Extreme Grocery Budget Challenge End Of Week 6!

February 18, 2022 / healthbuddymelissa / Leave a comment

Hello, to all of my amazing readers. I am at the end of week 6 of my 2022 Extreme Grocery Budget Challenge. Go back and read the previous weeks to see how this has evolved in relation to my kidney disease. The week technically ends on Sunday, but I will go over what we will be eating through the weekend from items we already have on hand, and the groceries I bought this week. So, far, with the exception of Superbowl week, we have been able to stick to the budget with no issues. Yes, we run out of our favorites by the end of the week, and I have to be more creative with meals, but we are certainly not hungry. One thing I have definitely noticed is that I can cook one large meal that can be leftovers for a couple lunches and another dinner. That means 3 meals a week can be stretched to cover the other days. We don’t typically eat breakfast, except maybe my husband some days, and we always have eggs and toast on hand. Lunches are always leftovers, peanut butter sandwiches, salad if the supplies are all here, grilled cheese, soup, etc. Below you will see the dinners I made this week, and how you can modify them for kidney disease. Remember, I am now hovering right around stage 2, and your dietary requirements are going to be different than mine, along with any other comorbidities you may have. They are examples of what can be done, not dietary advice. I have been off all week because I start a new job next week, so my lunches will need to be figured in as well. My old job would feed me, but it was in no way a healthy option for CKD.

Monday- This might be my new favorite meal ever. I made chicken alfredo for my husband and daughter. They love it, I hate it. Plus, the already made alfredo sauce is full of phosphorus, like 450 mg per 1/2 cup. If you are only allowed 700 mg of phosphorus per day on your renal diet, you can see where this is problematic. There is one you can make homemade on one of the kidney sights that is much less phosphorus. It is also expensive to make. Anyway, what I did was I sauteed some mushrooms and onions with the chicken. I cooked the pasta and drained it. I measure all of my proteins on a scale, except for eggs. On my plate, I put one cup of pasta, 2.5 ounces of chicken breast, some mushrooms, and onions, and then for my sauce, I use 3/4 of a cup of canned creamed corn heated up. This was so delicious! I am the only one in my house that will eat creamed corn. I love it! Try to buy low-sodium canned items.

Tuesday- Leftovers, and we still had some leftovers from Superbowl Sunday that we were eating for lunches.

Wednesday- Actually, lol, I think Monday was Superbowl leftovers, and the chicken alfredo was Tuesday and Wednesday. No reason to delete all that and fix it, lol.

Thursday- When we still had our Sam’s Club membership I had bought a box with like 8 Stove Top stuffing in it. I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought that. Anyway, we still have like 6 boxes left. This meal is not for people with high blood pressure or very strict sodium restrictions. You can find the recipe here. The original recipe called for swiss cheese, but I only had a Mexican blend, so that is what I used. I also left out the vinegar. You can certainly buy low sodium cream of chicken soup, and lower sodium cheese. Swiss cheese, especially you can find in a lower sodium option. There is also a lower sodium stuffing mix, but I had to use what I had on hand because it is a budget challenge. We had 4 pork chops, so this made enough to have for lunch on Friday.

Friday- This was just something I threw together with ingredients I had on hand. I originally was going to make Taco soup, if you read my post-Monday. However, it is way too hot to make soup today. So, I made a taco casserole, actually, my teenager did, that is how easy it is. Buy low sodium taco seasoning or make your own. This made a huge amount of food and will feed us all the way to Saturday and maybe Sunday.

Saturday- taco casserole leftovers.

Sunday- There may still be taco casserole left, but my son and his wife are coming to visit, so we decided that we will buy pizza. We have tried making homemade pizza before but no one really likes the crust at all and it doesn’t really get eaten. I am all about not wasting food.

Next week I am going to try to make a kidney friendlier version of the Tik Tock feta cheese meal that everyone is talking about. If you are not sure what I mean Google it. Next week I am also going to discuss a new CKD drug that has a lot of promise for reducing the risk of kidney disease progression, and a new CKD supplemental drink I found. Be sure and come back to read all about it.

