EATING BETTER, SPENDING LESS

After housing and transportation, food is the largest expense incurred by most people. And as you will soon see, food is also an area with far greater environmental implications than most people recognize.

In the face of ever escalating food costs, is there anything you can do to reduce what you pay for food? You bet there is. I’ll show you how in a moment. And what’s more remarkable is that you can lower the price you pay for food while eating more healthfully and without sacrificing flavor or enjoyment. You don’t need to be rich to eat well.

If you’re perplexed about just which foods are healthiest, you aren’t alone. We are all constantly bombarded with the latest diet of the month, with each passing fad claiming to have The Answer. Meanwhile, we’re also barraged by food ads from companies all wanting us to eat more of the products they sell. The results are costly on many fronts: a great deal of confusion, ever-expanding waistlines, and ever-growing rates of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes. These chronic diseases—and the enormous suffering and financial costs they carry—are classic illustrations of why the old good life wasn’t really so great.

We all know that there are diseases of poverty that take a heavy toll among people with inadequate nutrition and poor sanitation. Less often recognized is that there are also diseases of affluence that afflict people who eat too much of the wrong foods. In fact, these afflictions—which include obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes—are so tightly linked to eating habits that they are now being referred to in the scientific literature as “diseases of nutritional extravagance.”

Beyond a certain point, there actually seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of money we spend on food and the health we experience as a result. This inverse correlation is so telling that you could argue that money could be considered an enabler, something that permits and even encourages unhealthy lifestyle choices. This includes rich desserts, highly processed foods, and meat products high in saturated fat. Money can enable addictions to high-fat and high-sugar foods that provide far more calories than they do nutrients.

One of my relatives is a good example of this problem. He is clearly overweight, and he spends a great deal of his money on foods that aren’t healthy. When I’ve asked him about this, he answers that through his employment he has excellent health insurance. I’m glad he does, and I hope he is able to retain his job and his benefits in the coming years. But isn’t it part of the old thinking to believe that we can consume more than is healthy, and if we become ill, then a doctor will make it all better? If we believe, as my relative seems to, that doctors and modern medicine will be there to rescue us when we become sick, I’m afraid we may be in for a rude and painful surprise. There is not a pill for every ill. And “MD” does not stand for “medical deity.”

Some people try to save money on their food bills by collecting coupons from newspaper ads and other sources and basing their purchases on them. I don’t do this myself, and I don’t recommend it as a rule, for a reason. Most of these coupons are for brand-name products and highly processed foods (that have been highly marked up in the first place), and these are not healthy choices. And besides, there are far better ways to save money on food—ways that steer you toward the healthiest of foods rather than those that compromise your commitment to taking care of yourself.

Some of the steps I’m about to recommend may be familiar to you. Others may be new. Some of them may seem simple to accomplish; others may take more effort. You don’t have to implement all of them at once in order to save dramatically on your food bills and your medical bills. Just use the ones you can. The important thing isn’t how large the first steps you take are. It’s that you keep moving in the right direction.

PRINCIPLES OF HEALTHY AND INEXPENSIVE EATING

If you follow these principles, you can cut your food bills, maximize flavor and nutrition, and contribute to a longer and far healthier life.

Eat low on the food chain. There are so many advantages to eating low on the food chain that this is truly one of the fundamental keys to the new good life. A plant-based diet with an abundance of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains typically costs 25 percent less than a diet that revolves around meat. Plus, when you eat more plant foods and fewer foods derived from animals, there is less saturated fat in your bloodstream. This results in cleaner and more open arteries, a happier cardiovascular system, higher levels of oxygen and nutrients getting to your brain and other organs, and a much lower incidence of heart disease. As well, when you eat fewer animal products you expose your cells to fewer environmental toxins, since these chemical evildoers build up in increasingly higher concentrations as they work their way up the food chain. People who eat plant-based diets are slimmer and healthier than the norm. They save money on food and have greatly reduced medical bills.

Avoid food that travels the globe. When you select vegetables and fruits that are in season and locally grown, you will be eating produce at its tastiest, freshest, most nutritious—and least expensive. Depending on where you live, you probably won’t eat cherries in January or watermelon in February, but that’s not a great loss because even the most expensive fruits taste poor when they’re not in season because they’ve been picked unripe. Transported thousands of miles, they carry a fat carbon footprint along with their higher price tag.

Shop on the outside aisles of your grocery store. That’s where you’ll generally find the freshest and healthiest foods. And that way you’ll avoid the highly processed foods that are typically found in the center aisles of supermarkets.

Don’t buy foods with too many ingredients. The longer the list of ingredients on a package, the more likely it is to be expensive and unhealthy. This is particularly true if the list includes chemicals you don’t know how to pronounce.

Don’t buy foods that are advertised. Food companies advertise most heavily those products with the highest profit margins, and almost without exception these turn out to be the most highly processed foods.

Beware of fake “health” foods. As the health food movement has grown, many packaged products have appeared that are highly processed and are not particularly good for you. Just because a product is made with soy, or sold in a health food store, or claims to be “all natural,” doesn’t mean it is truly wholesome. Many such processed food products are quick, tasty, and convenient ways to empty your wallet and undermine your health.

Bulk is best. Most natural food stores, and increasing numbers of supermarkets, now have bulk bins. You can often save more than 30 percent by buying in bulk rather than purchasing prepackaged items. Grains, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, and nutritional yeast are just some of the many foods that are often available in bulk bins. This may seem like an unusual way to shop, but, in fact, it’s the way people have shopped throughout most of shopping history. It’s only fairly recently that we started packaging so many food products, a practice that has been to the great detriment of the environment and our bank accounts.

