The Nourishing Gourmet

Nourishing. Satisfying. Gourmet.

True Frugality

Q & A: Nourishing Food for a Single Gal on a Budget

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I recently got a question from a reader, Jen. I wanted to give some hopefully helpful tips for her (three frugal overarching tips, a list of frugal whole foods, and Asian Market finds), but I also would love for you all to weigh in and give her some advice. So please, leave a comment and share your tips! Here’s the question.

“Hey Kimi!

I’m a bit of a lurker, but today, I realized I have a question for you. I’m a young single gal, with an extremely limited budget (seriously, $100/a month would more than double my monthly food budget–and my roommate and I share quite a bit of the food that I buy). What advice could you offer someone in my situation? I normally cook for one (and am hesitant to spring my…shall we say developing??…cooking skills on anyone else in the guise of blessing them), and have the aforementioned limited budget, but I’d like to do better for myself than frozen dinners and canned soup.”


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Nutrient Rich Snack: Dried Anchovies

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I have a personal policy that I will introduce nourishing, healthy, nutrient rich food to my daughter, even if I don’t like it.  I hope that even if I never develop a taste for something, that she will. This has been the case for liver. I can’t say I actually enjoy eating liver, but I try to serve it on a somewhat frequent basis since she has learned to love it and my husband enjoys it as well (I eat it, but don’t love it. Though I am beginning to be able to enjoy it)). So when I found out that Radiant Life was carrying dried anchovies because Sally Fallon had recommended it as a very nutrient rich, traditional snack, I was interested.

It’s not that it really appealed strongly to my taste-buds, but rather  knowing how extremely good it would be for us appealed to me. I decided that next time I went to my local Asian store, I would look for some. Meanwhile, Cheeseslave mentioned eating dried fish with her young daughter as a snack, which encouraged me that it wouldn’t taste too bad!

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Wisdom from the Past: Nixtamalization of Corn

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Frugal cooking in the past often went way beyond simply trying to fill bellies. At it’s best, frugal cooks in the past made sure to fully utilize nutrition in the ingredients they used.  We can learn a lot from historical practices…and mistakes.

One example of how one, very cheap and easy practice can make a huge difference in the quality of life of many is nixtamalization of corn, a traditional practice in Mexico. Unfortunately, those across the border in the US hadn’t (and haven’t) learned to copy this practice and it has had devastating effects.

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