Are you joining in on the 21 dollars a week per person food budget challenge? Let me know how you are doing in the comments. I have actually learned so much about how much money we were wasting on food.

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Eating From My Pantry With CKD: End Of Week 2

January 21, 2022 / healthbuddymelissa / Leave a comment

Happy Friday! Even though the week doesn’t technically end until Sunday, I know we have everything we need to get to then without buying anything. So, I can safely say that in week 2 I spent 19.56 from my 63 dollar budget, which means I saved $43.44. Now, next week, as we have eaten a lot from our pantry from the last two weeks, I will have a little bit of a bigger food haul to buy, but still not a lot.

For clarification, because someone asked me, The Pantry Challenge is a two-pronged challenge. It is a budget challenge, and a challenge to eat what we have and see if I can still feel well with CKD while eating shelf-stable type products. Even when I buy shelf-stable items I try to buy organic as they don’t have all of the stuff I may not want in them. My organic items are running out and the real challenge will begin. Can I still afford those items on this budget of 63 dollars a week? I may not be able to and I may have to just stop buying the shelf-stable items that make me feel junky most likely from added phosphorus in those foods. Case in point we were treated to Chinese takeout last night and yes I feel yucky today. The sodium and most likely phosphorus in the batters and sauces are not good for people with CKD.

From my last post on this topic, we are still eating leftover soup as there was so much, and meatballs and pasta. I did use a can of green beans, and my daughter used a box of macaroni and cheese from our current inventory. She also used a pizza crust, sauce, and cheese. I ate some of the salad as well.

Tonight, we are having pork chops from the freezer and broccoli. I had popcorn for breakfast, lol. Popcorn is an awesome snack, but you do have to maintain portion control because it does naturally contain phosphorus. I air pop it to avoid added chemicals in microwave kinds.

The weekends are tough for me because I work 12-hour shifts and it is hard to plan ahead, especially on Sunday. But, I am going to prep some stuff tonight to keep me fed and hydrated over the weekend. Sunday my husband is cooking the extra turkey we bought at Thanksgiving and we are having family over for dinner after I get out of work.

Monday is shopping day and I think I will go to Aldi. Their prices are slightly lower than Walmart and I will have to see if it is worth the drive with gas prices. I will share my grocery haul and the amount spent. I am hoping to be able to get good organic items and stay within my budget. We do not need meat and that is good because organic meat is expensive. I can get it from Misfits Market but with a 30 dollar limit to buy, I need to wait until I need more things.

One more little tidbit. This 63 dollar-a-week budget is about half of what we normally would spend, so even after the food we have on hand is depleted it will still be large savings if we can stick to it. All monies saved will go towards spending down debt, home improvements, and my daughter’s graduation.

Do you have CKD? Do you eat processed or shelf-stable foods? How do you feel? Drop me a note in the comments. If you would like to learn how using a Health Coach like Health Buddy Melissa, can help you learn more about your kidneys, send me an email using the contact form below.

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A New Food Budget Challenge And Pantry Cooking With CKD

January 10, 2022 / healthbuddymelissa / Leave a comment

Hello, and welcome to another Mindful Monday topic. Part of Mindfulness is being aware of what you are spending your hard-earned money on. All of 2021 we spent paying off debt, and not buying more stuff unless it was with cash as much as possible. We spent down so much of our debt and were able to save quite a bit of money including paying for all of Christmas with cash only. This year we want to buckle down even more. With about 13 years to retirement, my husband and I want to really save more and plan better for our senior years. My last child will be 18 in just a few months. Below you will learn about two new challenges for my family for the year 2022. I will share both the success and unsuccess which hopefully there won’t be. Two things that I have eliminated from our budget are my Kindle Unlimited subscription and my Sam’s club membership. Why? My Kindle is old, and slowly not working anymore. I have chosen not to buy another so I don’t need the Kindle Unlimited anymore. I have had it for like 10 years and it was well worth every dime. I went to Sam’s for the last time today and bought a bunch of stuff. We have decided with my daughter soon to have her own job and most likely eat her own food, we will not need to buy in bulk so much and I honestly hate having all that stuff lying around. I am not knocking Sam’s it is a great store and it served us well, we just don’t need it anymore.

