Month: November 2009

I think summer has let go, here on the Left Coast.

I enjoyed the one stretch of cool-but-warm weather, maybe a week. It’s my favorite. Everything else I loathe. Today was the first cold day of the season. I hate it.

This week was much less of a food challenge than previous because I actually had groceries! Go figure. I’m making better choices and making use of the awesome, cheap, and questionably originated vegetables and fruits  at the Asian markets around here. My favorite is 99 Ranch Market, which is across the street from my office, but if I can’t get there for some reason, I can go to County Market which is less than a mile from my house.  It’s one of the few things that’s nice about living near the coast of the Stupidest State of Them All: easy access to A) Asian culture and B) their grocery stores.

Anyway, one of the things that’s really nice about the Asian stores is that everything is so, so cheap. I’ve been kind of strapped for cash lately (this whole “owning a house” and “paying for mortgage” thing kind of sucks you dry in the greenback department), and one of the monumentally unfair things I have found in terms of trying to Lead A Healthy Lifestyle is how frigging expensive it is!!

You can, however, learn how to shop around and make use of bulk stores and other types of stores, like organic or indie grocery shops.

My favorite grocery store, besides 99 Ranch Market is Trader Joe’s.  Trader Joe’s is not only a great store with great products and great pricing, but it treats their employees right. I buy most of my meat here because it’s good quality, often organic (like free range chicken, which is more delicious than regular chicken… honestly I could care less about chicken treatment, except that nicely treated free-range chicken really ARE way more delicious!!), and fairly inexpensive if you shop right.

Anyway, so my whole point is that here, in what is one of the (if not THE? – I’m too lazy to look) most expensive places to live (e.g.: my cost of living is triple what I was paying in Texas) if you look around and make the right choices, healthy eating isn’t too hard.

Here’s where I shop:

Trader Joe’s for basic groceries on a weekly basis – I can get about a week’s worth to supplement my current supply for about $20.

Asian Grocery Stores for fresh fruits and vegetables and quirky ingredients (I cook a lot of Thai food these days, mostly curry)

Local Farmer’s Markets for fresh fruits and vegetables – this also localizes where you shop and helps the economy for your neighborhood or county.

Winco/Target/Walmart for discounted canned goods and basic groceries.  All “house brands” at these places are good and much cheaper than regular grocery stores.

I haven’t actually set foot in a regular grocery store (here it’s Safeway, other places is Vons, HEB, Ralph’s, etc.) in months. Making that decision to look for alternate sources of healthy eating wasn’t very hard: mainstream supermarkets are crazy expensive! And I can get all the things I used to get there at Winco for much, much cheaper.

So that’s what I do when I’m grocery shopping, is go to many different places in order to find the best deals around.

(And yes, I realize I’m posting this on Saturday.)

I swear I have a blog post floating around in my drafts that ISN’T a Fitness Friday but… this has been a busy week with a Lost Day (Wednesday), house guest (Tuesday), and Unexpected Vegan Discoveries.

Now, no lie, I like meat.  However, I’ve mentioned before my interest in vegan recipes, and when I was browsing the internets I came across a few recommendations for Earth Balance “butter” so I thought I would try that out when I happened upon it at Trader Joe’s yesterday. Since I needed new butter anyway, having almost finished a container of my very favorite spread, Country Crock. Usually a margarine spread like CC lasts me pretty long since I don’t use it for much except on waffles and sometimes on bread or when I make brussel sprouts. I don’t eat that much bread, though. But I was at Trader Joe’s getting cheapish groceries – I love their fair trade Pajaro coffee and organic evaporated cane sugar – and saw this butter stuff I’d just read about.

I got the fake-butter, which is made of soy byproducts, I guess, took it home, tried it out on some artisan bread I also picked up at TJ’s and came to the conclusion that fake non-dairy butter spread is just okay. It’s no Country Crock, people. But it’s decent, and for a non-dairy soy product I will actually use, I will give it a B grade. Not bad.

EXCEPT: and here’s the big surprise that shocked me! VEGAN FAKE BUTTER IS TWICE AS FATTY AS REGULAR FAKE BUTTER.

More than, in fact.  I don’t really look at the ingredients or fat content on stuff (I probably should do this more) and I was always under the impression that Country Crock was not super great for you, but I like the way it tastes 100% better than I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter or Smart Balance. Country Crock has 5 grams of fat per serving (tablespoon) – and I would rather eat my favorite in moderation than waste my time on stuff I don’t like.

Earth Balance, woo woo vegan product has 11 grams of fat per serving.

WTF, vegan product!!!

I was alarmed. So I will be more careful about future vegan products, that is fo’ sho’.

At any rate, the vegetable oil content is quite high, so I think it will be good for baking. You can use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in baking because of the vegetable oil content (talking about food chemistry here) but you can’t use Country Crock because the veg oil content is too low (too delicious I guess).

A quick Google brought up the fat content of regular butter, which is identical to Earth Balance at 11 grams per T serving.  So if you actually eat real dairy butter (I don’t) you could theoretically substitute Earth Balance for that and not see a difference in the amount of fat percentages in your life.

So, I guess my point here is that you DO need to pay attention to what you are doing when it comes to vegan products/cooking or you will be the fattest vegan in town.

And yes, I do realize that I just wrote an entire entry on FAKE BUTTER.