SAD (Standard American Diet)

Here’s a sad reality. Not only is this a typical pantry on the SAD (Standard American Diet)-but its also par for the course from what you get from a food pantry. I know because I've used em'.

Now bless the churches and counties hearts for providing food pantries in the first place. Its a god send to many families and they are much needed. And a can of tuna, or a can of re- fried beans with lard is better than starvation, there is no doubt. But these products shown…..not ‘real’ food. filled with preservatives, sulfates, sodium, dyes. Filled with sugar, and lards, and oils that are palm, cottonseed, canola-not only saturated but GMO as well. Filled with corn syrup or corn syrup solids, lots of gluten for those who care, bleached flour, and devoid of nutrients so the FDA says they gotta re-add vitamins, so you have synthetic vitamins thrown in which lately studies have shown to exacerbate heart disease.

Ironically, all of the ‘easy fixing’ foods can easily be replicated ‘homemade’ for the same amount if not cheaper and the same amount of time preparation. Sadly-we’ve stopped teaching Home Economics and teaching our kin to cook-so they don’t know this.

Mac and cheese is easy homemade, and Hamburger Helper is just the addition of hamburger to mac and cheese. A bag of potatoes yields about 5 boxes of the Betty Crocker potatoes so a bag is actually cheaper. If you get a block of cheddar, between the mac and cheese and the potatoes Au gratin boxed-you can make both homemade FOR CHEAPER.

I don’t advocate eating this stuff, but I’d rather see people eating these foods from scratch, which is infinitely healthier than the boxed version. So I'll show some recipes how to make the above, on the cheap, homemade, tastes much better. Then I’ll give you the vegetarian versions.