Defend yourself from end-of-aisle and checkout displays. Supermarket executives know that impulse buys make up about 60 percent of total purchases. They also know that end-of-aisle displays are particularly effective in generating impulse buys, and checkout displays (typically for candy and magazines) generate even higher rates of impulsivity. They bank on the knowledge that the more often we walk past these displays, the more likely we’ll spend more than we intended.

Analyzing our habits and recording our purchases, they’ve made a science out of luring us to buy things we don’t need. You’ll be less vulnerable to their efforts if you’re aware of what they’re doing and if you eat before shopping. If you shop for food when you’re hungry, you’re more susceptible to their predations. Making thoughtful shopping lists also helps to curb impulse buying. If you like to experiment with new products, try limiting yourself to one or two per shopping trip. This works very well with children, too. If they know they can buy something up to a few dollars, they stop their endless requests for everything that looks bright and colorful. Parents can simply say, “If you want to get this, then you have to put the other one back.”

Reduce the number of trips you make to the store. For some families, a trip to the grocery store is a daily activity. They don’t realize how costly this can be—in time spent waiting in line, in gas, and in increased rates of impulse buying. If you plan ahead, and particularly if you have and make good use of a freezer, you can trim your food shopping to once a week or less. The less frequently you shop, the less you’ll spend.

On the other hand, if you happen to live within close walking distance of your food store, you can adopt the European way of shopping almost every day for just what you’ll be eating that day, which enables you to use produce that is as fresh as possible. Of course, the Europeans who use this shopping strategy are either walking, biking, or taking public transportation to their markets.

Shop at farmers markets. By buying direct from the growers you save money, and you just about guarantee that your food purchases are at their peak of freshness, flavor, and nutritional value. To save even more money, shop at the end of the market when many farmers will give you a great price on whatever they have left. (They don’t want to take their unsold produce back home with them.) Just ask if they have any “end of market” specials.

Prepare more of your meals at home. This is a cornerstone of the new good life. It’s a great way to save money and become more self-reliant. The average person in the United States spends more than a third of their food dollars on restaurants and fast food. If you eat most of your meals at home, you’ll typically spend 40 percent less on your overall food expenditures compared to people who eat out frequently. Plus, you’ll have more connection to your family, and maybe even smarter kids. According to Barbara Kingsolver, “A survey of National Merit scholars1—exceptionally successful eighteen-year-olds crossing all lines of ethnicity, gender, geography, and class—turned up a common thread in their lives: the habit of sitting down to a family dinner table.”

Of course, people can also have meaningful dinner conversations and feel connected to their families sitting at a restaurant table. But there seems to be something about the process of cooking for yourself, and possibly preparing the meals together with other family members, combined with being in the comfort and privacy of your own home, that helps families to feel their bonds with one another.

Leftovers are great. Somehow we have developed a cultural stigma against eating leftovers. Perhaps that stems from the days before refrigeration, when leftover food could quickly spoil and become a health hazard. Today, though, it makes no sense to waste food. Rather than squandering leftovers, make something original from them. Look upon them as saving you time and money. In fact, you can create leftovers deliberately by making extra when you prepare a meal. In our family, we sometimes make a triple-sized recipe, and then have several meals ready to go. We also make big, hearty, and delicious stews using all the various leftovers in the fridge. The stew provides some ready-to-go food that we can keep in the fridge for the next few days. Or we can freeze a few meals’ worth that we can later reheat for meals any time we need them. When fruit is getting overripe, we make smoothies, stale bread can get cubed into a soup or casserole, and overripe tomatoes make good tomato sauce.

Take a free lunch. They say there’s no free lunch, but when you take your lunch it almost is. Even a cheap fast food lunch can cost five dollars; packing up some leftovers from last night’s dinner costs almost nothing.

Spice it up. Herbs and spices are wonderful ways to add a rich variety of interesting flavors and aromas to foods that you prepare. In many traditional cultures, spices serve as an inexpensive way to turn basic, economical ingredients into appetizing fare. In the Western diet, we’ve been able to afford to use large quantities of fat and sugar as our primary spices. But what a cost we’ve paid in terms of our health! Many herbs and spices, in contrast, have remarkable medicinal value. Turmeric (an ingredient in most curries), for example, is a marvelous anti-inflammatory, rivaling ibuprofen and aspirin. Some herbs and spices may be costly per ounce, but you use only small amounts so it doesn’t amount to that much (unless you buy saffron, which I don’t, because this is one spice that can be ridiculously expensive).

Plan ahead. If you head off to a day at work without packing lunch, chances are you’ll be eating out within a few hours. If you wind up having to get dinner on the table in five minutes, you’ll tend toward convenience foods that are ready to go, and most of these are less nutritious and more expensive than traditional foods. Putting a pot of whole grain rice on the stove, or some potatoes in the oven, doesn’t take long, but it has to be done an hour before you plan to eat if it’s going to be ready when you want it. Some ovens, rice cookers, and slow cookers have timers that let you set the cook time in advance. Or food can be cooked a day ahead and stored in the fridge so it is ready with a few minutes of warming.

Eat out consciously. Preparing your own food is a huge money saver, yet you may still choose to dine out occasionally. When you do, you can cut down on appetizers, fancy desserts, and expensive wines. This will cut your dinner bill in half and still allow you to enjoy the pleasures of a delicious meal prepared for you by a talented chef and served by friendly staff. Keep your money circulating in your community by dining at family-owned restaurants rather than chains. Choose to eat at restaurants that use fresh, nutritious, locally grown ingredients.

Avoid fast food—it costs more than you think. Most people know that fast food is unhealthy, but they underestimate just how bad it can be. In the documentary film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock ate all his meals at McDonald’s for a month. He underwent extensive medical testing before, during, and after the experiment, and the results were horrible. Three weeks along, his physicians implored him to stop because he was risking permanent damage to his liver and his heart. Fast food is cheap, but only in the short term. The long-term health implications are beyond expensive. A Harvard study found that medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcies.

