Week One.

We're now 10 days into our new low budget better health program and for the most part it has been a very positive experience.

We have been able to significantly cut our grocery costs. We've been going to the local Farmer's' Market and buying some wonderful, fresh and flavorful produce, including various types of tomatoes, zucchini, basil, apples etc. We had been spending over $150 a week and the last few weeks we have spent about $80 on Saturday and less than $20 during the week for sundries. We've been planning meals so we are able to shop for specific products instead of buying a whole bunch of stuff and building meals around those products. That has cut down on our waste.

We've been able to cut way down on our meat consumption and have only had 2 real meat meals n the last 10 days. We've also almost completely cut out highly processed foods from our diets. The first couple of days were a little tough, but for the most part we don't really miss them and as our taste buds adjust we're finding that we don't need as much sweeteners. We do use relatively small amounts amounts of cheese, eggs and dairy products, but not nearly as much as before.

We've been trying out various healthy meals and some of them are keepers, some aren't. So far we love the Eggplant Parmesan we made, although it is pretty heavy on cheese and olive oil so that will be put into a light rotation on  our meal plans and next time we will cut back on the cheese. Janet also found a Chile Relleno Casserole that we made with chiles that we roasted ourselves and was delicious. That was also a little heavy on the dairy products, so light rotation for that as well. I also made a nice Pasta w/ Pesto Cream Sauce and Tomatoes that was delicious but a little heavy on the cream, so we'll either try to cut back on the cream next time or find another recipe.

As we proceed we're confident that we will find more delicious recipes that are healthy and low on calories and fat. Janet made a Baked Banana Bread Oatmeal. It is made from bananas, oatmeal, milk, cinnamon, walnuts and a little bit of sugar. It made enough for 4 or 5 breakfasts for 2 people and is delicious.

Tonight we made Baked Egg Rolls, which were very flavorful and very low on calories and fat. The recipe made 14 egg rolls and had only 2 1/2 Tablespoons of olive and sesame oil, egg roll wrappers, soy sauce and vegetables, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, scallions, garlic and ginger. Baking them, instead of deep frying, of course helped to cut the fat and calories. We each had a filling dinner and we have 6 left over for each of us to have lunch tomorrow.This recipe is going into heavy rotation.

Janet found a couple of great sites that specialize in low budget and healthy foods. They are Whole Living and Budget Bytes. We got the Egg Roll Recipe and the Baked Banana Bread Oatmeal from the Budget Bytes Blog.

My tomato plants are coming along very nicely. It's been 3 weeks since I planted them and they are already 3 1/2 inches tall and 5 of the 6 are doing real well. They have another 3 weeks or so in the vegetative stage before I change the light period to 12 hours a day and they begin the flowering and fruiting stage.

All in all we are feeling really good about these changes we have made and find that we are not really missing all the foods we used to ea, although we saw a pizza commercial and had some brief cravings, but they passed, and it's not like we'll never eat food like that, it will just be as occasional treats instead of our regular fare.

Oh.. and I stepped on the scale for the first time yesterday and had lost 2 pounds in the first week, so positive development on that front as well.