Why you must know your Food's Cost/2,000 Calories

Introduction

If you don't know the cost/2000 calories you will not be able to eat a healthy diet for under $5.00 a day. ($9.00/day for organic eaters.) Is this even possible? Yes, and not by following general advice to eat more fruits and vegetables or more rice and beans. To efficiently attain a goal, a person needs a plan. The plan is to eat more of the foods that cost less/2000 calories and less of the food that cost more/2000 calories. For that, we need a list of the foods we eat. This list will be the first step in frugal menu planning.

 

Create a Food List

I've been working on a list as I buy foods. A person's actual list would have many more items.

 Focus on the first and last columns. The first has the food item and the last has the cost/2000 calories. The goal is to eat from the top of the list and add vegetables and fruits from the middle and bottom of the list.

You can get this spreadsheet from the link at the top of the right column. Click on the grocery tab. Enter food item and the data in the green columns. Use a serving size equal to the serving size on the package. When you plan a menu, you may change the serving size. This will give you the cost and calories for your actual serving.

Let's look at today's menu:

The day started with a large serving of potatoes O'Brian and a slice of bread. Breakfast cost $0.68 and had 458 calories.






I had a banana for a mid-mid morning snack. The banana cost $0.24 and had 80 calories.



Lunch is rice and vegetables. It will cost $0.75 and have 250 calories.



Afternoon snack is a tomato sandwich and potato chips.




 Supper is Shepherd's pie and homemade bread. Cost is $1.89 and it has 599 calories.




Optional snack is bread and peanuts. Cost $0.37 and 300 calories for $0.37.

Grand Total: $4.54 for 2,057 calories.



I'm not suggesting you eat as I do. In a later post, I'll introduce you to the menu planning tab on the spreadsheet so you can plan meals that meet your budget and calorie goals.

 

Create your own Food List

The easiest way to create your own list is to spend an hour or two where you shop. Write down the name of the item, the cost, number of servings and calories per serving for each item for everything you buy or would consider buying.

Some stores will ask you to leave if they catch you doing this as competitors sometimes send spies to compare prices. Every so often, add something to your shopping cart to avoid attracting too much attention.

When you get home, enter the data in the spreadsheet. Overwrite my data as there are formulas in some cells that shouldn't be erased. When you need more lines, copy the last line to the line below and overwrite the data.

When you are done, save the file and then sort the spreadsheet by price. Select the whole table including the headings. Click Data, Sort, cost/2000 calories.

Conclusion

This is the first step in Frugal menu planning. In the next post we will start to make menus and a daily meal plan. This is time consuming initially, but it becomes easier with practice.