Eat the way gourmets around the world eat. It can be an adventure to experience gourmet cuisines from other cultures, and it’s often a cost-effective and healthy way to go. Most of the world can’t afford to destroy their health with an American-style diet. Almost no one else eats as high on the food chain as Americans do, which is one of the primary reasons the United States spends far more on health care than any other nation.

Watch the booze. When a team of researchers2 from the University of Utah analyzed how ten thousand people in the United States spent their food dollars, they found that 7 percent spent more than a third of their food budget on alcohol. I love a bottle of beer or a glass of wine as much as anyone, but too much is as bad for your wallet as it is for your liver. A close friend of mine has a strong family history of alcoholism. She has created two rules to limit her consumption: She never drinks alone, and she never drinks when she’s upset or unhappy.

Steer clear of soft drinks. The average American today drinks about fifty-five gallons of soda pop a year, at a cost of more than $500 annually. And that’s just the obvious cost. What are the hidden costs? A single twelve-ounce can of soda pop contains thirteen teaspoons of sugar (usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup). Fifty-five gallons—the average American’s annual consumption—contain more than seventy pounds of sugar. How bad is this? The sugar in soft drinks supplies 7 percent of the calories Americans consume. That is more than we get from vegetables.

Think outside the bottle. Bottled water is one of the greatest marketing coups of the last hundred years. The next time you are tempted to shell out two dollars to quench your momentary thirst, you might remember that most bottled water (including Aquafina, Dasani, and many other brands) is just filtered tap water that’s been put in a bottle.

If your tap water smells or tastes bad, or if you have reason to be suspicious about its safety, you can invest in a point-of-use filter, the kind you install on your faucet or under your sink. Then rather than buying bottled water, you can filter it yourself and carry a water bottle, sparing the environment in the process. How fast will that pay for itself? Based on the average cost of tap water in the United States, eight glasses a day comes to about forty-nine cents a year. Buy that water in Evian or Fiji bottles and you’d be spending $1,400. (If ever again you’re tempted to buy a bottle of Evian, remember that Evian spelled backward is “naïve.”)

In many ways, bottled water strikes me as symbolic of the old good life and illustrative of why we so urgently need to put it behind us. Like many aspects of the old good life, bottled water is expensive, it’s environmentally destructive (think of billions of nonbiodegradable plastic bottles being shipped all over the planet), and it’s mostly hype. The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but in 2008 the Environmental Working Group released3 a comprehensive study that found a surprising array of chemical contaminants—including cancer-causing chemicals, disinfection by-products, fertilizer residue, and pain medication—in every bottled water brand tested.

Grow your own. Growing some of your own food can be as straightforward as putting a parsley plant and a few green onions in pots near a sunny window, or as elaborate as planting a garden. If you have space, consider planting dark green-leafed vegetables such as chard, kale, and collards. They are among the easiest vegetables to grow, don’t require much fertilizer, and deliver an amazing amount of nutrients per square foot.

During World War II, twenty million Americans planted home vegetable gardens—called “victory gardens”—that produced 40 percent of all the vegetable produce consumed nationally. People dug up lawns to plant vegetables and planted food crops in backyards and in vacant lots. In 2009, with the assistance of elementary schoolchildren from Washington, D.C., Michelle Obama broke ground for the first vegetable garden at the White House since World War II. As per the First Lady’s instructions, the garden was entirely organic.

THE GOOD LIFE DOESN’T HAVE TO COST THE PLANET

It’s important to be thrifty and save. But a truly fulfilling life requires more than frugality. It also requires, I believe, a sense of purpose that is connected to something greater than ourselves. For me, this means living with gratitude and respect for all life, caring for others, and being part, if I can, of restoring the earth.

For the ten years that my wife, Deo, and I lived on an island off the coast of British Columbia, we grew 90 percent of our own food. Everything we grew was entirely organic. Although the phrase “carbon footprint” didn’t exist back then, ours was very small.

We had no livestock because we didn’t want to kill animals for food, since there was other food we could grow or buy that provided all the nourishment we needed. Some may think I am overly sentimental, but I’ve known too many animals who’ve felt like family to me. When I see a wild bird in flight, my instinct is not to grab a gun to shoot and kill it. My desire is to appreciate its beauty and understand its place in the web of life.

In the years since our time on the island, I’ve learned a great deal about how animals are treated in modern factory farms, and what I’ve learned has changed me yet again. I won’t describe it in gory detail, because you’ve probably seen pictures or heard stories of how bad it is—of the concentration camp conditions these animals are forced to endure. But I will tell you that in reality it’s every bit as bad as—or worse than—you’ve heard.

All of the animals involved in modern meat production—cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and so forth—are kept in conditions that violate their essential natures, that frustrate even their most basic needs, that cause them incomprehensible suffering. You don’t have to be a vegetarian, nor even a particularly compassionate person, to be disgusted by the level of cruelty that takes place every day in modern meat production. Julia Child, the famous chef, author, and TV personality, used to dismiss vegetarians as sappy. But when, late in her life, I took her to visit a veal production facility, she was horrified by what she saw. “I had no idea it was so severe,” she told me.

All this leaves me with a question that I think we need, as a society, to ask: How is it that we call some animals “pets,” lavish our love on these animals, and get so much in return—and yet then we turn around and call other animals “dinner” and feel justified, by virtue of this semantic distinction, in treating these animals with any level of cruelty so long as it lowers the price per pound?
The cruelties inherent in modern meat production are so intense that it’s hard to eat these products and honor compassion at the same time. If you eat any kind of meat, you might want to purchase products that you know to be truly free-range and organic, such as those with the “Animal Compassion” logo from Whole Foods Market.

