable source of nutrients for the body.
Cheese contains very little water as opposed to milk.
If you can get fresh raw milk, as we could when I
worked on a dairy farm, I'd certainly drink it. We
raised our babies on it (after Mom's, of course.)


Here, Then, Is Your Eat Cheaper, Eat Better Shopping
List:
Good Food For Two People for One Week:

Group One:
Dry Foods
Brown Rice 2 lbs. @ $0.85/lb $1.70
Navy or Pea Beans @ $0.79/lb 0.79
Lentils 2 lbs. @ $.85/lb 1.70
Split Peas 1 lb. @ $.65/lb .65
Whole Wheat Flour 5 lbs. @ $1.99 1.99
Alfalfa Seeds 1/4 lb @ $3.95/lb 1.00
Baking Yeast 3 pkts. @ 3 for $1.29 1.29
Mung Beans 1/2 lb @ $2.99/lb. 1.50
Salt 1 oz. @ $0.49/lb 0.03 (not a
misprint!)

Subtotal: $10.65

Group Two:
Canned and/or Frozen Foods and Fresh Foods in Season
4 packages frozen squash @ $.69 ea = $1.56
(Spend any extra food budget money on fresh fruits and
vegetables!)

Jar Foods
Honey,
unprocessed (raw) 1/2lb. @ $1.69/lb
$.85
Vegetable Oil 8 oz @ $2.79 for 24 fl. oz.
.94

Dairy Foods
Butter, unsalted 1/4 lb @ $1.89/lb
.48
Cottage Cheese 2 lbs @ $1.49/lb
2.98

Beverages
Water no additional charge
Herb Tea 1 pkg. of 16 bags @ $2.49
$2.49
Cider 1 gal. @ $2.89
$2.89
(or other natural juice, on sale,
which may still cost more)

$12.19 sub total


$22.84 TOTAL

Remember now, this is for two people.

Looking at this shopping list, you might raise such
objections as the following:

1) Why so little money for fresh, canned and frozen
fruits and vegetables? Where will your Vitamin A and
C come from?

This is a stripped-down shopping list, and fruits and
vegetables are not cheap unless you (or a friend) have
a garden. "Vegetarian" does not necessarily mean
"only vegetables". In fact, many vegetarian failures
are not happy or healthy with their diet because they
ate just vegetables. The dry foods listed are high in
protein, more filling, and generally very nutritious.
Overall, this shopping list will provide outstanding
poverty-priced meals. You will get many of your
vitamins from the sprouted alfalfa, particularly
vitamins A and C. If the season permits, you would
want to grow your own lettuce, spinach, zucchini
squash, radishes, carrots and beans. These are very
easy vegetables to grow. Enough seeds for a whole
summer may cost you under five dollars at a discount
store, and if you divide that over the weeks you'll be
eating from the garden, that'll raise the grocery bill
to about $23.30 a week. For two people.

I do think everyone, including a budget-vegetarian,
should take a good multiple vitamin every single day,
and a vitamin C tablet in addition. When you look at
the cost of life insurance (or a cemetery plot, for
that matter) I think you will agree that vitamin
supplements are about the cheapest form of insurance
you can buy. I've seen really low priced vitamins for
two cents per tablet. You are now at $24 a week.
Divide by two and you still can bring it all in at 12
bucks apiece.

2) You left out several food items on the actual
shopping list that you indicated as very beneficial
earlier. Why?

For economy. Cayenne pepper sauce and other spices or
herbs, molasses, tomato puree, other vegetables and
fruits, and additional fruit and vegetable juices are
all very good, of course. We eat them all; we also
spend somewhat more than $12 a week. What I am trying
to do here is show that you can stay alive and really
quite healthy on very little money or food. I'm not
interested in hearing about the inadequacies of food
stamp allowances, nor about senior citizens starving
to death on Social Security while eating dog food.
Just because you are poor doesn't mean you have to be
malnourished. Oddly enough, it is often people with
money who are malnourished. You can spend a fortune
at the supermarket check-out each week and still eat
badly. Either way, it pays to know how to eat the
cheapest and the best.

If you can spend a little more each week on food -
that is, real food, and not packaged, processed
convenience money wasters - then please do so. To
feed one person on $12 a week means to feed a family
of four on $48 a week...and that sounds slightly more
like a normal figure to most people, I imagine. You
may find that the per person cost per week goes down
somewhat, for it is more efficient to shop and cook
for more than one. Honestly, we save a pile of money
eating like this. My son, and a professor friend of
mine, calculate that during our 18 year marriage (with
two growing kids), my wife and I have saved well over
$30,000. Er, actually, we spent it. On our house!

3) You did not include the cost of high-potency
vitamin supplementation.

That is correct. With this diet, or any other, I
would take four grams (4,000 mg.) or more of vitamin C
a day, divided up among the three meals and between
them. I would also take a good, high-potency, natural
multivitamin. This is the minimum that I do take. I
usually take a calcium/magnesium tablet or two and
600-800 IU of vitamin E daily, also. Approximate cost
per day, all totaled, is about 40 cents or less than
$3.00 a week per person. That is an expense that
needs budgeting, yet it is far cheaper than medical
care. I would like to emphasize that if you really
sprout, and eat, 1/4 pound of alfalfa seeds and 1/2
pound of mung beans a week, your vitamin and mineral
intake will be outstanding. Don't stay only with
alfalfa and mung, though. Lentils and whole wheat
grains sprout easily and provide better variety of
nutrients, textures, and tastes. Alfalfa is given as
an easy example to start with.


Copyright C 2004 and previous years Andrew W. Saul ,
Number 8 Van Buren Street, Holley, New York 14470.

[matt&roxy]

Hmmmm, Food for thought......Thanks..