Cheap Protein Sources to Consider When Planning Your Menu and Making Your Grocery List

For those living a voluntary simplicity lifestyle, being smart on the food budget is just part of maximizing the monthly disposable income.  However, in the years since I began living this way, I've seen more and more people that are simplifying their lives because they have to do it:  it's a financially necessity to live with less material stuff and a smaller budget.

These folk may not know how to cook, and they may be bummed that they have to cut back.  To them, I say - hey, there's a silver lining here!  There's fun in your future that you wouldn't have found if you hadn't had to start budgeting things.

Like learning all about cheap protein sources and using them in your menus.  There's some major good eating here as well as some very healthy things for you and yours, which someone who's eating out a lot or buying lots of prepackaged stuff or fast food take out is going to miss.

Cheap Sources of Quality Protein

The reason that you want to know cheap sources of protein is because protein can take the biggest chunk out of your monthly food budget.  Meat - beef, pork, chicken, fish - costs a lot and you buy it by the pound.  To get control of your food money for the month, it's a big target.

The silver lining is while you are buying protein options to beef, pork, chicken, fish that you are also getting some very nutritious stuff.  Stuff that can be lots better for you than the steak that you're not buying any more.

Black Beans and Rice Dish | Public Domain Image

Consider buying these cheap sources of protein (gram info from nutritiondata.self.com unless otherwise linked):

• Eggs - 4 grams per large, fresh egg
• Quinoa - 8 grams in a serving
• Whey Protein Powder - 19 grams per 1 cup
• Milk - 10 grams in a serving of nonfat, protein fortified
• Cottage Cheese - 28 grams in 1 cup, lactose reduced
• Greek Yogurt - 16 grams in 6 oz serving (I like Chobani Vanilla Nonfat with stevia added to it)
• Beans and Rice - 9 grams in 1 cup of rice and beans combo
• Soy Products  - 68 grams in 1 cup of soy nuts
• Tempeh - 31 grams in 1 cup
• Almonds 6 grams per ounce

And if you have to buy meat, then consider these two options before you go over to the Meat Department:

• Canned Tuna in Water - 39 grams in 1 cup of solid white tuna in water, drained
• Canned Mackerel - 44 grams in 1 cup of mackerel, jack, drained
• Canned Sardines - 23 grams in 1 can of sardines packed in oil, drained

Which are Complete Proteins?

Just because a food item has lots of protein in it, you're not done.  Another consideration is whether or not it has all NINE essential amino acids in it, which then makes that food a "complete protein."

Of the items listed above, only the canned meat, the soy stuff, and the quinoa are complete proteins.  Which doesn't mean that the others aren't great, too .. just something to consider.

And yes, you can combine things to make a complete protein.  Rice and beans together, as shown above, make a complete protein.  So does smearing almond butter onto toast.

Here's the Thing: This Stuff Tastes Great.

Almonds?  They're great.  Raw, in salads, pureed into butter.  Major yum here.  Red beans and rice, or what we have here in San Antonio, pintos and rice?  Great stuff.

The greek yogurt is addicting, at least for me, when you add some stevia for sweetness and some pumpkin pie spice to the nonfat vanilla flavor.  Better than ice cream for dessert and I am not kidding you or deceiving myself.  Try it for yourself.

Quinoa?  I cook this in the microwave after learning about this on a Melissa D'Arabian show and it works great.  (Try her recipe which has 100 five star reviews at the time that I inserted this hyperlink for her lentil quinoa salad.)  And you can buy this seed, it's not a grain, made into all sorts of pasta shapes at World Market, among other places.  Elbow.  Spaghetti. 

You get the idea.  Simple living is just filled with all these discoveries.  You really do say "wow" a lot, and I'm still doing it after all these years.  It's fun!