Because I so deeply deplore cruelty to animals, and I’ve been publicly active in bringing attention to the systematic cruelty in modern meat production, people often ask me if my reluctance to eat meat stems from ethical reasons. Yes, it does, and yet over the years I’ve learned something else that has also affected me greatly. As a concerned citizen of our beautiful but endangered planet, I want to do whatever I can to help protect the fragile biosystems on which so much depends, so that your children and mine, and all generations yet to come, might have a chance for a viable future.

What does that have to do with eating meat? A lot more than you might think. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations released a seminal report titled4 Livestock’s Long Shadow. The report states that meat production is the second or third largest contributor to environmental problems at every level and at every scale, from global to local. It is a primary culprit in land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, species extinction, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Henning Steinfeld, a senior author of the report, stated, “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is needed to remedy the situation.”

As Ezra Klein wrote in The Washington Post in 2009, “The evidence is strong.5 It’s not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it’s that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.”

In his influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore presents a compelling argument for the seriousness of human-induced global warming. But for some reason he asks us to change our lightbulbs while never asking us to change our diets. Seeing this omission, I’ve realized how deeply we are conditioned to think of meat eating as the reward for affluence and how difficult it can be to question it. Meat eating has held such a central place in the old good life that it can just slip by, unquestioned.

But question it we must if we are going to take seriously our responsibility to the planet. Cattle are notorious for producing methane, which is one of the four primary greenhouse gases. You may find it difficult to take cow burps and flatulence seriously, but livestock emissions are no joke. Methane comes from both ends of the cow in such enormous quantities that scientists seriously view it as one of the greatest threats to our earth’s climate.

And there’s more. The FAO report states that livestock production generates 65 percent of the nitrous oxide (another extremely potent greenhouse gas) produced by human activities. The FAO concludes that overall, livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, and planes in the world combined.

Similarly, a 2009 report published in Scientific American remarked that “producing beef for the table6 has a surprising environmental cost: it releases prodigious amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.” The greenhouse gas emissions from producing a pound of beef, the study found, are fifty-eight times greater than those from producing a pound of potatoes.

Some people thought the Live Earth concert handbook was exaggerating when it stated that, “Refusing meat is the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint,” but it wasn’t. This is literally true. Even Environmental Defense, a group that was called George W. Bush’s favorite environmental group for its less-than-radical stands, calculates that if every meat eater in the United States swapped just one meal of chicken per week for a vegetarian meal, the carbon savings would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road.

People have begun comparing eating little or no animal products with driving a Prius (“Vegetarianism is the new Prius”) and likewise compared eating meat with driving a Hummer. But this comparison, as striking as it is, actually understates the amount of greenhouse gases that stem from meat. In 2006, a University of Chicago study7 found that a vegan diet is far more effective than driving a hybrid car in reducing our carbon footprint. Scientists who have done the calculations say that a Prius driver who consumes a meat-based diet actually contributes more to global warming than a Hummer driver who eats low on the food chain.

Then, in late 2009, Worldwatch Institute published a seminal report8 that took things further. The thoughtful and meticulously thorough study, written by World Bank agricultural scientist Robert Goodland, who spent twenty-three years as the Bank’s lead environmental adviser, and Jeff Anhang, an environmental specialist for the Bank, came to the conclusion that animals raised for food account for more than half of all human-caused greenhouse gases. Eating plants instead of animals, the authors state, would be by far the most effective strategy to reverse climate change, because it “would have far more rapid effects on greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations—and thus on the rate that the climate is warming—than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

I often see very well-intentioned people going to all sorts of lengths to live a greener lifestyle. It’s sadly ironic that they sometimes ignore what would be the single most effective thing they could be doing. If we are really committed to saving the environment we need to know where our leverage is. We need to focus on where we can get the most benefit. Eating lower on the food chain is a real boon to the whole earth community. The good life doesn’t have to cost the planet.

The question we will collectively answer with our lives in the coming years is this: Are we going to take the earth’s needs into account, or are we going to indulge our appetites without regard for the impact we’re having on the environment?

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released at the end of 2007, was the largest and most detailed summary of the climate change situation ever undertaken. Its authors included thousands of scientists from dozens of countries. It unequivocally predicted serious risks and damages to species, ecosystems, human infrastructure, societies, and livelihoods in the future unless drastic action to reduce warming was taken.

Summarizing our current predicament, the Worldwatch Institute says that if we do not radically change course, “Children born today will find their9 lives preoccupied with a host of hardships created by an inexorably warming world. Food supplies will be diminished and many of the world’s forests will be destroyed. Not just the coral reefs that nurture many fisheries but the chemistry of the oceans will face disruption.”

And one more thing: We all know that everyone needs to eat, but we tend to overlook the fact that it’s not efficient to cycle grain through animals. The production of a pound of feedlot beef requires sixteen pounds of corn and soybeans. That’s why the noted author Frances Moore Lappé called modern meat production “a protein factory in reverse.” From the point of view of world hunger, if you feed corn and soybeans to livestock, you’re actually wasting most of the protein and other nutrients that you’ve grown. If you think about the vast numbers of people who are starving on our planet, it begins to look like a crime against humanity to take 80 percent of the corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. today and feed it to livestock. But that is exactly what we are doing, so we can have cheap meat. Cheap, that is, if you don’t count the human suffering that is and will be caused by climate deterioration, the cruelty to billions of animals, and the unmet food needs of hundreds of millions of people.

It’s striking to me how much correlation there is between the food choices that are the healthiest, those that are the least expensive, and those that are most socially and environmentally responsible. It is a fact of singular significance today that eating lower on the food chain—eating more plants and fewer animals—addresses all of these goals in a positive way.

