The main purpose of
convenience foods is to save us time and work. Specialty diet
foods provide the additional benefit of calorie, carbohydrate and/or
fat savings. In return we give them more of our cash and agree to be
satisfied with their questionable quality. The tradeoff is
worth it to some people, especially those with lots of extra money
and zero extra time. Those of us on a budget don't have the
luxury (or the curse) of financial resources, so we must use our
intelligence, time and effort instead of expensive conveniences.
With this said, there are a few products that live up to their
promise. They save time, work, and calories, provide acceptable
quality, and as luck would have it, don't cost much more than making
them ourselves. A minor few, like frozen orange juice
concentrate, even cost less than preparing them from scratch.
After a great deal of investigation I've divided good buy convenience
foods into 2 categories. The first is calorie savers, and the
second is time and work savers. They are explained in further
detail below.
Calorie Saving
Convenience Foods
Reduced-Calorie or
Light Bread & Buns
Homemade bread costs less
and tastes better than store-bought bread. It's better for us
too. However, for those of us with very strict diets
reduced-calorie bread has it's place. It can make a limited
starch allowance go twice as far as it otherwise would.
Sandwiches for packed lunches are much easier to pack and eat when
made with 2-slices of light bread instead of 1-slice of regular
bread. The least expensive reduced calorie bread is found in
day-old-bread stores and bakery thrift stores. Another option
is to buy store-brands. They can often be almost half as much
as national brands. If you like the idea of low-calorie bread
but find that your budget just won't stretch that far then prepare
your own homemade bread and cultivate the skill of slicing it as
thinly as possible. Two thin slices have about the same number
of calories and carbohydrates as 1-standard slice. For my money
I prefer thin sliced homemade bread. Still there is definitely
a place for store-bought reduced-calorie breads under some circumstances.
Reduced-Sugar
Syrup & Jellies
Sugar-free and reduced
calorie syrups and jellies are difficult to prepare at home.
Depending on your shopping skills, they don't always save much money
either. As diabetes affects more and more of the population
reduced-sugar products are becoming much easier to find and as a
result, much cheaper too. Among syrups and jellies I prefer the
type with half the sugar and calories as conventional products.
These are the least expensive and offer a good compromise between
regular and sugar-free products. If you prefer, artificially
sweetened syrups, jams and jellies may be purchased instead.
Generally speaking they are more expensive, and some folks avoid them
because they are artificially sweetened. Another option is to
buy preserves made of 100% fruit and fruit juice. They have
more calories and carbohydrates than the low-sugar version, but
sometimes they go on sale and cost less. All-fruit spreads have the
advantage of avoiding both sugar and artificial sweeteners, but in my
area they are usually more expensive. If saving cash is your
main concern, then try making your own syrups and jams from
scratch. Pectins designed to work without sugar are easy to
find and make very good products. Should making your own be out
of the question, then stick with low-sugar products and learn to
exercise portion control. It's a skill we all need to develop
and then nurture and maintain.
Reduced-Fat Mayonnaise
& Fat-Free Salad Dressings
These products offer some
of the greatest calorie savings for the least amount of money.
While the low-fat craze of the 1990's may have petered out with a
whimper instead of a bang it infiltrated society enough to make
reduced-fat mayonnaise and fat-free salad dressings a permanent part
of the supermarket landscape. I can skip down to my local
Dollar General and buy fat-free Ranch, Italian and Thousand Island
for $1 a pint. Or I can head over to my Walmart Super Center,
pick up a quart of their light mayo for $1.50 and choose from half a
dozen other varieties of fat-free dressings for less than $1.29 a
pint. Even more expensive stores have store-brand versions for
about $1.50 a pint, less than a dime an ounce, or a nickle per
tablespoon. There may be a lot of chemicals, corn syrup, and
preservatives in fat-free dressings, but they absolutely fill a need
in my budget and my household, so I overlook their drawbacks and
focus on their strengths instead. If you are watching your
sodium, or working really hard at saving money, then try mixing 1-tablespoon
of fat-free dressing or mayonnaise with 1 or 2 tablespoons of nonfat
yogurt. Most commercial dressings are so highly flavored that
thinning them out a bit, with yogurt or even with a spoonful of
water, does little to affect the flavor. You take advantage of
the savings in both cash and sodium.
