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Whoo hoo! My e-book, Conscious Shopping: Making Decisions About What You Eat & How You Buy It," is done!. I'm so excited and it seems like a serendipitous event, since there's all this attention around real food vs. junk food this week. All week, friends and family have been forwarding me links to Mark Bittman's Sunday New York Times article, “Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?”

He says no—and so do I. 

Are we the only ones doing the math?

Frankly, I don't remember liking math too much as a kid, although these days I'm pretty sure the problem was Mrs. Lyford, my first grade teacher who was, like, a hundred, and who didn't make things like adding and subtracting seem all that compelling. I was way more interested in the real world application (like if Mikey kicks my chair one more time how many times do I have to clobber him before he cuts it out?)—a subtle foreshadowing, I suppose, of the fact that I would one day come to love the logic and dependability of numbers that add up. 

The Numbers Game

If you haven't seen Bittman's piece yet, go take a look… I'll wait for you. 

Cool. You're back. So what do you think? Is junk food really cheaper? 

According to Bittman's calculations, it would seem not so much, since “you can serve a roasted chicken with vegetables along with a simple salad and milk for about $14, and feed four or even six people”  as opposed to his example of a typical McDonald's order for a family of four that comes to about $28. 

Ah, serendipity! In the Conscious Shopping menu-planning guide, I used one of my favorite recipes—Roast Chicken with Oven-Roasted Vegetables—as the first example. 

I decided to test my recipe against Mr. Bittman's calculations. I figure if those pesky neutrinos can call Einstein's Theory of Relativity into question, I most certainly better check the math. 

Behold! The cost analysis using my recipes: 

one 5 lb. roasting chicken      $9.75 
one pound red potatoes         $1.35  
2 carrots                                    $0.50  
2 parsnips                                $1.00  
1 yellow onion                          $1.00  
celery                                         $0.70  
one apple                                 $0.70  
fresh rosemary                         $1.00 

For a total of                          $16.00

Plus olive oil, salt :& pepper and a clove of garlic which you likely already have on hand. 

My Simple Salad—aptly named in my upcoming cookbook because it requires no chopping—comes in at around $3 and consists of mixed greens, walnuts, dried cranberries, mandarin oranges tossed with a drizzle of olive oil, a spritz of apple cider vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. 

The total for this meal using my own recipes comes in at $19, which is slightly higher than Bittman's estimate, but I sprang for the all-natural, hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken and some organic produce.

So far, so good, right?

But Wait! There's More!

My meal still comes in at $11 under the junk food meal. But one of the core components of my Conscious Shopping philosophy is not wasting food—and that chicken still has more to offer. 

Take a few moments to glean the remaining meat from the bone and use it to make a simple and tasty chicken salad. Throw in some dried cranberries (you have them on hand from your salad) and chop up some celery (you have that on hand, too) and you're halfway there. Not to mention, by taking this delicious homemade salad for lunch, you won't have to spend money on lunch. 

Haste Makes Waste

Don't be so quick to toss that carcass now that dinner's over and you're all set for tomorrow's lunch. Making chicken stock is so simple and you already have most of what you need on hand—chicken bones, the makings of mirepoix (fancy French name for the flavorful combination of celery, carrot and onion used in soups, stocks and sauces), a few herbs and seasonings… And if you're feeling really decadent, you can throw in a turnip for added flavor. Don't panic—turnips are super cheap. 

Homemade chicken stock! There's so much you can do. Make any number of soups! Use it to make rice or mashed potatoes more flavorful! Make gravies or sauces! Throw it the freezer and save it for a rainy day! 

Picture this

You made a really easy and simple, healthy and delicious meal for your family. You got creative with the leftovers (by comparison, there's not really much to do with half a leftover Big Mac and some limp fries, is there?) AND you just saved $11. 

Imagine how much more you could feed your family if you took that $11 and added it to your grocery budget. The secret of Conscious Shopping is planning your meals around a few key ingredients and making informed decisions about what you eat and how you buy it.  

So what's the verdict? Is junk food really cheaper? You do the math. 

By the way, Mrs. Lyford  wasn't actually 100 (I can count, after all), but she was also my mother's first grade teacher. And my grandmother's. Seriously. I'm so not kidding. That's small town living for you… 

Tags: conscious shopping, Healthy Eating, junk food, Mark Bittman