The beach on a (college) budget

[Matt92]

Hi, everyone! Like most, I made a New Year's resolution to start making better food choices and get fit. I'm about a month behind because, being a college student, I needed to wait until pay day to go grocery shopping and needed to eat up all the "bad" foods I already had in my cabinet (couldn't afford to toss it all!). When I started searching for a good diet plan, South Beach really appealed to me because it doesn't require you to keep track of every calorie you eat. After reading through the original blue book, I decided I would give it a shot.

My goal is more to start living a healthier lifestyle than to lose weight, but if I drop a few pounds I won't complain! It'd be nice to fit into some old jeans and t-shirts a bit more comfortably. My biggest obstacle (apart from late-night study snacking) is going to be my budget and my schedule; I'm a double major in music/education and working two jobs, so my time and money are both limited. I'm not going to use that as an excuse, though! I think I can buy some healthy foods from the grocery store with the money I'll be saving from weekly fast food, and I'm going to try and set aside atleast thirty minutes a day (more when I get a day off) for a workout.

I really like the idea of these journals, because with my never-ending schedule I don't have much time for a social life; an online community to keep me accountable is just what I need. And I have to admit, I've been doing some serious journal-stalking the past few weeks -- everyone here is so inspiring for a newbie. So, my beach-on-a-budget, always-on-the-go Phase 1 will start Sunday!

[Chris55]

Welcome to the journals, Matt! You might want to check out the Frugal SB thread on the SB Diet board. It's been going on for a while and just merged with another thread from another board. Also, Magna has just completed a week challenge, keeping his food expenses amazingly low. Lots of good ideas on both of these threads. Magna is doing Phase 2 so he saved a lot of money by eating oatmeal for breakfast every day, but many of the things he purchased can apply to Phase 1.

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viewtopic.php?f=2&t=103751

[Matt92]

Thanks for those links Chris! I'm going grocery shopping late tonight so those will be really helpful. I've never cooked dry beans before but it sounds like I need to learn!

[Chris55]

Beans do take time to cook - it helps if you soak them overnight or just bring them to a boil and let sit for an hour or so before cooking. Pressure cookers cook them in under and hour but crockpots are great because although they take a long time, you can pretty much leave them unattended. There's an entire thread of bean recipes on the Recipe board. The quickest ones to cook are lentils, which don't require soaking.

[Jaylah]

I've never cooked dry beans before but it sounds like I need to learn!

Yes, you do!

I'm on a very limited food budget, too (I live on a very small disability pension) and dried beans have been a lifesaver for me.

I typically set aside a "full day" (it doesn't really come out to that...more in a minute) and then cook up a full bag of kidney beans, white beans, and garbanzo beans. When they're all nice and done (nobody likes "rocks" .... hard centers....in their beans), I put them in small pint-sized freezer Zip-Lock baggies and then put them in the freezer. It doesn't take long for that small an amount to thaw if I need them thawed. (Like garbanzo beans in a salad.) Although if you're adding them to something else cooked (like a soup, etc.), just dump them in frozen.

If you're going to do this, you will need a LARGE pot with a good lid and a large colander. I say I "set aside a full day" because I only have one pot big enough. So I do this whole thing three times in one day. If you have more than one pot big enough, you can do more than one at a time. And it's not like you have to stay in the kitchen the whole time. Most of the time you can be off doing other things. As long as you remember to go out and stir the beans occasionally while you're cooking (not soaking) them.

1) Pick through the beans. Most beans are pretty "clean" but on the rare occasion a small pebble the size of a bean gets through the cleaning process. Your dentist would probably love it if you bit down on one of those. (That would probably make a full boat payment for him.) But your budget probably wouldn't be happy.

2) Put the dried beans in your big pot. Fill the pot up with hot water to about an inch from the top. Put the lid on the pot, put it on a burner on the stove on "High" and let the water come up to a vigorous boil. (Check every so often because, if you don't, when the water comes to the boil, it will lift the lid off and make a complete mess all over your stove. When the water gets close to boiling, leave the lid off.)

3) Once the water has come to a full boil, turn the burner off, put the lid back on the pot, and go do something else for about an hour or two.

4) When you get back to the beans, drain the water off, put the beans back in the pot with fresh water, put the pot back on the stove (lid on) and bring the water up to a simmer (just barely boiling). The reason you change the water is because a lot of the stuff in beans that makes you "gassy" will come out in the soak water. If you change the water you'll have less of a "social problem" when you eat the results.