Diet Gelatin &
Pudding Mix
This is another group of
fake foods whose only saving graces are that they add variety to our
diet. National Brands like Jello are sometimes as much as a $1
per 4-serving box. This is outrageous. At the most I pay
50¢ per box and I prefer to get them 3/$1. Homemade
sugar-free pudding is not as cheap as 33¢, and if you're using
Splenda or Stevia as the sweetener, isn't as cheap as 50¢
either. Homemade does taste better, but it must be cooked and
stirred for about 10 minutes instead of mixed in a bowl for 2
minutes. If you are avoiding artificial sweeteners and chemical
ingredients then you'll want to pass these by and use some of our recipes
instead. On the other hand if aspire to be one of those kitchen
queens who can make a to-die-for pie or parfait within 5 minutes
flat, then you may find these fun to play to with. Another plus
about diet puddings specifically is that if you feed folks who balk
at milk but swoon over pudding, this is a great way to get a little
extra dairy in their diet. Flavored gelatin has the benefit of
being almost calorie free which means anyone of us can indulge at any
time, no matter what our dietary goals. It's also a cheap way
to make fruit more interesting to children and adults with jaded palettes.
Low-Calorie &
Artificial Sweeteners
The only natural
low-calorie sweetener is Stevia. It's made from an herb native
to Paraguay. Super
sweet, all natural and calorie-free, this sweetener that has not yet
been approved as a food additive by the FDA. Apparently there
is some big snarl of greed, lack of sufficient bribery and political
red tape keeping it in limbo. For this reason you won't find it in
manufactured food products like diet soda pop or pudding. Stevia can
be sold as a health supplement, which means you can use it for your
cooking at home. Stevia has been used by pregnant and nursing
Paraguayan women and their families literally for centuries.
While the FDA may not have approved it yet, I feel perfectly safe in
using it. As a matter of fact, it is my low-calorie sweetener
of choice. It costs about as much as Splenda but isn't as easy
to find. Usually one must look in the vitamin or health-food
section of the supermarket to find it. It's also available in
many drug stores and even Walmart carries it in their vitamin
section. It can be found in packets, a concentrated white
powder and liquid drops. Heat stable and just as easy to use an
artificial sweeteners, I expect it will continue to rise in
popularity as time goes on.
Artificial sweeteners are
widely available in the baking section of any market. Some
people love them (like my Fred) others avoid them because anything
artificial seems contrary to improving one's health. I walk a
thin line between the extremes. Of the artificial sweeteners
currently available, saccharin has been around the longest and has
the best proven track record. Splenda is the new kid on the
block and currently the most popular. I'll be happy when
store-brand versions are available, but I expect we have several more
years or waiting before their patent runs out. Artificial and
low-calorie sweeteners are one of those areas where we must each make
our own decision. They definitely serve a purpose in reducing
calories and carbohydrates. Some of them taste better than
others. Some of them cost a lot more than others. My best
advice is that if you must use them then give saccharin a try, newer
versions are better tasting than they used to be, and it is the least
expensive artificial sweetener around. If Splenda is your only
choice then try to buy it in bulk from a discount store or warehouse
store to get the lowest price.
Margarine & Light Margarine
Since manufacturers were
required to disclose the amount of trans-fats in their products, many
margarine producers have been revamping their formulas to include
less hydrogenated fats. Even economical store-brand versions
are popping up with 1 gram of trans-fat or less per tablespoon.
