So today’s post is a simple solution that I think most coffee addicts will appreciate. A brief “commercial” (and my first attempt at videocasting!) on how to make a delicious coffee alternative.  Note: I get no money from any of the companies that produce any of these products. Unless you click on the Amazon link and order something….

Products Used in Video:

Teecino Coffee-Alternative Beverage (I used 2 T per 4 cups of water in my coffee maker)
Raw Goat’s Milk 
NuStevia Liquid Vanilla Stevia
EcoCup- ceramic reusable coffee cup

I had never even attempted to make Creme Brulee before I came across a great recipe for it in a Crockpot cookbook of all places!  Yes, I’ve adapted this from the wonderful Make it Fast, Cook it Slow cookbook by Stephanie O’Dea of  365 Days of SlowCooking. You can read my review of it here. 

I adapted the recipe (and doubled it) to be free of sugar and low-carb.  Oh, and I didn’t do anything involving a kitchen blow-torch on the top of it, so I guess this is not truly “creme brulee”. 

I used Truvia (a stevia-erythritol blend) instead of sugar.  By the way, I’m not 100% confident that Truvia is the best thing in the world, the jury is still out. I do trust it far more than any artificial sweetner, but if you’re concerned you can simply stick to your favorite form of stevia and add it to taste. There are lots of different Stevias out there, so go with what you prefer. In this household, right now we’re hooked on Truvia. But I don’t always trust things that are made by Cargill and white.

Creme Brulee

2 cups of heavy cream (preferably grass-fed, like Strauss)
5 egg yolks (Coscto now has 18-ct Organic, Cage Free Eggs for a little over $4! Not bad!)
1 Tbs vanilla extract
3-4 packets of Truvia (or your preferred form of Stevia, to taste)

1. Blend all ingredients together.

2. Place in individual ramekins or a large casserole dish. 

3. Place in crockpot. Fill crock with water to come up halfway around the dishes (like a hot water bath).

4. Cover and cook on high for about 3 hours.  Remove and let cool completely.

5. Transfer and chill in the fridge overnight. It will be a little “jiggly” before you chill it. Don’t worry.

6. Serve topped with sliced strawberries (preferably organic) and enjoy!

Check out some other sugar-free recipes at Naturally Knocked Up. Not all are gluten-free or even grain-free, but they are all at least free of refined sugar and look great!

Photo credit

As promised, I’m declaring the entire month of January a “Fridge and Pantry Cleanout” month whereby every meal will be formulated from stuff I have on hand in the fridge, freezer, other freezer, storage shed, or pantry.  I just finished my proposed menu plan for the week, and I’ve gotta say, I think I’m going to be able to easily make it through the month of January (possibly February too) easily without buying much of anything.

My rules for No-Spend January are:

1) Use everything I have on hand to create all of our meal plans.

2) No going out to eat (unless we have a gift card, or it’s our anniversary—January 13th).

3) There is a $10 spending allowance per week for fresh produce, household items, and eggs. Oh, and maybe organic cream. The husband can’t live without that!  But since we have a winter CSA and a good stockpile of household items (I make lots of cleaners and stuff) we should really only be spending our weekly money on eggs & cream.  Alas, I do not yet have a hen or a cow :( 

4) Post a “before and after” picture of the meal I created, the recipe, and approximate cost breakdown (if appropriate) and how the family liked it.

5) All meals contain real food and are grain-free and have a macro-nutrient ratio of 30/30/40 (protein/fat/unrefined carbs).

So today, I started out by building a meal around something that’s been hanging around the depths of my fridge for about a year and a half. Back in fall 2008, a friend and I went to a local orchard to pick plums for $.80/lb.  I picked a lot of plums.  I dehydrated many of them, ate a lot fresh, and experimented with lacto-fermentation for about 2-3 quarts of them.  Well, I have to be honest that after lacto-fermenting them, they lost all appeal for me. I just wasn’t interested in trying them! But they’ve been on my conscience for several months now, and it was finally time to use them.

I also had a nice pack of organic, free-range Trader Joe’s drumsticks in the freezer (the dear daughter’s absolute favorite) and I thought I would build on the “Asian plum chicken theme”.  It turned out that my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook had a recipe that was easily adaptable.