The two challenges for 2022 are the 21 dollars per person food budget challenge and the pantry cooking challenge. Below are the rules. The food budget is only for food items. It does not include non- food items such as toiletries, laundry, etc.

For the 21 dollars per person food budget challenge it is basically what it says. I will spend 21 dollars per person, with three of us that is 63 dollars per week for groceries. This is a huge reduction in our food budget and all monies saved will go directly into our savings account. Once my daughter either moves, out or is eating the majority of her meals with her own money, it will go down to 42 dollars per week. For holidays and special occasions any monies saved can go towards that. We can use existing foods on hand. I have seen some people do this challenge and they charge themselves for the food they have on hand, including in that budget. You already paid for it once why on earth would you do that? I won’t be doing that. I will probably post weekly what we ate and if the items were already on hand or I had to buy them. In the beginning we should save quite a bit because I have stocked up. However, my family tends to not follow well on the weekends when I am at work. This will have to stop. I am not sure at how successful this will be, but I love a good challenge. I will start keeping a log tomorrow of what we eat, and probably post next Monday for the week. Food is so expensive right now and I do prefer organic foods, but I may have to not have that for this challenge. I hope not, though.
The Pantry Cooking with CKD Challenge will have a lot to do with #1 since I have a good stock of foood already built up. For my challenge pantry items will be any item in a can, freezer item, box, or package. That basically means no fresh foods will count. We won’t be eating just from our pantry. That is not the challenge, though it is a good one. The purpose of my challenge is to share food items, and or serving sizes of pantry and shelf stable foods that someone with CKD can eat. I do buy organic when I can, but with the food buget this may not be possible all the time. If you do buy pantry organic items be sure and check the expiration dates and rotate them appropriately. Organic foods are not typically going to last months, or years because they don’t have all of those additives and preservatives. Each time I get the time to do a post on this topic I will.

Today, I am going to share peanut butter, because who doesn’t have peanut butter in their pantry? OK, if you are allergic you probably don’t The images below for the full nutrition information.

Organic MaraNatha Peanut Butter. I bought this from Misfits Market. I love it, my husband hates it. I bought this at the beginning of December, and it expires on January 26th of this year. So, you can see it does not have a very long shelf life. However, it is only 16 ounces so it will be gone in time. I put this in my smoothies and it is delicious.

The second image is Jif Peanut Butter and my husband’s choice of peanut butter. I bought this 3-pound jar in 2021 and it does not expire until 2023. When it is hurricane season this is a wonderful item to have on hand.

Let’s compare the 2.

From a CKD standpoint, I am concerned with Fat, Fiber, Sodium, Protein, Potassium, added preservatives, and other additives.

The organic peanut butter per serving, has 3 grams of Sat fats, 65 mg of sodium, 2 grams of fiber, 1 gram of added sugars, 8 grams of protein, and 4% of daily potassium. The ingredients are organic peanuts, organic palm oil, organic evaporated cane sugar, and sea salt. That is it. It also says it is sustainably sourced palm oil and recycled glass.

The Jif has per serving, 3.5 grams of saturated fats, 140 mg of sodium, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of added sugar, 7 grams of protein, and 4% of daily potassium. Of note, the Jif also has 2% of daily calcium. The ingredient list states that it is made from roasted peanuts and sugar contains 2% or fewer molasses, fully hydrogenated rapeseed and soybean oils, mono and diglycerides, and salt. It also states it contains no artificial preservatives and the package may be recycled but maybe not where you live. Certified NSF NON GMO. The sodium in Jif is more than double the organic option.

What are mono and diglycerides? They are fats that are used as emulsifiers. So, when organic peanut butter needs stirring because the oil separates, non-organic peanut butter does not need stirring. I think I will just stir my peanut butter. These additives have small amounts of trans fats, and I don’t need them, nor do you probably. However, with that said there is no sense buying a food item if no one will eat it. If your family prefers Jif, then eat it, in moderation and with proper serving sizes. My husband may eat the organic if he had to, but he doesn’t have to so he won’t.

So, that is it for this week. Be sure and follow this blog to learn along with me.

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