5) When you happen to think of it, go out to the kitchen and give the beans a gentle stir. Add additional water if needed. Keep simmering the beans until they are soft all the way through. How long depends on the kind of beans. Figure at least an hour (except for lentils), and then eat a bean every time you go out to stir them. You'll know when they're done.

6) Drain the beans again and put the results into freezer containers.


A few tips:
*Don't add salt to your beans (if you want to add salt at all) until after they're done cooking. Adding salt before then will make them take a lot longer to get fully done.
* You can keep the cooking water (not the soaking water, but the cooking water) and use it to make soup.
* If you have any onion skins in your vegetable drawer in your fridge, toss those into the cooking water with white beans. It will flavor the beans a bit, and will add a wonderful golden color to the resulting "stock" if you plan to use it to make soup. Just be sure to take the skins out when you drain the beans before putting them in freezer containers.
*I don't normally put any kind of seasoning (other than the aforementioned onion skins) in my beans while I cook them, because I'm never sure exactly how I'm going to prepare them once they're cooked and frozen.
*For a change of pace from just eating beans, the "Supercharged" book has a recipe for "Red Bean Cakes" on the bottom of Page 230. They're yummy. And then for added variety, try putting a bit of salmon (canned, or fresh cooked, whatever) in the mix before you fry them.
*Take that one step further and use white beans to make your bean cakes. A bit of canned tuna in the white bean cakes tastes pretty yummy, too.
*In fact, you can use any cooked fish, flaked, as an addition to bean cakes.
*Wetting your fingers in water before forming the bean cakes will keep them from sticking to your hands as you try to make patties out of them.
*If you're having trouble getting your beans to hold together when adding salmon, tuna, or other flaked fish to your patties, try adding an egg-white to the mix to help "bind" them.

[Matt92]

What a wealth of information! Thank you so much! I bought several bags last night so maybe I'll cook them tomorrow and have them for the week. My only issue is my cookware situation -- I have a big pot, but no lid! I need to break down and buy some new cookware anyway, so hopefully I'll do that soon. Thanks for the bean cake recipe, too! I'm anxious to try and all these bean-based recipes. I bought several cans of black beans to make black bean brownies with some time... that one has me pretty excited!

Spent my entire grocery budget for the month last night, but Kroger had some great sale deals. I usually get my groceries at Walmart, but since I was aiming for a bit more variety/less convenience food this time, I decided to go to Kroger, and I'm glad I did! They have a lot of "manager's specials" on dented cans and other products in damaged packaging. Even some produce, like broccoli and lettuce a few days short of its fresh-by date. Worth checking out if there's one in your area and you haven't already!

[Chris55]

If you're looking for some decent cheap cookware, check out your nearest Goodwill or other resale store. You might be lucky and find a large pot or some other useful things for practically nothing, like maybe a crockpot. Sometimes they even have brand new things donated by different manufacturers.

You can also soak your beans overnight. If you do that, you don't need to boil them first, just drain them and use fresh water for cooking them. If you get your hands on a crockpot you can just dump them in first thing in the morning, add fresh water, and cook them all day while you're in class. The nice thing about crockpots is that most of them use very little energy. Some of the newer fancier ones use more power but my 30-year old original Crockpot brand one uses about 75 watts of power, so it's like using a light bulb all day.

You'll be amazed at how your grocery shopping changes after a few months of eating this way. You'll probably want to keep some of your food budget for a fresh veggie run every week, though. Stores feature different veggies on sale each week and the price differences, at least in my area, can be huge.

[Jaylah]

Chris's suggestion of shopping Goodwill (or other "re-sale" store in your area) is a good one.

You may well find something there that will work as a lid on the big pot you already have, too. The lid doesn't need to be a tight-fitting one necessarily, so if you can find a flat lid that is at least a bit larger than the diameter of your current pot, it will work as a lid.

Or you could just use a piece of aluminum foil over your pot.

These two ideas would also work if you found a crockpot minus lid for a good price at a re-sale store.

In fact, as far as that goes, you can cook beans without having a lid for your pot at all. You'll just need to be sure to check the water level in your beans from time to time and add more if needed.



And Chris is also correct about how soaking beans overnight eliminates the need for the first boil. If I'm only making one type of beans on a given day, I'll soak them overnight first. But, as I said, I usually set aside one day and then make 2 or 3 kinds so -- with only one pot that's large enough -- I do the "quick soak" method.

[DCLissa17]

I love goodwill for dishes/cookware! Just bought a beautiful 9x13 glass casserole/cake pan for $5 and a 10" round ceramic deep dish casserole dish w/ lid for $7.