TLC Book Tour: Book Review of New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change

At the get-go, Dear Reader, let me get this business out of the way:  I was given a free copy of Winifred Gallagher's latest book, entitled New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change by TLC Book Tours in exchange for my agreement to read and review the book here on Everyday Simplicity.  Disclosure done, here's my opinion:

This is another book coming out of publishing houses these days where journalists attempt to provide perspective, if not answers, to why things are the way they are right now.  Think Malcomb Gladwell.  Think Stephen Dubner.  Maybe Chris Anderson.

Here we have a journalist who has written extensively in the area of behavioral science, Winifred Gallagher, who offers her take on things.  From its publisher (Penguin Press):

[i]n today's fast-paced world, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the mind-boggling number of new things-whether products, ideas, or bits of data-bombarding us daily. But adapting to new circumstance is so crucial to our survival that "love of the new," or neophilia, is hardwired into our brains at the deepest levels. Navigating between our innate love of novelty and the astonishingly new world around us is the task of New: helping us adapt to, learn about, and create new things that matter, while dismissing the rest as distractions. With wit and clarity, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher takes us to the archaeological sites and neuroscience laboratories exploring our species' special affinity for novelty. ... As individuals, however, we vary in how we balance the sometimes conflicting needs to avoid risk and approach rewards. Some 15 percent of us are die-hard "neophiliacs" who are biologically predisposed to passionately pursue new experiences, and another 15 percent are "neophobes" who adamantly resist change. Most of us fall squarely in the spectrum's roomy middle range. Whether we love change, avoid change, or take the middle path, neophilia plays a crucial role in all of our lives.  No matter where we sit on neophilia's continuum, New shows us how to use it more skillfully to improve our lives.... This big-picture perspective has long been missing, and New will jump-start that discussion by offering the tools we need to control our love of the new-rather than letting it control us.

If you like this sort of thing, then you'll probably like this book.  It's receiving mostly good reviews (if you don't count NPR); moreover, it's got lots of fun facts and delves into all sorts of areas of interest: anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, economics -- you can even find a reference to Charles Dickens here (Bleak House, which was interesting to discover since I'm reading Bleak House now).

Gallagher also provides suggestions on how to do things differently so life is better.  In her lingo, she's giving guidance on how to cope with all this new so that you control it and it doesn't control you.


Again, if you read these kind of books then you'll like this one.   

I Miss My Milton's MultiGrain Bread - Because It Will Go Moldy

There's a certain brand of bread that I prefer, and it's becoming impossible to find on the shelves anymore.  It's Milton's MultiGrain (you can see it for yourself, over there in the image). 

Here's the thing: not only is this bread vetted by WholeFoods and the American Heart Association, it tastes really good and you can actually see the seeds and nuts that are a part of the recipe. 

Plus, and Dear Reader, this may sound yucky but it's the truth nevertheless: this bread goes bad quick.  You can't just leave it in a bread box or setting on the counter and expect it to be just fine whenever you get around to grabbing a slice or two.  No, no, no.  Do that, and you're gonna find mold.  That's right: mold.

Which sounds bad, but it's good.  Why?  Fresh food goes bad.  Food with preservatives does not.  Well, maybe eventually - but it will take awhile. 

For example, take a slice of white bread and a slice of Milton's and place them side by side on the counter.  Leave them there.  Milton's will get icky pretty darn quick.  Toss it.  Then, keep count on how many days .... or weeks ... it takes for that other piece of bread to go bad.  And it may never get mold on it; it may just dry out. 

Yes, I've done this -- Milton's vs a slice of thick white store brand "Texas Toast" bread that my friend Bill likes to use for sandwiches.  

The dried out white bread slice might be less icky ... but think about it.  All those preservatives keep that white bread slice from getting green mold all over it, but do you want to have all those preservatives in your body?  Or your kids? 

Bacteria isn't bad.  That's why Jamie Lee Curtis is selling you that yogurt and why you're reading more and more about probiotics. 

And that's why I prefer Milton's MultiGrain and I'm thinking about contacting the company to find out where I can buy their product here in San Antonio (the search function on their web site for my zip code tells me nowhere, but I'm not giving up yet).