While efforts to use government as an agent of social change don’t have the best reputation, this could be an instance in which such an approach might be useful. Since we have taxes, why don’t we tax the things that are bad for the world and use some of that money to lower the price of things that are good? This would be a revenue-neutral way of fostering a better world. For example, what if we taxed agrochemicals and used the revenue to subsidize organic and other safe forms of growing food? What if we taxed junk food and used the income to subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables? What if we taxed white bread and used the revenue to lower the price of whole wheat bread? What if we taxed products that are responsible for a disproportionate share of greenhouse gases, such as meat, and used the money to subsidize vegetable gardens and fruit orchards in every school and neighborhood in the country?

The results would be impressive: We’d have genuinely happy meals, because we’d be eating far better and at far less expense. We’d be so much healthier as people that what we’d save in medical bills would go a long way toward solving the crisis in the health care system. And we’d dramatically reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and thus have a more stable climate.

TWELVE NUTRITIONALLY RICH AND INEXPENSIVE FOODS

Most lists of the healthiest foods feature wild salmon and blueberries. That’s great if you’re an Alaskan bear and you find them in the wild, but for most humans such foods are quite expensive.

Here are twelve foods that can give you much pleasure, that can bring you vibrant wellness, that can be produced without cruelty to animals or harm to the earth, that don’t require excessive resources, and that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
Since many of us have never learned (or have forgotten) how to prepare and enjoy these wonderful foods, I’ve provided some recipes. And I’ve made sure that all the ingredients in each recipe are both nutritious and inexpensive.

Popcorn: Surprisingly Healthy

Popcorn was originally discovered by Native Americans, but it didn’t become fashionable as a snack food in the United States until the Great Depression, when its low cost and high nutritional value made it popular. Countless businesses failed during the 1930s, but the popcorn business thrived and helped to save many family farms as it became a source of income for struggling farmers.

Air-popped popcorn is an inexpensive whole grain product that is low in calories and a great source of fiber. It’s also a good source of protein, vitamins B1 and B2, and iron. Weight Watchers recommends popcorn as a snack for the weight conscious; the American Dental Association endorses this sugar-free snack; and the American Cancer Society recognizes the benefits of the high fiber content of popcorn in helping to prevent several types of cancer.

Popcorn is a healthy food, but you need to beware of the large amounts of fat, sugar, and salt often added to commercial popcorn. In the mid-1990s, the Center for Science in the Public Interest analyzed the popcorn served in movie theaters. They found that most used coconut oil to pop the corn and then topped it with butter or margarine. “A medium-size buttered popcorn,”10 the report concluded, “contains more fat than a breakfast of bacon and eggs, a Big Mac and fries, and a steak dinner combined.”

Has commercial popcorn improved since11 then? Hardly. Today, a small popcorn from Regal Entertainment Group (the largest theater chain in the United States) contains as much saturated fat as three Big Macs.

There are two other caveats regarding popcorn. It’s not a good food to serve children under the age of four because of the risk of choking. And microwaveable popcorn often contains various artificial flavoring agents, including the chemical diacetyl, which is commonly used to impart a buttery flavor. Diacetyl has been implicated in causing respiratory ailments and linked to severe lung disease.

This is not a problem, of course, if you pop your own popcorn using an inexpensive air popper, for then it’s your choice what to add. Go easy on the fat; try adding nutritional yeast (see more on this below), cayenne, cumin seed powder, or other spices along with salt. Eat it fresh from the popper, and you’ll have a fun, tasty, and healthy whole grain food that is so inexpensive it’s sometimes used (such a waste) as packing material.

Quinoa: The Mother of All Grains

Pronounced “keen-wah,” quinoa is the most easily digested of all whole grains and the least mucus forming, and it cooks quickly (in about twenty-five minutes). A cup of cooked quinoa has as much calcium as a quart of milk, in a more digestible form.

Quinoa is higher in protein than wheat, barley, corn, or rice. Among grains, only oats rival its protein content. And it’s uniquely high in the particular amino acids that are often low in plant foods. It’s a good source of lysine, for example, as well as the essential sulfur-bearing amino acids methionine and cystine. Quinoa is also an excellent source of phosphorus, vitamin E, several B vitamins, and minerals.

It’s gluten-free, which is a disadvantage in making bread but an advantage for those who are sensitive to gluten.

How is it, you may wonder, that quinoa is not better known in the modern Western world? The Incas held quinoa as sacred. They called it chisaya mama, the “mother of all grains,” and used it as part of their religious ceremonies. When the Spanish colonists conquered South America, they actively suppressed quinoa as part of their efforts to stifle native spirituality and spread Christianity. But now it’s making a comeback.

Cooked quinoa is a great ingredient in hot casseroles, soups, stews, stir-fries, or in cold salads. Dry-roasting quinoa in a pan or in the oven before cooking will add a toasted flavor.

Always store quinoa in your refrigerator. Its oils are uniquely nutritious, but they are also subject to spoilage if left too long in a warm environment. If I had to choose one food to survive on for any length of time, it would probably be quinoa.

Flaxseeds: The “New” Wonder Food

Flaxseeds are getting a lot of press lately as the new wonder food. But they’ve been eaten by people for thousands of years. In fact, flax was one of the original “medicines” used by Hippocrates. By eating flax, you aren’t conducting a risky, novel experiment. You’re consuming one of the world’s oldest, healthiest, and least expensive foods.

If flax is such a marvelous food source, how did it come to be so forgotten in the Western diet? It fell out of favor for the very reason it’s so nutritious. The same nutrients that make flax so remarkable—its unique essential fatty acids—also give it a short shelf life. Oil manufacturers found other oils, with longer shelf lives, to be more profitable.