I have some leftover pans from a friend that came without lids. If I need one, I just use a plate. Literally a dinner plate, just stick it on top, makes a perfect seal, you can even use it in the oven that way. Nothing new to buy or to waste!

I need to also venture in the dry bean cooking world. So far I've just bought canned beans but it can be expensive, even with sales/coupons I rarely get them for under 0.50/can.

[Matt92]

Made a trip to my Goodwill store with no luck. Only cookware in the whole store was an old toaster and coffee pot. Will keep my eye out though!

B: Turkey bacon, eggs
L: Tilapia fillets, black beans
D: Red bean cake salmon patties (Thanks for the tip, Jaylah! They were great!)
S: SF Fudgsicle/PB shake

...sure was hard to forego all the Super Bowl snacking tonight but I made it! Thanks for all the info! Got a pot of Great Northerns soaking for the night.

[Jaylah]

If I need one, I just use a plate. Literally a dinner plate, just stick it on top, makes a perfect seal, you can even use it in the oven that way. Nothing new to buy or to waste!

Just remember to use a hot pad when removing it. AMHIK.


I keep wandering through my local Goodwill store, when I'm in the area, hoping to eventually find a Le Creuset dutch oven.

Glad you liked the red bean/salmon cakes, Matt!

[Matt92]

Beans turned out great, and all the leftovers are even better! Thanks for the tips!

B: Turkey bacon, eggs
S: Cheese stick
L: Leftover salmon salad
S: Cheese stick
D: Chicken breasts, Great Northern beans
S: Coffee blended with ice and a Fudgsicle (for a long night of studying!)

No big cravings yet. Hopefully they stay away!

[DCLissa17]

Don't forget about veggies! I know you may be a bit strapped budget-wise but try to find ways to bring them in. You should be trying for 1/2c. @ breakfast, and 2c. at lunch and dinner. Beans are great because you can use them as part of your veggie requirement (esp. at breakfast), but it is advised to only have ~1/2c of beans per meal (they are more calorie-dense than regular veggies). So you should still try for 1.5c. of other veggies in addition to beans and lunch and dinner. Veggies don't have to be fresh, they can be frozen/canned too. Look into places like grocery outlet or scratch/dent stores....they usually have great sales on fresh produce that are close to going bad. If some thing have soft spots/moldy bits (like cucumber/zucchini/tomato), those can just be cut off and use the rest of it. Check out the recipe boards on here for great ideas on cooking/making meals with veggies that you may be less familiar with!

[Matt92]

Don't forget about veggies! I know you may be a bit strapped budget-wise but try to find ways to bring them in. You should be trying for 1/2c. @ breakfast, and 2c. at lunch and dinner. Beans are great because you can use them as part of your veggie requirement (esp. at breakfast), but it is advised to only have ~1/2c of beans per meal (they are more calorie-dense than regular veggies). So you should still try for 1.5c. of other veggies in addition to beans and lunch and dinner. Veggies don't have to be fresh, they can be frozen/canned too. Look into places like grocery outlet or scratch/dent stores....they usually have great sales on fresh produce that are close to going bad. If some thing have soft spots/moldy bits (like cucumber/zucchini/tomato), those can just be cut off and use the rest of it. Check out the recipe boards on here for great ideas on cooking/making meals with veggies that you may be less familiar with!

I have some broccoli and spinach thawing right now for dinner! Maybe a can of green beans too. I have a bag of cauliflower I'm going to make mock mashed potatoes out of tomorrow. You're right about scratched and dented cans -- my Kroger had dented cans aplenty, so I picked up lots of beans and mushrooms that way! Same for almost-out produce -- two or three bags of salad mix, a bag of fresh broccoli and cauliflower, and a head of lettuce.

Yesterday: leftovers. And 60 minutes/5 miles on the staircase machine in the gym...legs feel like jelly today!

Today:
B: Turkey bacon, eggs
S: Peanuts
L: Turkey & cheese lettuce wraps with balsamic vinaigrette (surprisingly good!), dill & Splenda-sweet pickles
S: Coffee
D: Chicken/spinach/mushrooms/cottage cheese casserole and broccoli
S: Hopefully some black bean brownies if I don't get home too late. Starting to miss my starches today!

Again, thanks for all the tips!

[Jaylah]

Starting to miss my starches today!

Take heart. Phase 1 only lasts for two weeks, and you'll be able to start adding in a few (lower-glycemic) starches in Phase 2.

