A HEALTHFUL AND MEATLESS DIET

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

DEVELOP NEW AVENUES OF TASTE
The primary step in cutting a family's food budget is to Stretch tastes to include more types of food. In changing over to a vegetarian diet, you'll be introduced to new and delicious combinations of edibles. Study the cuisines of different cultures and look for low-cost staples that can be adapted to your new way of cooking. Select the unusual and inexpensive: A fruit cup tossed with unsweetened coconut (bought in bulk), for instance, offers a special touch associated with the South Pacific. Bananas—a staple in the tropics—are often inexpensive in this country. Try baking and sautéing them, whipping them into drinks, or drying banana slices for snacks and brown-bag lunches.

Let your crew at home help select countries from which they'd like to try foods. Huevos rancheros (eggs with spicy sauce), burritos, and tacos from Mexico are all made with healthy, inexpensive foods... as are meals of all-vegetable Indian curries served with rice and sliced cucumbers tossed with yogurt.

TO EVERY FOOD THERE IS A SEASON
In season is the time to buy. (In most countries of the world, where refrigeration is still a luxury, it is the only time to buy.) In the United States, we have great diversity in seasonal shopping, and newspapers often list the best buys at farmers' markets or similar produce centers. And, of course, if you're not already raising your own vegetables, consider picking up a spade. Subsistence farming is the normal way of life around the globe.

For the colder months, don't forget minigardens for powerfully good eating. Your kitchen can produce impressive quantities of sprouts—alfalfa, mung, and soybean... radish, cabbage, lentil, and wheat berry.

Canned goods also have seasonal fluctuations. Shop ahead, filling your larder as distributors seek to get foods out of the warehouse and off the supermarket shelves to make way for new harvests. Watch for such items as green beans, peas, corn, tomato products, frozen fruits and vegetables, and even nuts.

THE STAPLE FOODS
Throughout most of the world, people subsist on a few foods that can actually be counted on one hand: rice, wheat, or similar whole grains... corn... and potatoes or other roots and tubers. Add dried beans and you have the world's least expensive foods. What's more, these basic edibles require little processing (they're most nutritious when least processed), store easily in limited spaces, and lend themselves to a variety of cooking methods. Let's look at several of them more closely.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print