Among all foods, flaxseeds are the best source of a type of phytoestrogen called lignans, which have been shown to help prevent not only breast cancer, but also cancer of the prostate, uterus, and ovaries.

Among all the plant foods in the world, flaxseeds are also the richest source of omega-3 fatty acids. Why is this so important? Because most of us don’t get nearly enough of this crucial nutrient.

There are two classes of fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which must be in balance for you to be healthy. Before we relied so heavily on processed foods, human consumption of these two classes of fatty acids was roughly equal. But just about everyone eating a Western diet today gets far too much of the omega-6s and not nearly enough of the omega-3s. Many experts believe this imbalance to be at the root of a vast array of problems, including asthma, coronary heart disease, and many forms of cancer, autoimmunity, and neurodegenerative diseases. The imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids is also believed to contribute to obesity, depression, dyslexia, hyperactivity, and even a tendency toward violence. Bringing the fats into proper proportion may actually help to relieve those conditions.

Eating wild salmon, at about fifteen dollars a pound, is one way to get your needed omega-3s. The other is to eat flaxseeds, at about two dollars a pound.

Keep flaxseeds refrigerated or frozen. Whole flaxseeds stay fresh for up to a year if stored correctly. In our household, we grind a few tablespoons in a designated coffee grinder every few days and keep the meal in the refrigerator. (Once the seeds are ground into a meal, they can go rancid quickly.) Sprinkle ground flax meal on cereals or salads, or mix them into casseroles.

Nutritional Yeast: A Nutrient Powerhouse

Nutritional yeast is a terrific addition to anyone’s diet. It’s an excellent source of protein, both because it contains more than any meat product and because it contains all of the essential amino acids. Particularly rich in lysine and tryptophan, it is an excellent complement to most grains.

Nutritional yeast is considered to be a “primary grown” yeast, which means that it is cultivated specifically for its nutritive value. It’s also an “inactive yeast,” which means that it has no leavening ability. People who have difficulty digesting yeasted or fermented foods usually have no problem with this product. It is gluten-free and Candida albicans negative, which means it is generally considered safe even for those with wheat allergies and those prone to yeast infections.

Nutritional yeast is not the same as baking yeast, which is used to leaven breads. Nor is it the same as brewer’s yeast, which is a by-product of the beer industry. While brewer’s yeast contains many nutrients, it carries the bitter flavor of the hops used in the brewing of beer. Nutritional yeast is also different from yeast extracts, which have strong flavors and typically come as dark brown pastes.

Nutritional yeast is an excellent source of B vitamins. It’s also a great source of the trace mineral chromium, a nutrient the body requires to regulate blood sugar. For this reason, nutritional yeast can be very helpful to diabetics and to those with a tendency toward low blood sugar.
Nutritional yeast has long been popular with the health conscious, and it’s time it became far more widely known and used. It has a distinctive flavor that many people enjoy. The flavor has been described as nutty or cheesy.

Nutritional yeast is available both in the form of yellow flakes and as a yellow powder similar in appearance and texture to a fine cornmeal. It can be found in the bulk aisle of most natural food stores. Stored in a cool, dry place, it keeps very well. In food preparation it is extremely versatile, with a wide variety of uses, as a flavoring and/or thickening agent in soups, sauces, salad dressings, cheesy spreads, casseroles, and more.

Sweet Potatoes: Nutritional All-Stars

Many of us know sweet potatoes as part of our holiday fare, but these naturally sweet tubers can easily be part of meals throughout the year. Their nutritive profile makes them part of any nutritional all-star team.

In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of a wide assortment of vegetables. Taking into account fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value. According to these criteria, sweet potatoes earned 184 points, 100 points ahead of the common potato.

In addition, sweet potatoes contain unique root storage proteins that have been shown to have remarkable antioxidant properties. In one study, these proteins demonstrated one-third the antioxidant activity of glutathione. Glutathione is considered to be the most potent endogenous antioxidant in the human body.

Sweet potatoes are superb sources of vitamin A, very good sources of vitamin C and manganese, and good sources of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, potassium, iron, and copper. Their vitamin A levels are particularly outstanding. If you are or have been a smoker, or if you are frequently exposed to secondhand smoke, then regularly eating vitamin A–rich foods such as sweet potatoes can literally save your life. The bioavailability of the beta-carotene (provitamin A) in orange-fleshed sweet potatoes is higher even than that found in dark green leafy vegetables.

Purple-fleshed sweet potatoes have another set of nutritional attributes. They are good sources of anthocyanins, which are stunningly effective antioxidants. In one major study, purple sweet potatoes were found to have greater antioxidant properties than any other food tested.
Another advantage of sweet potatoes is that they grow well under a wide variety of farming conditions and have few natural enemies. Thus, pesticides are rarely used.

Baked sweet potatoes make wonderful “heat and serve” leftovers and are a great food to pack in to-go lunches. Don’t forget to poke holes in the skin or they may explode.

Split Peas: Small but Mighty

Even if you are already a lover of split pea soup, you may not realize the many nutrients that inexpensive split peas provide. A small but nutritionally powerful member of the legume family, split peas are an excellent source of protein.

Split peas are also excellent sources of several important minerals and B vitamins, all with virtually no fat. They provide a type of insoluble fiber that increases stool bulk, prevents constipation, and helps prevent digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome and diverticulosis. A single cup of cooked split peas provides 65 percent of the recommended daily allowance for fiber.

Split peas have been shown to be of benefit in managing blood sugar levels. They contain large amounts of a particular type of fiber that prevents blood sugar levels from rising rapidly after a meal.

In a major study that examined food intake patterns and risk of death from coronary heart disease, researchers followed more than sixteen thousand men from many different countries. They found that legumes, including split peas, were associated with an 82 percent reduction in risk.