You got some very good advise from DCLissa17 about veggies. The one thing I most noticed about your meal plans is that you're very light on veggies.

The diet calls for at least 1/2 cup of veggies at breakfast and at least 2 cups at both lunch and dinner. Which means you should be eating at least 4.5 cups of veggies per day.

The 1/2 cup of beans is per meal, not per day. So you could theoretically be eating 1.5 cups of beans per day. But that still leaves 3 cups of actual veggies you need to be eating every day.

All of your breakfasts that you've posted so far are just turkey bacon and eggs. No veggies at all.

This days meals:

B: Turkey bacon, eggs
L: Tilapia fillets, black beans
D: Red bean cake salmon patties
S: SF Fudgsicle/PB shake

didn't actually contain any non-bean veggies, other than the onion in the beans. And that recipe is supposed to make four servings (one patty per serving). So assuming you only ate one serving, that's only a bit over 1/2 cup of beans, which is all you are supposed to eat per meal, while still leaving you short the other 1.5 cups of veggies.

I know it's tough to do this on a limited budget. Your looking out for dented cans and reduced price fresh produce nearing their "sell by" dates are good strategies. But the truth is that fresh produce is usually expensive, and it's hard to find enough dented cans and sell-by fresh stuff to eat the required amount of veggies South Beach calls for. So watch your grocery stores for sales on their house-brand or generic frozen vegetables. And then figure out which are least expensive and which are more. For example, "Broccoli Florettes" are always priced higher than "Chopped Broccoli." They're both the same broccoli, but the florettes are the "most desireable" tips, while the "chopped broccoli" contains the stems as well. Once for ounce, you can usually get about twice as much broccoli for the same price if you go for the chopped broccoli.

Also, some stores have a small section devoted to items in much larger containers (usually purchased by either people with BIG families or groups.) But since we're eating a lot more veggies on South Beach than most people eat per meal, if you can find those BIG cans of green beans, etc., you'll be able to use them up before they go bad in the fridge. Just open the can, take out what you need for this meal, and then put the rest in a Zip-Lock bag in the fridge.

And I know buying all these Zip-Lock bags seems like it will get expensive all on its own. But you can re-use Zip-Locks used for anything other than raw meat many, many times. Just wash them out and hang them over your silverware (or whatever) in the dish drainer to dry. You can, theoretically, reuse the ones you've used for raw meats, but you have to be very careful to sterilize them while washing them. (Which usually means washing them in a fairly heavy bleach solution.) Not something I really want to try/do, so I don't.

You can also use empty bread wrappers to store things in the fridge. If you ever buy those cold-cuts that come in plastic "Glad"-type containers, for goodness sake, don't throw out the container when you've eaten all the contents. Wash them and use them to store other stuff in the refrigerator or freezer.

And anything you buy in zip-type plastic containers (reduced fat cheese, etc.) can also be washed out and re-used.

I'm pretty stingy about plastics. Both because buying Zip-Lock bags gets expensive in a hurry, and because I'm quite concerned about what our excessive use of plastics is doing to our environment. I do pay a bit more to buy my milk in returnable glass bottles, but I know there are times when you don't really have any alternative but to buy things in plastic containers. So I make it a point to try to reuse those whenever/however I can. As a result, I don't buy Zip-Lock bags very often.

I know you said,

My goal is more to start living a healthier lifestyle than to lose weight

but a truly "healthier lifestyle" means eating more than just proteins and artificial sweeteners.

Perhaps this will help:

Phase 1 Guidelines

Breakfast

Protein: Quantity is not limited. See choices
Vegetables: Minimum 1/2 cup. See choices
Dairy: Two cups per day
Fat: 1 tsp mayonnaise or oil (optional) See choices

Lunch

Protein: Quantity is not limited. See choices
Vegetables: Minimum 2 cups. See choices
Dairy: Two cups per day
Fat: 1 Tbsp mayonnaise or oil. See choices

Dinner

Protein: Quantity is not limited. See choices
Vegetables: Minimum 2 cups. See choices
Dairy: Two cups per day
Fat: 1 Tbsp mayonnaise or oil. See choices


Snacks

Snacks are required. Choose from the Protein or Vegetable list, or eat nuts from the Fats list.

Where it says, "See choices", please refer to the Phase 1 "Foods to Enjoy" and "Foods to Avoid" lists here: viewtopic.php?t=29305


I suspect that if you were eating the proper amounts of veggies (which are carbs), you wouldn't be "missing" your "starches" quite as much.

Edited to add: "Coffee" is not an acceptable "snack" on Phase 1.