Date: 2005-07-04
From: Hanover,NH

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Food(7/4/05)        My first food mistake was simply not buying enough. I shop at the large grocery stores, whenever possible, for the best variety and prices, and I've found that the tab needs to come to $5-$7/day. I'm closer to the lower end during the hot months and the higher end during the cold months. This includes signing up for the store card (or borrowing one from the courtesy desk or cashier), taking advantage of specials, and careful shopping. By careful shopping I mean knowing that chocolate is often cheaper per pound in the baking aisle than in the candy aisle. Or that there are are several types of M&Ms, often priced the same, but that the ones with the peanuts contain about 10% more calories per ounce than the plain ones. I'd take the ones with the peanuts to get more calories for my dollar. Calories are units of heat (or energy). Energy is what gets you up and down the hills. Another example is powdered tomato soup mix; you can often find the same thing over with the seasonings, where it can be cheaper. Someone once proposed that you try to get 1000 calories per dollar spent. This is a beautiful idea because it allows you to compare very dissimilar types of foods. A 6oz. Hershey bar contains 960 calories; you'd like to get one for around $0.96. Brand-name peanut butter and pasta easily make the cut, but most breakfast cereals don't. Things you buy as treats or for their nutritional value may not satisfy the rule, but it's a good rule nonetheless.        My next food mistake was not getting the right mix of foods: I'd have too many macaroni and cheese, rice and noodle dinners, and not enough breakfast, lunch, and snacks. I never cooked anything but dinner, and sometimes when it was late, I was tired, or the weather was bad, I wouldn't even cook that. Then I would eat some of my non-dinner items, making the problem worse. I even had a leak in my stove once, and suddenly everything that had to be cooked was no longer food. If I had a box of macaroni and cheese, I could still eat the cheese mix, but what about the macaroni?   Someone I told this to said that her daughter liked to eat spaghetti right out of the box, but not macaroni, because it was too hard. This got me thinking: I need to do some experiments....        The first experiment was to try a lot of foods right out of the package. Oatmeal is fine uncooked;you might have already had it in granola. Stuffing mix is like a spicy granola; just make sure to mix it well. Instant potatoes and dry milk didn't work; they both form little lumps that stick to your mouth. Mashed potato flakes are different. They've become one of my staples. To them I've added tomato soup mix, hummus mix, black bean mix, falafel mix, refried bean mix, olive oil, and soy sauce in various combinations. Onion soup is way too salty, as are many of the Lipton rice and pasta dinners (salt is often the third or fourth ingredient listed). Am I nuts eating Lipton dinners uncooked? I actually suspect that the rice has been pre-processed in some way: if I buy some rice and cook it, it'll take me 20-30 minutes; alot of the Lipton dinners cook in just 7. I'll also eat hot chocloate and lemonade mix directly.           The next experiment was to use water, but still without cooking. People have long cooked by bringing things to boiling, then keeping the cookware as insulated as possible, letting the food cook with the heat already imparted. I wanted to see what I could do without even the boiling. Clearly this won't work with meat or dried beans, but put some spaghetti under water, come back in 45 minutes, and it'll be almost as soft as if you had cooked it; it won't just be as "full". (I once heard a chemistry professor say that spaghetti is technically a "glass", and that the softening of spaghetti is a "glass transition" akin to the melting of everyday glass.) I haven't tried this in winter, but I imagine you could bring it double-bagged, or in a hard, covered plastic container, into your sleeping bag, and have it the next morning. (Spaghetti seems to work better than macaroni.)        No matter what I buy, the first step after leaving the grocery store is a process I call "deboxification", disposing of all the inessential packaging. Oatmeal and pasta will go into resealable plastic bags. Things that come in wax bags inside cardboard boxes, like cereal and some cookies, can stay in the wax bags. After removing the cardboard, I just need to let the extra air out of the bag. (I save and reuse these wax bags, considering them to be of the highest quality. They are very durable; their one drawback is that they are noisy. I've wondered if I could buy some of these bags, but never see them in the stores. I think that you used to be able to find them.)         Deboxification of 5-6 days worth of food generates a lot of packaging material that has to get thrown into the trash. That's never been a problem since every grocery store I've seen has a trash can right nearby. I'm not sure why this is, but I have three theories. (1) (most likely): Grocery store designers know that people will tend to hang out outside the store, and so generate trash.(2) (less likely): Some customers start consuming their purchases between the checkout and their cars, and need a place for the wrappers, etc. (3) (least likely): Deboxification, as a phenomonon, is on the rise! Spending 10-20 minutes right outside the store has three advantages1) You have less to carry right away. (2) Some people will be amused watching your oddball antics, and (3) Some people will come over to you for conversation. The people who choose to come over to talk to you, whether here, the library, or in front of the post office, will be some of the most interesting people you can meet.