Some people are sensitive to sulfites, a type of preservative used in wine making, found in dried fruits, and commonly added to delicatessen salads and salad bars. People who are sensitive to sulfites may experience rapid heartbeat, headache, or confusion if they consume these foods. If you have ever reacted to sulfites, it could be because your molybdenum levels are low. Molybdenum, a trace mineral, is a crucial component of the enzyme sulfite oxidase, which the body uses to break down sulfites. Split peas are an outstanding source of molybdenum. A cup of split peas provides nearly 200 percent of the recommended daily allowance.

Split peas will keep for several months in an airtight container in a cool, dry, dark place. For longer storage, keep them refrigerated.

Lentils: Packed with Protein

Lentils have been part of the human diet since Neolithic times and may have been the first crop ever domesticated by humans. Traditionally, lentils have been venerated and included in the religious ceremonies of many cultures. Today, we know that with 26 percent protein, lentils have the third highest level of protein from any plant-based food, exceeded only by soybeans and hemp. And they are particularly good sources of two essential amino acids, isoleucine and lysine.

But as high as lentils are in protein, they are equally excellent sources of a number of other key nutrients. They are one of the best plant-based sources of iron and provide substantial quantities of dietary fiber, folate, B vitamins, and many other minerals. In 2006, Health magazine selected lentils as one of the world’s five healthiest foods.

Lentils cook quickly. This is true for all lentils, but especially for small varieties with the husks removed, such as the common red lentil. They do well in slow cookers, but pressure cookers are not recommended, since the small lentils may clog the pressure relief valve.

The ancient Greeks told of a philosopher eating bread and lentils for dinner. He was approached by another man, who lived sumptuously by flattering the king. Said the flatterer, “If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.” The philosopher replied, “If you would learn to live on lentils, you would not have to give up your independence in order to be docile and acquiescent to the king.”

Sunflower Seeds: Far More Than a Snack

Sunflower seeds were once a staple food for many Native American tribes. They are one of the plant kingdom’s most abundant sources of vitamin E, the human body’s primary fat-soluble antioxidant. They are also good sources of vitamin B1, magnesium, manganese, copper, selenium, vitamin B5, and folate.

When vitamin E is absorbed by the human body from sunflower seeds, it neutralizes free radicals, thus protecting brain cells and cell membranes. Vitamin E from sunflower seeds also has significant anti-inflammatory effects that can reduce the symptoms of asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions in which free radicals and inflammation play a major role. Sunflower seeds are so packed with vitamin E that a mere two ounces contain nearly 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance.

Though sunflower seeds are most commonly eaten as a healthy snack, they can be included in almost any meal and can be used as garnishes or as ingredients in almost any recipe. The seeds can also be sprouted and eaten in salads. You can enjoy them blended into a creamy base for soups or ground into sunflower butter, or you can munch them raw or lightly roasted. In our household, we roast them and then sprinkle them on hot breakfast cereals, in casseroles, and on salads, and we also just eat them by the handful.

Oats: Hearty, Satisfying, and Delicious

Most of us think of oats as food for horses and cattle, but that’s a shame because oats are a wonderful food for people. Higher in protein than any other cereal grain except quinoa, oats also contain essential vitamins (particularly B1, B5, folic acid, and biotin) and minerals (including magnesium, calcium, selenium, manganese, iron, and copper).

Oats have more soluble fiber than any other grain and are particularly high in beta-D-glucans, a soluble fiber that has been proven to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and to reduce the risk of heart disease. In the 1980s, a series of studies found oats to be so heart healthy that there ensued what can only be called an oat bran craze. Oat bran was added to all kinds of foods, including potato chips, which were then claimed to be health foods. Sadly, much of the oats people consume today is in sugary ready-to-eat cereals such as Cap’n Crunch, Froot Loops, and Lucky Charms.

Of course, merely adding oats or oat bran to an unhealthy diet isn’t enough. But regular consumption of the soluble fiber in oats, along with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, has been shown to be an effective way to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Oats are also significant sources of phytoestrogens, which have been linked to decreased risk of hormone-related diseases such as breast cancer.

Cabbage: Common but Grandly Nurturing

We sometimes call people “cabbage heads” as a term of disparagement. The French, on the other hand, have terms of endearment for males and for females—mon petit chou and ma petite chou—that literally translate as “my little cabbage” but which are used to mean “darling” or “sweetheart.”

It may be a measure of our elitism that we have come to look down on cabbage as a commonplace food, when, in fact, cabbage, like the other vegetables in the cruciferous family, is extraordinarily rich in phytonutrients that have remarkable health-promoting benefits. Sturdy, abundant, and inexpensive, cabbage is a longstanding dietary staple throughout the world.

Cabbage is an exceptional source of vitamin C. It also contains appreciable levels of the amino acid glutamine, which is an excellent anti-inflammatory.

Many studies have found that people who eat the most cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables have lower risks of cancer—even when compared to people who regularly eat other vegetables. For example, a study of more than one thousand men12 conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, found that men who ate twenty-eight servings of vegetables a week (four per day) had a 35 percent lower risk of developing prostate cancer. But those consuming just three or more servings of cabbage or other cruciferous vegetables a week had a 44 percent lower risk.

A great number of studies have found the consumption of cruciferous vegetables to be associated with a lower incidence of a variety of cancers, including lung, colon, breast, ovarian, and bladder. One study of smokers in Singapore13 found that regular consumption of cabbage or other cruciferous vegetables reduced lung cancer risk by an amazing 69 percent.

How much cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables do you need to eat in order to lower your risk of cancer? Less than a cup a day.

Carrots: Orange Gift from the Earth

Carrots are well known and loved everywhere. Because they are so widely available and so inexpensive, though, we may not realize how nutritious they are.