Plum Chicken with Cabbage
serves 8

1 package of 6 organic, free-range chicken drumsticks ($4.35)
1 onion, sliced into rings ($0.25)
2 cups of pitted, lacto-fermented (or canned) plums ($0.20)
1/8 cup of unpasteurized nama shoyu (aka soy sauce) ($0.25)
4 garlic cloves ($0.10)
1 ” piece of fresh ginger ($0.05)
1-2 Tablespoons of raw honey ($0.25)
1/2 tsp five spice powder ($0.05)
2 cups of shredded savoy cabbage ($0.50)
1 cup chopped celery ($0.25)
lacto-fermented ginger carrots, for garnish ($0.25)

Total : ~$6.50

For this meal only: $3.25

In a 6 quart crock pot, place the sliced onions.  Top with the drumsticks (mine were frozen). Meanwhile, in blender, blend the plums, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and five spice powder.  Pour over the chicken.  Cook for about 6 hours on low (or at least that’s what I did).  Add shredded cabbage and celery and cook for 30 minutes until veggies are slightly tender but not completely limp.  Serve with lacto-fermented ginger carrots and pass the hoisin sauce (we happened to have a little left from a long time ago that was still good).

The Outcome:

Very good! My 4 year old gobbled up the chicken but ignored the cabbage. We had a friend who cleaned his plate and enjoyed it, and I thought it was a very tasty, refreshing meal (as did my husband). And, I have two large pyrex bowls leftover, which will provide for two more meals for us this next week. So overall, I would say $6.50 for 3 meals makes this meal officially a “$5.00 dinner”, even with using organic, free-range chicken. This would have tasted great sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallions (which I didn’t have).  The chicken is really flavorful and falls right off the bone, which makes it easy to “stretch” the chicken further.  My daughter was the only one who insisted on having her own drumstick.

Leftover suggestions: Wrap with a lettuce leaf for Asian-inspired lettuce wraps, add to chicken broth for an Asian-inspired chicken soup.

Some thoughts: For a family of 4 plus 1 male guest, this meal made plenty with leftovers.  I think it’s so nice and satisfying to know that you can use high quality, organic ingredients and eat a filling, grain-free, low carb meal!  The dark meat of the drumsticks has more fat (which is a good thing; it will fill you up!) and also contains more minerals. It’s also the thriftiest part of an organic, free-range chicken to buy. This meal would obviously be way cheaper with conventional chicken, but knowing what I know about how these chickens are raised, I prefer organic. I figure that the extra money I pay is providing more nutrients (organic, free-range meat has more omega-3s than conventional and more nutrients as well) which means that ultimately I’m eating less calories to consume the nutrients I need. 

Thus concludes Day One of the Fridge and Pantry Cleanout. Join me tomorrow as I piece together another meal from the “fragments”…I press on until I can reach all the way into the back of my fridge, freezer, pantry, and storage shed!

If you’d like to “subscribe” to this blog, I have a ghetto way of doing it: You e-mail me: carrie [at] organicthrifty [dot] com and ask me to add you to my subscription list. You’ll get an e-mail whenever a new post is up. Or you can follow on twitter! 

Also: Do you have any delicious, filling ways of cooking Butternut Squash or Pumpkin that are Grain-Free? I have enough in storage to last me till kingdom come and need some inspiration!  E-mail me (see above) if you have any ideas!

I won’t lie and say this is a “quick and easy” recipe, or even that my kids liked it (they have a phobia of shrimp and won’t touch it with a ten foot pole, so they didn’t even try it. But I would bet that kids who like shrimp would love this.  But it was a labor of love, delicous, and got rave reviews by all eight in the dinner party.  Served alongside a simple Thai Coconut  (which contained a shrimp stock base made from the shells of the shrimp in this recipe!) and some stir-friend veggies, this meal was perfectly primal, lenten, and delicious! 

For being grain free, the shrimp sure had a great texture and crunch.  Shrimp are so nutrient-dense; high in protein and vitamin D.  You won’t be sorry if you splurge a litle for some good quality shrimp from a reputable fish market. This is an entertaining dish; not everyday fare!  Besides, it will rival P.F. Chang’s in taste but in the end cost you much less!

