Red Radio and Whole Paycheck

NPR, better known as “red radio” among the conservative world, is a regular part of my information diet. Let it also be understood that I balance this source with a dose of Rush, Mr. Allen bros. beef, Limbaugh. Note that my computer just capitalized his name as I typed this. Maybe Microsoft is a devotee as well. Anyway, I usually laugh about the far right and left opinions that each source opines on any given day. But today I had to stop for a moment and get my reactions down for my sanity.

In a brief story about shopping in the current economic environment, NPR told the story of a retired assistant librarian, an upper middle-class lady, and a poor woman who makes $380 every two weeks and has three kids. My feelings on these three examples starts with the simple fact that the story has been arrange to support the simple sound bite “the rise in food prices really sucks for everybody”.

In one sense it really does suck. Man, I can’t have my Yugu beef tenderloin for breakfast anymore. But maybe mom is right, “this is what America has needed for a while.” I would have to agree. And for simplicity’s sake I will start with the upper middle class lady who now “can’t afford” to shop at whole foods. The Red Reporter starts out her segment with the sound of this woman shopping at her new food store saying “breaded chicken, breaded ______, and breaded ______.” She is peering into the deli case whining about she is not eating organic and shopping at whole foods anymore. Well if you want to go this route you are better off buying kool-aid and stuff off the dollar menu at the local Wendy’s. It is more time effective and you will cover more of the basic food groups. This is where House Cuisine philosophy started, with that menu planning for my sister. Without going back to that first page I am sure I didn’t recommend shopping at the deli counter at a budget food store. Let’s take our upper middle class wench back to eating organic and how you can still go to Whole Foods on OCCASION and pick up a nice piece of Mercury-laden fish. Wait, here is the quote, “I spent $186 at Whole Foods and I didn’t have enough food for three meals.” Quote approximated, but you get the gist.

What the hell was she buying? Are you kidding! They unfortunately didn’t give a list of what she had in the cart at the time. Now I will grant you, the reader, that Whole Paycheck has earned it’s moniker through diligent marketing and a local reputation as a good pickup joint. Since I don’t shop there that often I have taken it upon myself to shop for three meals for a family of four, assuming that they are all dinner. Just to be an asshole, I have shopped for breakfast lunch and dinner for three days at Whole Foods. If the kids don’t like a particular menu item, you are more that welcome to employ the aforementioned stop at Wendy’s for breakfast or lunch or dinner, and you will still be money ahead. Although I hear that the McDonald's and Burger King franchisees are bitching about the dollar menu at the moment.

One gallon of milk, 1 box vanilla soy milk, 1 Box Super Crunchy Granola Cereal, _1# Whole Wheat Organic Pasta, 1 bag cellophane noodles, Big Jars Organic Free Trade No GMO Pasta sauce (carried to market by trucks powered by recycled mule farts), 1 dozen eggs (cage free in Hoboken), 2# ground bison (free range, hormone free, raised by ted turner post Jane Fonda), 4 baking potatoes (wash well, they were raised in organic dirt, aka shit laden), 2 sweet potatoes (or yams) 1 # extra firm tofu (all the basic yadas), 5 various packages of frozen veggies (spinach, sweet corn, stir fry) .5# aged cheddar, 1# steel cut oats, 1# ground flax seed, 1 bag mixed greens (triple washed), 1 jar organic peanut butter, 1 loaf 50 grain colon blow bread, 1 bottle soy sauce, ¼ # ginger, ¼# chilies, 1/# # garlic, 1 small bottle agave nectar (the politics of this product I am still working on). 2 bananas, 2 oranges. 1 small jar of the jelly of your choice (three berry is a good one because it will taste good on your oatmeal), 1 bag potato chips (because I like them), 1 bottle canola oil.

OK.

Breakfast: choose oatmeal with fruit, breakfast cereal, omelet with cheese and toast
Lunch: Italian pasta with sauce, cellophane noodles with veggies and fried tofu in prik nam sauce, tortilla Espanola (Spanish omelet), PBJ, grilled bison salad with ginger/orange dressing, Baked potato stuffed, banana/orange smoothie, fried tofu satay, bison lettuce wraps, bison burgers with cheddar, mashed potatoes, over roasted potatoes, home fries, potatoes Swiss with salad on top, sweet potato curry with tofu, spaghetti and meatballs, meat loaf, meat loaf sandwich, sloppy joes, and on and on.

Dinner: choose two of the previous items that you didn’t have for lunch.

Ya know, if she really wants to make her kids happy and get a great deal and feel like she is helping someone…..work out a trade with an elderly person who gets government cheese every month? Here’s why:

1. Nobody, especially an elderly person, should have 5fivepounds of artery-hardening cheese in their fridge.
2. Gov’t cheese makes the best mac and cheese I know of. We loved it in college.
3. Trade her for $15 worth of healthier food and that has to be better for the elderly diet.
4. Even for my brother’s family of four or my sister’s family of four, do you know how long it takes to burn through five pounds of cheese?
5. Besides mac and cheese, it makes great queso dip, pizza topping, grilled cheese, the list goes on.

The if you want to take this further just ask me for the recipes. In this list I did assume that you have one or two things in your upper middle class pantry. Start in your pantry and make an old family favorite as the base of a meal. One of mine is ham loaf with mashed potatoes. In the end this computer did not ask me to capitalize Jane Fonda or Ted Turner. Very interesting indeed.