Managing the Cost of the Low-Carb Lifestyle
As you move toward a low-carb lifestyle you will soon find that there is a cost involved. In my early days I used to eat a lot of low-carb candy bars, and I would be so envious when I looked at the regular candy bars sitting proudly on the racks as I waited in line to check out. Whereas I might be paying a dollar and a half for my low-carb bar, these sugar-filled delights were sitting there selling for a mere fifty cents. It just wasn’t fair!
And it still isn’t. Food retailers know they have the low-carbers over a barrel. Some years ago I used to buy a low-carb bagel that was absolutely delicious, but pricey. I think I was paying around five or six dollars for a bag of six. After a while the product disappeared from the grocery shelves. I called the company to order some and they told me an interesting story about that particular bagel. They said the FDA had decided that these bagels weren’t as low-carb as they had been advertising, and forced them to change their nutrition information. They were still lower in net carbs than most bagels but were no longer low enough to be advertised as low-carb. The company took the “low-carb” boast off the label and started selling the same bagels for about a little over half of what they had been charging before. Since they were no longer low-carb they figured they could never get the former price. Such is the nature of the low-carb food business.
Another issue that raises the cost of low-carb foods is that these days you can’t find many of them in regular grocery stores. You can find low-carb products through various specialty stores on the Internet. If you live in a big city there are probably a few low-carb stores scattered throughout the city, but you aren’t likely to find many of these foods at Walmart or Kroger.
Going to a low-carb store is the essence of mixed emotions. At first your eyes light up as you see all kinds of low-carb foods, candies, syrups, desserts, mixes, muffins, and so forth. But then you start checking the prices. Suddenly your elation turns into dismay. The prices seem ridiculous, far higher than those for their starchy, sugar-filled counterparts at your local grocery store. If you are cheap and not all that wealthy, and a little bit stubborn (guilty on all counts!), you tend to rebel. You buy a token product or two and leave most of the pricey items for others.
There is hope! While you cannot do away with paying a little above and beyond the normal cost of eating, you can modify the cost quite a bit. First, you can make a number of foods yourself. At one point I got excited about low-carb bread. I had been eating bread with about 8 net grams of carbs per slice, but found there was one for sale that had only 1 net gram of carbs for each slice. Wow! The bread looked great in the picture, it had all kinds of fiber, and I decided to track down the one store I could find in the Dallas area that carried it.
But when I arrived at my destination my excitement turned to disappointment. The bread sold for about eight dollars a loaf. And the loaf was soooo scrawny! I was intending to buy two loaves, but changed my mind and picked up one instead. But I never got out of the store with it. As I carried it around, looking for other products, I became more and more upset with the idea of spending this much money for a puny little loaf. I knew I would never be able to make this my “go-to” bread, and sadly placed it back where I found it, next to its high-priced brothers.
The story sounds discouraging, but it has a happy ending. I went home and started checking out low-carb bread recipes. I found one that looked encouraging, bought a bread machine, and made myself a delicious loaf of low-carb bread. Not only was it much cheaper (I estimate the ingredients might have cost a little over $2) but it was a larger loaf. And with the bread machine there was very little work to it. I simply dumped the ingredients in, turned it on, and a few hours later had wonderful low-carb bread. And to make the whole process even more of a deal (now, don’t tell anybody this!), I found the bread machine in great condition at a garage sale for $20.
Another cost-cutting step is to refuse to be bullied by complex recipes. You will find a number of recipes that call for all sorts of spices and other small items that can safely be forgotten about. Remember that recipes aren’t the Bible—they are not divinely inspired. You can leave things out, and you can substitute a cheaper item for a pricey one.
Feel free to experiment. When my low-carb muffin recipe called for a third of a cup of club soda I tried it that way. But I never use club soda for anything else and it seemed a waste to buy a liter of it for the sake of the one-third cup. So the next time I tried good old tap water and couldn’t see or taste any difference. Au revoir, club soda!
There are so many low-carb recipes for great foods, snacks, muffins, breads, and desserts on the Internet that you could spend a hundred lifetimes trying them all and still never be finished. With a little effort you can find all sorts of foods and recipes that won’t raise your blood sugar much and will allow you to eat to your heart’s content. And check out the low-carb Internet websites. Their shipping fees are painful, but by ordering a lot you bring the price per item down. Freeze what you won’t eat for a while. Low-carb bagels are often hard to come by in stores, and by ordering six or more packages and then freezing all but one, you won’t do too badly.
Yes, low-carbing will probably cost you a bit more than what you would spend on the standard American diet. But in truth you are saving, not losing. The extra money you spend is one of the best investments you’ll ever make, and could end up saving you a fortune in medical bills, lost time spent in hospital rooms, and years of your life cut off. Make the necessary sacrifices, and spend the money and time required to live a healthy lifestyle. You’re worth it!
There is a price to be paid in time spent when you make foods from scratch. Being the cheapo that I am, I am nearly as tight with my time as I am with my money. But the way to keep this from being too much problem is to make large recipes and freeze part of the food.