Baked Sesame-Orange Shrimp
Serves 8 as a main course

For the shrimp:

2# large shrimp, uncooked, shelled
2 large egg whites
1/4 c. arrowroot starch
1/4 c. brown sesame seeds (white works too)
1 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

2 T of coconut oil
For the sauce:

2 cups of fresh-squeezed, Chaffin Orchards mandarin orange juice
2 T wheat-free tamari soy sauce
2 red chili peppers, de-seeded
a small amount of honey or stevia, to taste (this was not necessary due to the amazing sweetness of the Chaffin mandarins)
4-6 green onions, for garnish.

1 T of arrowroot starch dissolved in 1 T of water

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Thaw shrimp, if frozen. Peel and devein shrimp, leaving the tails intact.  Rinse and pat dry. Set aside.

3. In a blender or Vita-Mix, blend the ingredients for the sauce (except for the green onions).  Pour into a small saucepan and and add the dissolved arrowroot.  Gently heat, stirring regularly so that the sauce thickens.  Set aside until ready to use.

4.  Place coconut oil into a 15 x 10 x 1 inch baking pan and place in the oven to melt.

5. In a large shallow dish (such as a pie pan), combine the sesame seeds, arrowroot, salt, and pepper. 

6. Get ready to get your hands dirty. Have your husband take the kids out of the house and have a dishcloth handy.  Don’t answer your phone.  This is intense!

7. Make a litle assembly line; dip shrimp into the egg white, coat with sesame seed mixture, and arrange shrimp in the pan (which by now you’ve taken out of the oven and is now full of melted coconut oil!

8. Think peaceful thoughts….pretend you are working in a monastery and this is your joyful obedience….or your zen moment or something.  I found it strangely relaxing to do all this work knowing it was for people I love dearly!

9.  When you are done with that, place in the oven for about 10 minutes or until shrimp are opaque and the crust is golden. 

10. Remove pan from oven, and pour orange sauce over all. Bake 10-15 more minutes (watch it; I found that more time didn’t hurt anything).

11. Garnish with green onions.

Enjoy!!!

Admittedly, in my not-so-organic-and-thrifty days past, there were times when I could be found sucking down an ice-cold Slurpee or Starbuck’s Frappucino on a hot, summer day. The Slurpee is more of a relic of the 90′s; it was a favorite after-basketball snack in high school (no wonder I had acne so bad) and it was a frequent refreshment during all-nighters in college. YUCK!

As I grew older, (and gainfully employed), I apparently felt that I could upgrade from the seventy-nine cent Slurpee to a more “foofy” frozen beverage, and at $3.50 a pop, the Frappucino became a sweet indulgence.

I’ve longed weaned myself of any desire for these beverages, but recently I discovered that with a few basic, nourishing ingredients on hand, you can whip yourself up a low-carb, nourishing, delightful summer treat!

The following I offer is not so much a recipe, but a “road map” with which you may use your own creativity. I offer a basic idea with many variations. By the way, these are an absolute hit with my kiddos, but then again, they beg for Cod Liver Oil. We’re weird.

The slurpee recipe uses fruity iced tea or lemonade as a base (see details below).

12 ounces of the liquid are used; 8 are frozen in ice cube trays and the remaining liquid is blended in with the “tea ice cubes” to make a slushy, carb-free, low-calorie delight!

Sweeten with liquid stevia to taste (5-10 drops).

The Frappucino recipe abides by the same principles, only you would brow 8 ounces of your favorite coffee or herbal coffee alternative (see details below).

Freeze the coffee in ice cube trays for at least 6 hours.

Place 1/2 cup of raw milk, raw cream, homemade nut milk, or coconut milk in the blender. Coconut milk leaves awesome results, don’t worry! Add the ice cubes, 3 at a time or so, until the desired consistency is reached. Add 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract and sweeten with about 5-10 drops of stevia. You can, of course, use maple syrup or honey as well, but I prefer the lack of calories in stevia!!

To make Fruity Iced Tea, simply purchase your favorite brand of organic herbal tea. I love Rooibios-Fruit blends, like Cranberry, Raspberry,or Orange. The Stash Tea company offers a delicious Green Tea Pomegranate, a Wild Blueberry, and a Mango Passionfruit. Mountain Rose Herbs has an amazing collection of nourishing teas, including the Hibiscus High Tea. Celestial Seasonings “Red Zinger” is delicious and makes a great, fruity treat.

