What's for Dinner?There is one question that every single human on earth asks themself every single day. What's for Dinner? We all must eat. Some of us cook for ourselves and others have their food cooked for them (lucky you!) But, we all must eat. Long ago in our evolutionary history, we would walk for MILES every day hunting and foraging for food. It was our job. Some estimates suggest we walked about 10 miles everyday just to eat. That's what I learned in Micheal Easter's book, Scarcity Brain. Easter devotes an entire chapter on food and makes a case for shopping at Costco. At first the case for this modern warehouse devoted to (over) abundance seemed at odds with, well, scarcity. However, Easter maintains that you can make excellent healthy AND financial choices buy purchasing select items (see his shopping list below). The economic value of Costco was explored by the New York Times in an article called “How Costco Became the Anti-Walmart." At Costco, one of Mr. Sinegal's cardinal rules is that no branded item can be marked up by more than 14 percent, and no private-label item by more than 15 percent. In contrast, supermarkets generally mark up merchandise by 25 percent, and department stores by 50 percent or more. I remained skeptical until I read Michael Easter's 2% newsletter which dove a bit deeper into the economics of Costco and specifically the Kirkland brand. Did you know that, "Starbucks roasts Kirkland coffee (two pounds, $10), Bumble Bee produces the Kirkland Signature albacore tuna (eight cans, $13), and Adams does Costco’s organic peanut butter (56 ounces, $10)?" Nope, neither did I! Of course, it's up to you to not overeat all the delicious and abundant food. If we fill our plates with mostly fruits and vegetables and eat 4-6 ounces of lean protein we will getting a fantastic dose of all the daily macro- and micro-nutrients we need. Here's Michael Easter's Costco Shopping list Fruits and Vegetables Now that you have a fridge full of good, cost effective food what's next? FREEZE HALF OF IT! The key to keeping Costco cost effective is to minimize food waste. Kale, spinach, green beans, broccoli can all be frozen. I always freeze two of the packages of chicken breasts. If you're feeling particularly productive, you can meal prep on Sunday and put all of that abundance into to go containers for lunch. Now you're really going to save some bills because you won't need to buy lunch this week. One of my favorite ways to meal prep is to make a few sheet pan meals on Sunday. New York Times Cooking has many sheet pan recipes and all that I've tried have been great. If you don't have a NWT Cooking subscription, there are thousands of food bloggers with easy and tasty sheet pan recipes. Here's one from Pinch of Yum for sheet pan chicken tinga bowls. This is a great recipe to make for next week's lunches! Not only will you save money but it's also one of April's reduce waste challenges.
You can buy everything at Costco. Happy eating!
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