I have been sick and stressed for several days, so I threw myself ferociously at meal prep to avoid excuses which I have fallen prey to in the past. This started me thinking about how/why I avoided eating healthy for some time.
One of the misconceptions I had before going zero carb for the first time a few years back was that it would be ridiculously expensive. As with all things, you can make it as expensive (or inexpensive) as you want.
I cooked a huge pork shoulder that I got for $1.10/pound on sale. I spent 9.58 on it. 3lbs of this was a bone, which I turned into bone broth yesterday. I used this method for the meat, and then portioned it into 4oz packets (not counting fat - I rendered the fat and divided it evenly amongst the meat packets) and froze it for quick meals. 4oz helps me because 1) it fits in my stomach, and 2) if I’m hungry I just make 2x. I drastically reduced meat waste portioning it smaller. I got 15 portions of meat this way, not including what I ate from it for my meals that day.
I also have a bunch of frozen fish. I vacuum sealed it with some butter and differing spices, and will be sous viding them for quick meals. These are tilapia from the grocery store (2 fillets, but I don’t want to waste them) and also a bunch of wild-caught salmon from Alaska I purchased on sale for $5.99/pound. This was a literal half a salmon which was huge. I made 5 portions from this. All told I spent $35 on about 10 portions.
I took a leg of lamb I bought on sale during Christmas and roasted it, sliced it, and portioned it for this week. I purchased this for 4.99 a pound. This was 3 pounds and also wound up being about 10 portions. ($15 total)
So I made about 35 portions of meat for $60 by shopping sales and being savvy. Of course, if you eat twice what I do, that’s about 17 portions, right? Even if you double the portion sizes, that’s still a considerable savings over what it costs to eat out or eat conventionally much of the time.
IF especially makes ZC economical for me. However, I want to encourage people it is quite possible to eat healthy without spending hundreds of dollars a week. I eat to hunger, so we will see how quickly I go through it. It may be gone in 1-2 weeks. Maybe not. This is all high quality protein I am eating. I am single, so having a family changes this dynamic, of course!
My next plan is to seek out local hunters and get wild game meat and offal, hopefully (livers and hearts particularly).