Any of these work; just steep 2 bags (or two teaspoons) in 12 oz of boiling water to make a strong infusion. After about 5-10 minutes (depending upon the blend, or when it looks fully infused) carefully pour into ice cube trays and freeze for at least 6 hours. Reserve at least 1/2 cup of liquid to blend with the cubes. Proceed with the recipe above.

For a low-carb lemonade flavor, simply blend 12 ounces filtered water with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add stevia to taste and you have a delicious, low-carb lemonade. Proceed with recipe above. Add a handful of frozen raspberries or strawberries to the blender if desired (this will add carbs and calories, but they’re all good ones!)

Now for the Frappucinos, you can obviously use your favorite coffee if you are so inclined, but since I’m not, I prefer herbal coffee made from a blend of chicory and dandelion root. You can make this from scratch if you happen to have the herbs on hand, or you can purchase an Herbal Coffee from the health food store. Mountain Rose Herbs has a delicious Herbal Coffee blend which contains chicory, maca, dandelion root, and roasted carob.

Yum! Caffeine-free, and full of nourishing, mineral-rich herbs! Brew the coffee or herbal coffee according to package directions.

I hope this “non-recipe” format is clear and understandable. It’s delicious, I promise! So enjoy the double-bonus of these drinks being both nourishing to your body and cheap on the pocketbook, and instead of blowing your hard-earned money on high-calorie, low-nutrition drinks, why not whip up these delicious, guilt-free delights?

This post has been submitted as a part of Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays! So Fight Back against the over-priced, under-nourishing junk food summer drinks and make your own! Enjoy!!!

My inspiration? Perhaps it was the Lenten Pancake breakfast I had to, with Lenten self-sacrifice, abstain from last Saturday. I sign up to help with this breakfast every year, in secret hope of being able to covertly add a bit of health to these deliciously sinful pancakes. Unfortunately, these pancakes contain nearly everything that I can’t eat! White flour, cane sugar, soy milk, soy oil, and margarine. It’s almost laughable how every ingredient, though delicious-smelling, reacts horribly with my body.

Even though I enjoyed the massive spread of fruit dishes, I kept yearning for those fluffy, thick pancakes that filled the air with their griddley goodness Saturday morning.

For the record, I’ve experimented endlessly with gluten-free pancake and waffle recipes. When grains were more kosher for my daughter, we loved the blender batter waffles/pancake recipe. It’s truly thrifty and delicious. But as we’ve moved transitioned to a grain-free diet, it’s been a little more tricky. I’ve tried almond flour pancakes but they were just too dense and heavy. I had tried Bruce Fife’s coconut pancake recipe, but it seemed to flop on me. I was ready to resign myself to a pancake-free life, but then I came across a blog I’m finding more and more affinity towards every day.

Everything Free Eating is written by a women after my own heart, and I LOVE her recipes, her writing style, and her perspective on life. She’s amazing. She gave me a starting point for a grain-free pancake. I’ve tweaked it a bit to fit my taste and have come up with what I think is the perfect “I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-bad-for-me” pancake!

After two days of preparing these perfect little chubs, and having my kids gobble them up like hotcakes, (even DH pulled the cold leftovers out of the fridge for dessert last night and devoured them) I thought I’d just have to share them. Coincidence? I think not, given Kimi’s Nourishing Breakfast Carnival today!

Grain Free Pancakes
adapted from EverythingFreeEating

Blend together in the Vitamix:

3 eggs plus enough whites to equal 1 cup (or just 1 cup, total. I’m always looking for ways to use up my egg whites,and I think the extra whites contribute to the fluffiness)
1/2 cup milk (goat, cow, or coconut; we use goat)
2 Tablespoons of Honey or Agave Nectar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp stevia liquid

Mix together separately:

1/2 tsp guar gum
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup coconut flour

Add dry ingredients to vitamix and blend until smooth. Pour onto prepared griddle and top with your favorite pancake toppers!

Enjoy! And be sure to visit Everything Free Eating for more creative, grain-free recipes and well as The Nourishing Gourmet!

