Low-carb on a tight budget

Ophelia wrote:
Jackie Patti wrote:
I have been trying hard not to care about food cost since my heart
attack, insisting on buying pasture-raised animal products which are
more expensive, preferring organic fresh produce over regular, using
avocado and coconut oils, etc. Some of the individual prices of
stuff I buy freaks me out, but I've not been spending more overall.

Jackie, I hope you don't mind me asking, but did you have your heart attack
before eating low carb? If not, how did you change your diet?

I've been low-carbing for over a decade for bg control, but lost bg
control subsequent to a pancreasitis attack, then had the heart attack,
an unsuccessful angio and thus a bypass. I have changed my diet in a
number of ways since then.

First being that I record the carbs, protein and calories of every meal
in order to dose the insulin. Insulin makes me much more aware of what
I eat and cuts the snacking back a lot since I rarely am hungry enough
to want an extra shot.

I doubled my vegetable intake - I now buy 10-15 lbs of fresh produce
every week and race to eat it before it goes bad. Most of what I buy is
organic, considerably more expensive.

I eat more fruit too, pretty much a serving of berries, melon, kiwi,
half a pomegranate or such once or twice a day.

I cut out eating quite so much low-carb junk food like the tortillas and
rather make more things out of flax and almond meal.

I've reduce the overall saturated fat in my diet because I am buying all
pasture-raised meat and dairy now, which has healthier fats. It's more
expensive, so I eat a bit less of this stuff.... though every meal still
starts with a base of protein: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, yogurt,
cottage cheese, raw hard cheese - all from pasture-raised animals so a
lot more expensive than I'm used to.

I've been pushing myself to eat fish more often. Mostly tuna and
tilapia, rarely scallops cause they're expensive. I also take 6g fish
oil daily.

I threw out all the vegetable oils except olive oil and started buying
avocado oil as well.

I quit the Lindt 85% chocolate and started making coconut bark instead
(I've posted the recipe here, so you can Google for it). This gets me
coconut oil in my diet for it's purported health benefits without
increasing my saturated fat since it's replacing cocoa butter.

I used to drink a pot of coffee and at least 2 liters of Diet Pepsi
daily, if not more. Now, I drink one cup of real coffee, then switch to
decaf for the rest of the day. And for cold drinks, I drink
stevia-sweetened lemonade or limeade. Sometimes dilute cranberry juice
(real juice, not the "cocktail" stuff which is full of sugar).

I also take a multivitamin, B-complex, pantothenic acid and niacin daily
now aside from my prescription meds. I count the supplements in my food
budget, though not the medications.

The thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is that I *know* I am
buying more expensive meats, veggies, fruits, dairy products, eggs and
buying more supplements, but am not spending more money overall than I
was doing before. It's hard for me to believe I was spending *that*
much on Diet Pepsi and low-carb tortillas...

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/