Carrots, perhaps not surprisingly given their name, are one of the food kingdom’s richest sources of carotenoids. Regular carotenoid intake from carrots and other vegetables has been linked with an up to 50 percent decrease in cancers of the lung, bladder, cervix, prostate, colon, larynx, and esophagus.

There were several famous studies 14 conducted in the 1990s in which long-term smokers were given synthetic beta-carotene, and it not only didn’t prevent them from developing lung cancer, it might have made things worse. How does that reconcile with the many studies that have found carrot consumption to be beneficial in the prevention of cancer, and lung cancer in particular? Scientists now believe that carrots’ protective effects are the result of the synergistic interaction of several different carotenoids that are abundant in carrots, including alpha-carotene. In the study, subjects were not given the spectrum of carotenoids, nor were they given any alpha-carotene. They were given only isolated beta-carotene. When you eat carrots, on the other hand, you get the full spectrum of carotenoids.

Your grandmother may have told you that carrots were good for your eyes. If she did, she was right. When you eat carrots, the carotenoids in them are converted to vitamin A in the liver, and then travel to the retina where they are transformed into rhodopsin, a purple pigment that is necessary for night vision. This is one of the reasons carrots have been shown to protect against macular degeneration and the development of senile cataracts, the leading causes of blindness in the elderly.

A study of 1,300 elderly15 people in Massachusetts found that those who ate at least one serving a day of carrots and/or squash had a 60 percent reduction in their risk of heart attacks, compared to those who ate less than one serving a day.

Tofu: Happily Becoming Mainstream

Tofu is made from soy milk much the way cheese is made from cow’s milk, but nutritionally, tofu is superior to cheese in many respects. Unlike cheese, for example, tofu is low in calories, contains beneficial amounts of iron, and has no saturated fat or cholesterol. Tofu is also higher in protein than cheese. And while cheese and other dairy products are considered good sources of calcium, tofu, depending on the coagulant used in manufacturing, may also be high in calcium and magnesium.

Further, while cheese consumption is associated with higher rates of heart disease, consumption of soy protein is associated with lower rates of heart disease.

As a food, tofu is extremely versatile. About the only thing you wouldn’t want to do with it is just eat it out of the tub. Like whole wheat flour, which also wouldn’t be good to simply eat, tofu is best thought of as an ingredient. With it, you can make many wonderful meals. Although a few years ago tofu could be found only in health food and other specialty stores, tofu has become widely available today. It’s available in several consistencies—soft to firm—and you can use it in traditional Asian dishes or as a cholesterol-free alternative to high-fat dairy foods, meat, or poultry.

Almost all the soybeans that aren’t organically grown in the United States today are genetically modified. If you want to avoid eating transgenic foods, get organic tofu.

Notes

1. “A survey of National Merit scholars” Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
2. When a team of researchers Jessie Fan, et al., “Household Food Expenditure Patterns: A Cluster Analysis,” Monthly Labor Review, April 2007, 38–51.
3. Environmental Working Group released Olga Naidenko, et al., “Bottled Water Contains Disinfection Byproducts, Fertilizer Residue, and Pain Medication,” EWG Research: Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants, October 2008, http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater.
4. seminal report titled Livestock’s Long Shadow, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, Rome, 2006, http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm.
5. “The evidence is strong” Ezra Klein, “The Meat of the Problem,” The Washington Post, July 29, 2009. See also Mike Tidwell, “The Low-Carbon Diet,” Audubon Magazine, January 2009.
6. “producing beef for the table” Nathan Fiala, “How Meat Contributes to Global Warming,” Scientific American, February 4, 2009. See also Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews, “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States,” Environmental Science and Technology, April 16, 2008; Bryan Walsh, “Meat: Making Global Warming Worse,” Time Magazine, September 10, 2008; Jim Motavelli, “The Meat of the Matter: Animals Raised for Food Are Warming the Planet Faster Than Cars,” E Magazine, July/Aug 2008; and Julliette Jowit, “UN Says Eat Less Meat to Curb Global Warming,” The Observer, September 7, 2008.
7. University of Chicago study Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, “Diet, Energy and Global Warming,” Earth Interactions 10 (2006).
8. Worldwatch Institute published a seminal report Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, “Livestock and Climate Change,” World Watch Magazine, November/December 2009, 10–19.
9. “Children born today will find their” Flavin and Engelman, “Perfect Storm,” 5.
10. “A medium-size buttered popcorn” William Grimes, “How About Some Popcorn with Your Fat?” The New York Times, May 1, 1994.
11. Has commercial popcorn improved since Mary MacVean, “Movie Popcorn Still a Nutritional Horror, Study Finds,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2009.
12. a study of more than one thousand men J. H. Cohen, et al., “Fruit and Vegetable Intakes and Prostate Cancer Risk,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute, January 2000.
13. One study of smokers in Singapore Bin Zhao, et al., “Dietary Isothiocyanates, Glutathione S-transferase-M1,-T1 Polymorphisms and Lung Cancer Risk Among Chinese Women in Singapore,” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, October 2001.
14. There were several famous studies For example, G. E. Goodman, et al., “The Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial: Incidence of Lung Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality During 6-Year Follow-up After Stopping Beta-carotene and Retinol Supplements,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute, December 2004.
15. A study of 1,300 elderly J. M. Gaziano, et al., “A Prospective Study of Consumption of Carotenoids in Fruits and Vegetables and Decreased Cardiovascular Mortality in the Elderly,” Annals of Epidemiology, July 1995.

By John Robbins in "The New Good Life- Living Better Than Ever In An Age Of Less", Ballantine Books (an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House), New York, USA, 2010, excerpts chapter six. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.