Breakfast, they say, is the most important meal of the day. This is totally true for me; I’ve always needed a full breakfast to get me going since I’m not a morning person. A complete breakfast, thanks to the cereal ads of our childhood, conjures up images of 2 margerined slices of white wonder bread, a tall glass of orange juice, a bowl of sugar-laden, extruded grain cereal, and perhaps eggs and bacon of some kind. I’ll keep the latter, and replace the sugar/grain component with some more filling, lower-calorie, nutrient-dense foods!

I give Rachel Albert-Matesz all the credit for enlightening me to the notion of how to eat a complete, healthy, grain-free breakfast, from her amazing book The Garden of Eating. She offers a simple breakdown of proteins, veggies, and fruit. The way I interpret this is:

25% protein
50% vegetable (half starchy, half non-starchy, but include leafy greens!)
25% fruit

On fasting days when we don’t eat meat, I emphasize the fruit and vegetable and just make sure I stock up on protein the other days of the week.

Here are a few ideas, inspired by The Garden of Eating, for grain-free, wholesome breakfasts:

*scrambled eggs with leftover veggies and apple slices
*bacon and fried eggs with broccoli and oranges
*hard-boiled egg, sardines, leftover vegetable soup, grapes
*nitrate-free apple sausage with cooked butternut squash, butter, honey
*smoked salmon-egg scramble with roasted asparagus and blueberries
*almond butter pancakes topped with raspberries
*herbed hamburger patty with sauteed greens and apples

And my favorite, which is displayed in the photo above, is:

scrambled eggs topped with cortido (Latin American sauerkraut), green onions, raw cheese, and salsa, with a side of collard greens and orange slices. Delish!!

Some tips for eating breakfast:

*Upon rising, drink a tall glass of lemon water or a lacto-fermented beverage. I love to drink a glass of coconut kefir first thing. It really enlivens me.

*Take your cod liver oil next.

*If you must do coffee, please partake after you have hydrated yourself with good-quality water as mentioned above. When we awaken, our bodies are relatively dehydrated from the night’s hard work of digesting, repairing, and detoxifying. Since coffee is so acidic and dehydrating, it’s very contracting and therefore not the best thing first thing in the morning.

*I love to enjoy a tablespoon of coconut oil (the best price is here) melted into a cup of herbal tea. I try to take this about 20 min. before I eat breakfast in order to prevent over-eating. I sip on this as I make breakfast.

*I usually use leftover veggies from the previous nights’ dinners to accompany eggs for breakfasts. This is a great way to use up leftovers.

*Soups make very filling and nourishing breakfasts. They are great when you’re missing that piping hot bowl of oatmeal.

What are your favorite, nourishing breakfasts? Please feel free to leave a comment!

This recipe is surprisingly simple to make in the slow cooker. It took about 10 minutes to prepare and 8 hours to cook. Combined with favorite taco toppings and safely tucked into an appropriate tortilla, your loved ones will never know they’re eating tongue!
I know this looks like a total turnoff, but believe me, it’s good! This is 1 beef tongue, covered with water and 1 onion, sliced. There is also one bay leaf floating around in there. There are also 6 cloves of crushed garlic. I added about 1 TBS of cumin to the recipe because I felt it needed a little bit more “kick”. I also added a strip of kelp (kombu), even though the recipe called for salt to taste. I simply covered and turned on the crock pot and forgot about it. Then 8 hours later, I found this:

Still not the most appetizing, but oodles of delicious, gelatinous broth along with some tasty shredded beef await!

Remove the tongue. Cut away and discard the outer covering. Shred the beef with a fork or cut into little cubes. Top with your favorite taco condiments:

The verdict? Two thumbs up! My children devoured this dish, and my husband enjoyed his “hidden” in a rice tortilla! The leftovers cooked up wonderfully, refried in lard, with a splash of fresh-squeezed orange juice and chili spices.

The price breakdown is as follows:

Tongue $1.75 (this is 1/3 of the tongue, plenty for 4)
1 Onion $0.25
1 Bay Leaf $0.02
6 Cloves Garlic $0.10
1 TBS Cumin $0.10
1 Roma Tomato $0.50
1 Serrano Pepper $0.10
Shredded Cheese $1.00 (this is the raw, organic stuff,cheaper otherwise)
Romaine Lettuce $0.25
1 Lime $0.30
4 Scallions $0.50

Total: $4.87

For more frugal and healthy meal ideas, visit $5 Dinners!

