How To Eat 'Ordinary Food' Without Starving

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If you're a homesteader with a winter's food supply already pickled and canned and roof cellared, read no farther. Organic food freaks and scorners of the supermarket had better turn the page likewise. But if you're single, urban and living mostly on greaseburgers, here' one way to maybe upgrade your diet just a little . . . while you cut the ole food bill right down to the quick. Needless to say, this article is especially dedicated to all the city-trapper "apt get along" by eating dogfood and raiding garbage cans.

For some time now I've been living on approximately $100 per month (including rent, food and everything else) . . . not from necessity, but by choice. I'm convinced that there are ways out of today's money-crunching inflation, and I'm trying to find them.

Since most of us are still at the mercy of the grocery store—and are not growing, canning and freezing our own food, which is ideal—one of our biggest problems is the food budget. Therefore, months ago—as an experiment—I decided to limit my grocery bill to between $3.50 and $4.00 per week. I also undertook to use only the items which I bought week by week and to disregard any surplus goods that I might have accumulated on my pantry shelves.

Before I began my program, I found it necessary to stud v nutrition so as to buy the foods my body needed to stay healthy. That precaution paid off. In two years my only illness has been one cold, which required no medication. I have lost a few pounds, but I attribute this to the fact that I no longer own a car and now walk four or five miles a week. (Please note: It was not my intention to diet, but rather to maintain well-balanced meals economically. This is war on inflation, not a weight-watchers' plan.)

Bear in mind, before you attempt to duplicate my success, that I live alone and don't have the responsibility of feeding a growing family. In fact, I don't even recommend the following subsistence level of nourishment for youngsters. All the same, I have learned some ways in which families can—and should—pare back their grocery bills without cutting nutrition.

The starting point for my program was a recent low-cost food plan prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to that source, the consumer's food dollar should be spent as follows:

I used the USDA's recommendation as a beginning guide for meal planning, but allowed more money for milk products, meat and vegetables and less for the fats, sugar, coffee and soft drinks classified as "other foods". Also, I found that one of the secrets of wise marketing is to emphasize a particular basic food group each week . . . not to the neglect of the others, but rather as a base around which the menus are planned.

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