Margarine is a lot cheaper than butter, has the same number of
calories, the same amount of fat, and it preforms the same in
cooking. Additionally it's cholesterol free is is nice for
those of us watching our own cholesterol levels. Besides
regular margarine we can find buttery-spreads and light-margarine in
our grocer's dairy section. Buttery spreads contain
approximately 65% to 70% vegetable oil. Usually they will have
about 70 to 80 calories per tablespoon. Some sources say that
they can be used instead of margarine or butter in baking and frying
and give the same results as their full fat cousins. I have not
found that to be true in my own cooking. For this reason I find
buttery spreads to be pretty much useless in my kitchen. For
anyone who is interested in using buttery spreads they can be found
in both stick form and in a tub. Stick form gives slightly
better results in baking, but tub form is usually lower in
trans-fats. The next type of margarine to look for is light
margarine. It contains 35% to 45% vegetable oil. It's
calorie count is usually between 40 and 50 per tablespoon.
Light margarine is good spread on toast, it makes nice garlic bread,
and can be used to make a quick and easy pie crust. It cannot
be used in general baking because it doesn't have enough fat to make
quality baked goods. It cannot be used for frying because it's
half water and when it melts the water pops and sizzles in the pan
and has a tendency to jump out and bite you if you're not
careful. For my money light margarine, in a store-brand, is a
reasonable purchase for saving calories and fat exchanges when used
as a spread or for seasoning vegetables. For everything else I
use regular stick margarine, available 2-pound for a $1 at my local Walmart.
One last note on
margarine, fat-free margarines and sprays are a HUGE rip-off. Butter-flavored
water is never a good buy, no matter how little it costs. If
you need fat-free margarine then use Butter Buds instead. It's
much, much cheaper, has fewer added chemicals and you can make it up
in small amounts so it never goes to waste. Butter Buds good,
fat-free margarine bad. Very, very bad.
If you are avoiding
margarine for health or philosophical reasons then butter is a fine
alternative. It costs a great deal more, but it is all
natural. Light butter is made from blending real butter with an
equal amount of water, a few chemicals and a thickener. Whipped
butter costs less and has about the same amount of calories. I
do not personally think that light butter is worth the cash, not even
with a doubled coupon.
Nonstick Spray &
Butter Buds
What do these two items
have in common? They are both serve the purpose of reducing fat
and therefore calories. Nonstick spray goes by lots of
aliases. It can be called vegetable coating, vegetable oil
spray, no-stick spray, the name brand PAM, and probably many others
that I haven't taken the time to catalog in my memory banks.
Most commonly it goes by the name of nonstick spray. You can make
it yourself if you have access to liquid lecithin. Or you
can put a bit of vegetable oil in a spray bottle and spritz your pans
before baking or frying. I like the store-bought stuff because
it is so effortless to use and is widely available for $1.50 a
can. If you're paying $3 a can or more then you need to shop
around for a better price or start making it yourself.
Personally, I don't use Teflon coated pans because I tend to destroy
them with metal spoons and spatulas and I always wondered where those
chipped off bits of Teflon went. Right into my stomach no
doubt. Instead I use iron skillets, keep them well seasoned,
and fry in a bit of nonstick spray instead of a lot of fat or
oil. Besides keeping things from sticking, nonstick spray can
also be used as a handy emulsifier. This is an agent that makes
things blend together more easily. Lecithin is the most common
emulsifier used by manufacturers today and nonstick spray is chock
full of it. When making candies, milk shakes and salad
dressings a quick spritz of nonstick spray will make everything go
together with less effort and keep it together longer.
Butter Buds is a brand
name for butter flavored powder. According to the label on the
box they have perfected a method to take all of the fat out of
butter, leaving only the flavor behind. It seems a bit like
mechanical magic to me, but the results taste very good. It can
be found in the spice section of your local supermarket. There
are 2 types available. My favorite is the box containing 8
pouches of dry butter flavoring. By combining a pouch with
1/4-cup of hot water you essentially wind up with 1/4-cup of fat-free
margarine. Only Butter Buds taste better and cost less.
It can be drizzled over vegetables, fish or chicken. A spoonful
can spread on toast or a healthy bran muffin. Since there is no
fat, it's virtually calorie free making it great for strict
diets. The other type is Butter Buds sprinkles. It is
sprinkled dry onto moist food to provide a buttery taste. You
can keep it on the table with your salt, pepper and hot sauce so it's
always available at meals for anything that needs a little buttering-up.
