11.14.2007

$45 Weekly Menu

Feed a family of 4 (up to 6 servings) on only $45 per week, with no additional pantry ingredients required. Seriously.

This site provides a seven-day menu, shopping list, prep-in-advance instructions, nutrition information and even recipes. Granted the prices quoted are from 2006, so it may be up a bit from there. But still ... darn cheap ... especially considering even a basic stock of food in your house will likely contribute some of the basic ingredients for these menus.

And (Lisa will love this), the menus are very low on meat (meat is expensive), but still high on protein.

For example, this is Monday's menu:

Breakfast: Pancakes, syrup, orange juice, milk, hot tea
Lunch: Lentil & Vegetable soup with dumplings, milk
Dinner: Pinto beans, onions, hoecakes, collard greens, iced tea
Snacks: Cinnamon toast, milk for children, tea for adults
Nutrition: 1656 Calories; 33g Fat (17.5% calories from fat); 71g Protein; 275g Carbohydrate; 42g Dietary Fiber; 54mg Cholesterol; 3312mg Sodium

Not too shabby. Now, I'm not convinced my kids (or my husband) will be all that thrilled with pinto beans, onions and collard greens for dinner. But, it would likely be filling and certainly nutritious.

--End--

1 comment:

Lisa said...

Interesting ideas...while overall the menu assumes you have a lot of time (i.e. don't work, or at least not outside the home) and that everyone eats lunch at home, there certainly is a lot to be said about planning ahead and keeping it simple.

Oh, and her information about combining amino acids in the same meal is outdated. The body can transform amino acids into the ones it actually needs when synthesizing a protein. You don't need to ingest them together.