MoneySmart / Food
Square meals, square deals
Food prices are skyrocketing, but our experts tell you how to put good, nutritious food on the table without breaking the budget
“Look, they’re growing!” It’s dinner time at the McKelvey house in North Buffalo, and while Nancy McKelvey could be talking about her two teenage sons, Patrick and Peter — who both stand over 6 feet tall — she really has her eyes on biscuits baking in the oven.
“The biscuit recipe caught my eye while I was flipping through a book, so I wrote it on a receipt,” said the wife and mother of four, closing the oven door before checking the huge pot of potatoes boiling nicely on the stove.
McKelvey figures she can get three meals from the 10 pounds of potatoes she bought for $4.99. She smiles as she recounts passing up the five-pound bag that went for $3.99.
“We’ll eat mashed potatoes tonight,” she explained, “and I’ll freeze the rest.”
With food costs skyrocketing, and the value of our dollar plunging faster than our car’s gas gauge — we could all use some tips from the food patrol. Thanks to the folks at Buffalo State’s Dietetics and Nutrition department — and the six-member McKelvey family — we’ve discovered ways to put good food on your table night after night, without repeating meals and despite finicky eaters.
For McKelvey, food is more a science, one that she will continue to study. With a degree in food systems management, she recently returned to Buffalo State College as a dietetics student and will graduate in May. She knows that eating healthy — meals including lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meat and low-fat dairy products — is not beyond most budgets. Her husband is learning, too.
“Not only do we save money, but in getting her dietetics degree, we’re learning as she is,” said Andy McKelvey, an architect. “It will really help the kids later in life, too. A lot of times she’ll save as much as $50 to $70 by the time she’s done with the coupons. When you see $50 in savings, it makes sense to do it.”
Planning the menu
McKelvey has become a weekend food warrior. Her Sunday morning routine?
“I pour my coffee. I sit down with the newspaper, my scissors and my list. I have a master list on my refrigerator divided into grocery, health and beauty, dairy, frozen, soaps. As soon as I run out of something, I put it on my master list.”
While clipping coupons, McKelvey composes her menu for the week based on sale items. The only way to save money, she has learned, is to plan ahead. Shopping daily for dinner only adds to your bills.
“If red peppers are on sale, they’ll get red-pepper slices for lunch and I’ll grill red peppers for fajitas,” she said. “Sour cream is ‘buy one, get one’ this week, so we’ll be having tacos. Getting organized, thinking ahead on what you will eat for dinner is critical. If you have a menu and you have everything you need on your list, you will not need to step in that grocery store again that week.”
McKelvey banks on leftovers. That’s why she often buys an 8-pound frozen turkey breast for $15. It also explains her chicken soup strategy. “Put five split-chicken breasts in a soup pot and you’ll have soup one night,” she noted. “Then you can shred the chicken and make enchiladas, fajitas, tacos, chicken ala king.”
The same holds true for the turkey breast, she explained. With a $15 breast, McKelvey makes two meals for six people and several lunches for her children.
“You’ll have Sunday dinner and sliced turkey for lunches,” McKelvey said. “If you go to the deli, turkey breast will be $8.99 a pound. “There’s enough left for turkey ala king or over rice with gravy for one more meal.”
If there’s one meal that poses an extra challenge it has to be lunch, according to McKelvey. Her daughters Alena, 7, and Payton, 9, attend the Olmsted School. Peter, 14, goes to City Honors and Patrick, 16, is a junior at Canisius High School.
“It’s expensive to pack lunches,” McKelvey said. “They need a drink and you’d rather it not be of the sugary Kool-Aid variety. I buy prepackaged soy milk, and they love it. One drinks vanilla. The other three drink chocolate. Eighteen servings is $11.99, making them 66 cents each. They can buy milk at school for 45 cents this year, and that just went up a dime, but I prefer the lower fat.
“If you buy lunch in school, it tends to be high in sodium and fat,” she added. “The key is to pack variety, making sure you’re not giving them the same thing every day. A lot people suggest rolling it up in tortillas.”
When grocery shopping, McKelvey not only watches prices, but what those around her are buying. While convenience foods are convenient, you’ll pay more for them. Occasionally, she will buy cookies, but she bakes most often from scratch.
“People buy prepackaged cookies and chips,” McKelvey said. “Half-cup Rubbermaid containers hold three cookies, or buy raisins in bulk and fill up the containers. You don’t have to buy yogurt prepackaged. One time I sent my high school son in with a little container of Teddy Grahams and I asked if he was abused and he said the kids wanted them.”
Nutrition lab
Around the table in the Dietetics & Nutrition computer lab in Caudell Hall, Buffalo State College Associate Professor Teja Rao and Assistant Professor Donna Hayes talk food. At issue is one of last semester’s assignments.
“The assignment I gave them was to see if they could feed themselves and their families, and plan a week’s worth of meals under the thrifty plan [cheapest],” said Hayes. “And I wanted them to still meet the food pyramid guidelines.”
The “pyramid” is a tool, a set of guidelines issued by the federal government to help people make healthy food choices. It is updated regularly to reflect changes in dietary guidelines, most recently to emphasize grains, fruits and vegetables over proteins and fat.
“As Americans, we eat a lot more protein than we actually need,” said Hayes. “Current meal planning guidelines suggest filling the plate with vegetables and pasta. You don’t need to have a 10-ounce steak. Three ounces is plenty.”
McKelvey aced this assignment, and carries what she learned with her today as she budgets $200 weekly to spend on groceries, and health, beauty and cleaning supplies. With prices increasing — for example, a gallon of skim milk shooting up $1 from $1.69 to $2.69, and a 10-pound bag of rice increasing from $8.99 to more than $19 — frozen or canned fruits and vegetables can offer affordable options.
“With canned food, the texture is ruined totally because of the heat processing,” said Rao. “And heat destroys some nutrients, basically the water-soluble vitamins, plus a lot of canned foods tend to be high in sodium. In a casserole or some soups, canned vegetables would be fine.”
On the other hand, plain frozen vegetables are not processed with salt. It’s only when frozen vegetables are combined with sauce that sodium content increases.
While McKelvey stays away from canned or frozen fruits and vegetables, she routinely freezes meat, bulk buying pork chops and chicken breasts — and sometimes adding marinade before tossing into the freezer. Frozen food will dry out over time unless it is completely air sealed, she pointed out. As for that crystal ice you see sometimes forming in your freezer bags? That means your food was not frozen at the proper temperature.
For single-person households, bulk purchasing — as well as coupon clipping — may work with some caveats.
“With some items you have to buy two to get the coupon discount,” Hayes noted. “If you live alone, you have to figure in storage space, and whether you like the food enough to buy two.”
For more healthy and affordable meal planning tips, Hayes suggested: h t t p :// www.buffalostate.edu/ dietetics/onedish. x m l , www.mypyramid.gov . and http://eatright.org.