Diet Drinks & Drink Mix
This category includes
soda pop, artificially sweetened drink mix like Crystal Light and
unsweetened mix like Kool-Ade. By far the least expensive beverage in
this category is store-brand fruit drink mix sweetened with your own
artificial sweetener. There is a little bit of work involved. You
have to fill a pitcher with water, add a package of drink mix,
measure out your sweetener and then stir. The whole procedure takes
about 2 or 3 minutes. If you use an inexpensive sweetener then
2-quarts will cost about 25¢. This gives you 8 servings for
about 3¢ each, or 4 larger 16-ounce servings for 6-1/4¢
each. Compared to the cost of any of diet beverage, this is the best
bargain on the block. If you must have pre-sweetened beverage
mix then look for store-brands. They will cost about 3 or 4
times more but the convenience may be worth it to some people.
Diet soda pop is another option. Three-liters of generic or
store-brands will give you the most for your money. Brand-name
loyalty is an expensive habit when your cash flow is limited.
If you must have caffeine then give iced tea a try. You can
brew it from tea bags and chill it or mix it quickly from a
store-brand instant tea and get all the caffeine you want for about
1¢ or 2¢ a cup. One thing all of these beverages have in
common is that they are unnecssary. Ice Water with or without a
splash of lemon juice is healthier, cheaper and more refreshing.
Sugar-Free Pickles
Reduced-Fat Cheese
Work Saving
Convenience Foods
Crackers, Pretzels &
a Few Cookies
Making homemade crackers
is possible, and they really do taste good, but it's a lot of
work. With homemade crackers you can use all natural
ingredients and get a higher quality product. Store-bought
crackers and cookies are usually not especially high in quality, but
they are cheap, especially if you can find them in off-brands.
If you find yourself paying $2.79 for a box of saltines or $3.49 for
a box of graham crackers then you aren't looking hard enough.
My local Dollar General sells saltines, pretzels, oyster cracker,
graham crackers, vanilla wafers, animal crackers and low-fat cheese
squares for about $1 per pound. Our local super-center has
these items for approximately the same price, sometimes less for
saltines, even the ones I prefer with unsalted tops. When I
shop at the expensive specialty store down the road, I can find their
economy brand (Family Value) for about $1.25 per pound package.
If you need special whole wheat crackers, like Triscuits, then look
for store-brands, they'll cost half as much. Crackers, cookies
and snacks are not vital to our diet. They are convenience
foods in the greatest sense of the word because one only need open
the box to indulge. If snack foods like these are too a great a
temptation to you then avoid them. If you like to have them
around for an occasional treat then choose them by the price per
pound. Find the cheapest versions at your local stores, and
refuse to pay the outrageous name-brand prices.
Whipped Topping &
Dream Whip
I prefer a store-brand
version of Dream Whip over all the other commercially available
whipped toppings. It has fewer chemicals, doesn't take up my
precious freezer space, and has fewer calories and fat than the
frozen version. Plus it usually costs a lot less. I can buy it
less than $2 per 4-pouch package. This works out to 50¢
for 2-cups of prepared topping. I do have to add my own milk
and vanilla flavoring, but even these only up the price to 60¢
for 8-ounces. Brand name Dream Whip is about $4 for a 4-pouch
package making it twice as expensive as the store-brand. Frozen
whipped toppings are a better buy if they are less than $1.20 per
pound. Sometimes they can be found for $1 to $1.29 a pound in
store-brands, but usually they are $1 per 8-ounces tub which is much
more expensive than powdered store-bought, home whipped topping.
If you hate the idea of spending your hard earned money on fluffy
fake foods then take heart. You can make this one yourself for
very little. Homemade versions aren't quite as stable as
store-bought, but they are inexpensive and taste good. Look in
the Homemade Convenience Foods
section for a few good recipes.