There is no question that digestive disorders such as Crohn’s Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Celiac are on the rise. One of them is the fact that Genetically Modified Organisms entered the wheat industry over 10 years ago– and with GMOs, no one really knows the damage they inflict.

But why? Aren’t grains traditional foods? I guess that depends upon how far you go when you say “traditional”. If we go back to pre-agriculteral times, when people were generally hunger-gatherers, the main diet was lean, grass-fed, wild meat along with organic, foraged vegetation.

It is only relatively recently in the history of civilization that we’ve had agriculture and thus grains as we know them now. The industrialization of agriculture, even more recently, has hybridized and genetically modified wheat into something totally different from that which our anscestors consumed in antiquity. Not to mention preparation methods, which, traditionally speaking, involved a long leavening process with a starter which was “alive”. This starter helped to break down the phytic acid in the grains and the long, slow baking process helped to further denature any harmful anti-nutrients in the grain.

It’s also interesting to note that modern harvesting methods have also changed the way people encounter wheat. In former times, wheat was gathered into sheaves and would sit for a day or so in the field as it awaited threshing. During this time, morning dew or even rain would provide enough moisture for the grains to begin sprouting. Then, the sun would dry the sprouts, so when harvested, you had a very different wheat then what is used today. (Source: Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon)

Alas, I digress. This was supposed to be a post about frugality, so here comes the practical piece:

So how do we eat grain-free on a budget?

Well, first of all, remember that if you can’t tolerate grains, you’re not benefitting yourself in the long run if you try to be “thrifty” and eat them!

Secondly, remember that this may not last forever; hopefully going grain-free for a time will allow the body to heal enough to eventually tolerate grains again.

That being said, here are five principles for saving money on the GAPS/SCD/grain-free diet:

1. Do not attempt to substitute every baked good under the sun with a “no grain” version. Forget it, it will cost you way too much money! Instead, allow yourself once or twice a week to enjoy coconut honey muffins or almond pancakes, for example.

2. Use starchy veggies on the side to stand in for rice. My favorite is cauliflower, because it’s relatively inexpensive, very filling, and can meld really well with any flavors. For example, when I make an Indian meat curry, I accompany it with cauliflower, cooked until tender with Indian spices. It makes a great base for the curry! Don’t forget about spaghetti squash, which is low-calorie and makes an almost perfect substitute for traditional pasta!
3. Learn to love your soup. There are lots of ways to enjoy soup, and it is so filling and delicious, not to mention thrifty! It’s a great way to use leftover meat and veggies as well. I write about several soup variations here.
4. Get creative with eggs. As long as you can tolerate them, these little gems are amazingly nutritious, thrifty, and filling. Look for different recipes utilizing eggs for breakfasts, since breakfast is usually the most grain-intensive meal that needs substituting.
5. Comfort up with butternut squash. If you really can’t stand life without a piping hot bowl of oatmeal in the morning, try substituting cooked, mashed butternut squash topped with coconut oil, honey, and pumpkin pie spice.
6. Use thrifty cuts of meat. You don’t need to dine on flank steak every day of the GAPS diet! Stew meat, tongue, liver….while not the most popular parts of the animal, are very inexpensive and can be cooked up in delicious ways to maximize taste and nutrition. Check out my previous post all about eating cheap with meats. Also, don’t forget about chicken drumsticks, ground beef, and heart! Buying meat in bulk from a local, grass-fed beef farmer is a great way to save money as well!
7. Check out the freezer section. During the off season when fresh produce is shipped in from Chile and looking a little less than desireable (the price tag, that is!), take a stroll down the frozen food aisle for frozen veggies. Modern technology enables food to be frozen almost immediately after harvesting to preserve freshness, and the price is usually much more appealing! For example, Trader Joe’s has a great deal on frozen, sliced green, red, and yellow peppers, which are incredibly high priced this time of year!

   Bottom line: Remember that when eating grain-free, you’re avoiding lots of “filler” calories which you didn’t need anyway. Grain-free meals can be very nutrient dense, so while you may be spending a little bit more money on some ingredients, you’re also eating less, which saves money!!!