LOOK! Atkins the 2nd most expensive diet to follow--?

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 03:30:41 GMT, DigitalVinyl
announced in front of God and everybody:

I can understand why it could be considered costly. All the things
that people eat BECAUSE they are cheap fillers (pasta, potato, rice,
bread) in meals are removed. You are left eating more meats, fowl or
fish(definitely more expensive here). All your meal stretchers are
removed. And vegetables aren't always cheap either!

Vegetables aren't exactly pricey, either. Not compared to, say, lunch
at McDonald's or a package of Oreos.

I think whenever something like this calculated -- either in a
newspaper article or by someone starting the diet -- people
conveniently forget about how much money they ordinarily spend on
crap. Yeah, rice, potatoes, bread and pasta are cheap -- but how much
money do people spend on fast food several times a week, on chips and
cookies and candy and cake? That stuff isn't cheap and it inflates the
food budget considerably.

My husband and I spend less money on food since we went low-carb
because we a) we cut all that extraneous, unnecessary "fun food" out
of our budget and b) we buy meat, chicken and fish on sale then sock
it away in the freezer. Cauliflower's expensive this week? Well, we
have three or four bags of frozen cauliflower stashed for just such an
event. Beef prices are high right now? Good thing we have those cheap
steaks we bought in the Mondo Family Pack because they were either
mismatched end pieces or about to expire. Ooooh, great sale of cans of
tuna -- we'll buy six or eight of 'em!

It makes me crazy to hear how supposedly expensive it is to eat this
way. The truth is, if you don't buy six dollar loaves of LC bread,
two-dollar snack bars and other expensive, pre-packaged specialty
products and you spend a little time looking for bargains on your
protein, it's downright frugal.

Dawn

On 1/13/2004 3:08 PM, Dawn Taylor wrote:

The truth is, if you don't buy six dollar loaves of LC bread,
two-dollar snack bars and other expensive, pre-packaged specialty
products and you spend a little time looking for bargains on your
protein, it's downright frugal.

Good point. Any kind of pre-packaged food -- low-carb or otherwise --
will inflate the figures.

--
jmk in NC

DigitalVinyl wrote in message . ..
I can understand why it could be considered costly. All the things
that people eat BECAUSE they are cheap fillers (pasta, potato, rice,
bread) in meals are removed. You are left eating more meats, fowl or
fish(definitely more expensive here). All your meal stretchers are
removed. And vegetables aren't always cheap either!
DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

I think that since the average person eats lots of highly-processed
crap, going on low-carb if one primairly eats "real food" can be a big
budget saver. A lot of folks going on a diet end up eating real food,
so save money regardless ofwhat type of diet they're on.

However, if one was *already* primarily cooking from scratch (which I
was here... grinding grain by hand to bake bread - can't get much
cheaper than that!), then low-carb is more expensive - just cause
buying meat, even in bulk and on sale, costs more than buying grain or
rice in bulk.

But... let me quantify that. I shop on sale and stock up, I have
chickens for eggs (and for chicken!) and a garden, I have two
freezers, I buy sacks of whole grain and bags of potatoes. I buy
whole foods in bulk and therefore save a lot of money since I don't
buy processed crap. I was spending around $260/month before I went on
low-carb and am spending around $300/month now.

So while it's "more expensive," that doesn't mean a whole heck of a
lot when the amount is $40/month. I mean, one trip to the
all-you-can-eat Chinese place for my family costs nearly that with
drinks and tip. So... the "more expensive" cost is equivalent to
eating out once a month - not a big deal really.

On the other hand, if I were working 60-70 hours per week like I was a
few years ago, I'd not be doing all this cooking from scratch. I'd be
buying Wendy's jr bacon cheeseburgers and throwing away the bun. It'd
cost quite a bit more.

It depends on how one chooses to live. I prefer working part-time and
being frugal as I deeply hated corporate America.

I'm spending over $60/month for a family Y membership, which means for
me, exercise is more expensive than low-carb'ing.

On the other hand, some people just go for walks or weight train at
home and their exercise doesn't cost. Exercise doesn't *have* to
cost. Depends on how you choose to do it.

I *like* that it costs me to exercise. Why? It's cause I'm cheap,
paradoxically. I always felt at an all-you-can-eat buffet that I had
to get "my money's worth". I can use that same thinking to go to the
Y as often as possible. Spending the money motivates me to *do* it.

It comes down to what works for you.