Kevin's Cucina Personal Chef Service
Check out my About.com site: Cooking for Two
I also teach cooking classes at Glass Bazaar in Knoxville and I'm a frequent contributor to NPR's Kitchen Window.
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Labels: essay, food commentary, food health, ingrredients, spot-on
Disclaimer: Most quantities in recipes are approximate. Adjust as needed according to your taste and experience. Unless otherwise specified, eggs are large and butter is unsalted.
14 Comments:
I generally enjoy your posts, and this one is very interesting, but your math has problems in paragraph 4. Pasta at over 344 calories per gram? You must have meant per 100 grams.
Thanks again for the post.
Bob
Bob,
Good catch, thanks.
I think talking about $/calorie is far too simplistic. It's very reasonable that more processing will lower $/calorie cost if those calories are cheap, like high fructose corn syrup. It's adding a very small number to the numerator and a very large number to the denominator.
Kate,
That's exactly my point. If we look at animals as machines requiring energy (calories) to run, then our current system is encouraging high caloric intake at the cost of health.
Here's what bother's me when people say that those in poverty have to eat processed foods because they are cheaper. When I have just spaghetti, I can eat about a 1/3rd of a box, however when we put just a bit of meat in the sauce, or I add one or two small meat balls, a box of spaghetti can feed my husband and I for two or three meals, and we aren't looking for a snack an hour later.
I agree that it is silly that tomatoes cost more than suace, but I also feel that that is no excuse to eat poorly, because it should be about quality eating not quantity eating.
Courtney,
And beans are an even better choice than pasta (or potatoes for that matter). I've been trying to eat more dried beans both for the health effects and for the budgetary effects.
I think it's disingenuous to talk about cost per calorie when you're comparing vegetables to junk food. Of course veggies have a higher cost per calorie - it takes a lot more veggies to equal 100 calories than it does potato chips. It seems to me that it would be more reasonable to compare the items by weight e.g. how does a lb of potatoes compare to one lb potato chips?
Yes beans are something I am trying to do more of too, but I just never cared for any other than green beans (which don't have that pasty mouthfeel I hate so much) and jelly beans. I can now stomach black beans and black eyed peas in moderation.
Anon,
It's not disingenuous. Water is free. But although water is necessary to our health it provides zero calories.
As I noted in a previous comment, "If we look at animals as machines requiring energy (calories) to run, then our current system is encouraging high caloric intake at the cost of health."
Look at it another way, if you only have $10 to spend on gas for your car and that gas must last all week do you go for premium or regular? You go for regular because it offers more energy for the buck -- even if your car requires premium. By making calories cheap at the expense of nutrition we are warping people's food decisions.
Courtney,
I felt the way you do about beans through my childhood. Check out NPR's Kitchen Window tomorrow for some great bean recipes, and here are a couple more:
http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/2007/12/bean-stew.html
http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/2007/12/paisano-senate-bean-soup.html
The reason you turn right in the store is because the registers are either in front of you or to the left - at least in most single-entry grocery stores. Hard to get a cart through people coming out. I'll bet the higher-profit-margin items are too the right also.
Once again a very interesting post and well done to Bob for pointing out that error I just thought is was me that had read it incorrectly even after reading 3 times and then reading the comments, I thought I was going mad
Great post look forward to more, interesting, informative and very helpful.
Its just crazy the cost of tinned tomatoes these days if you have the chopped kind they are even more than that of the whole ones why is that??
Mary I agree with you tinned tomatoes are just outrageously priced these days, but then again with the recession the cost of food is just ridiculous.
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