OK, so as I’m not
strictly paleo that’s a bit of a misleading title but I think this applies to
any diet where you are preparing fresh from scratch on a daily basis. The
second thing I noticed after switching to Paleo, the first being the health
benefits and general improvements to my wellbeing, was the shopping bills!
Bejeezus!!
I mean, I know food
is fuel for my body and I should care about what I put into it. And that the
organic food we get tastes better. And animal welfare is important to our
farming industry as well as doing great things for our karma… yada yada…. but
holey moley – there’s no way we spent this much on food before?! So i took a deep breath and consider it.
- Yes, we’re buying quite a bit
of meat – but actually the farm shop is very competitive with our
supermarket’s prices. Just got to be careful with portion sizes as chicken
thighs are about 50% bigger than the ones from the supermarket. Plus, we get to
go visit the piglets at the farm and check they’re getting plenty of fresh
air and rest 🙂 - The veg & fruit we get
delivered is organic – before we got battery veg, so not really comparing
like-for-like here. We don’t always know 100% what we’re going to get, as
we opt out of potatoes every week, but it adds an interesting twist to the
week’s meals and means we have to eat plenty of veg before it rots and goes to compost =
wasted ££ 🙁 - We have an interesting, tasty
meal to look forward to every night. Back-in-the-day we would linger in
town a bit late and ‘may as well stay out for a pizza and another bottle
of wine’. Or stop in at Waitrose for some extras to perk up a boring dinner, which normally meant
buying more food than needed, but since when was Waitrose about need? 🙂
Add to this the canteen and sarnie bar lunches at work. All of this adds up to a lot more ££,
but no idea how much as it wasn’t on our weekly shop receipt. We have
started eating out regularly again, after a long time avoiding it (will
more about this another time) but searching for Paleo options means we are
quite picky about where we go so it tends to be researched, and something
to look forward to- not just paying to put food product in mouth. Another
saving is on snacks – I don’t get the munchies in the afternoon any more,
and all the typical, easy to get hold of snacks (brownies, granola bars,
sweets) are off limits anyway. - We’re good with leftovers. Not just coming up with dinner from scraps, but being disciplined at
keeping useful odds-and-ends to make another meal. My courgette noodles
(recipe to follow) are a good example of this one; the odd offcuts make perfect frittata filling. No leftover is too small! If we buy a large joint
of meat, being just the 2 of, us we’re never going to eat it all in 1
sitting so we are careful to make sure that if there’s meant to be enough
for 3 dinners that we don’t have 2 greedy dinners. - My skin has never been better
and I actually have the energy to go out and exercise, thus saving money
on skincare products and contributing to money-can’t-buy happiness 🙂 Having
never run before, and never seen the attraction, I got off my backside and
trained 2 months for a 5km run. Now, thanks to my damn competitive nature, I’m going to keep doing it until I can improve my time. Too shameful being
beaten by people twice my age and/or size and I have no bloody excuse!!