Using the Poor Man’s ‘Calories per Price’ Ratio

This is an old blog post from a website of mine that I recently deleted. The original date of this post is: April 29th, 2014. Yeah, that was nearly 8 years ago. Thankfully, I have more money nowadays, but using this particular "Poor Man's Method" for a calorie per price ratio still isn't a bad idea, even if it's just used for stocking up on survival and/or emergency food, etc. But anyway, back to the original post...

Hopefully, many of you haven’t had to think of this method before, and are not a struggling low-middle class, full-time worker who doesn’t collect welfare or get monetary aid and handouts or unfortunate enough to not be born into wealth, etc. 

BUT, whether you are just feeling thrifty, frugal, or simply poor like me (I’d have more money if I wouldn’t spend so much on beer and damn cigarettes!), you may find the, as I call, “Poor Man’s ‘Calories per Price’ Ratio” to be a useful guide when making purchases at your local market.

It is a simple method to use, and it is something I got to noticing a long while back, when thinking about how I can get the most calories out of my money – to be efficient when buying energy and/or fuel for my body’s demanding tank.

Okay, all you have to do is this:  Take the total amount of calories (all servings added up within the can, container, package, etc.) and divide it by the price, and you will have a figure that equals the “calories per price” ratio; this will give you a good idea on how much money you’re wasting on foods that just aren’t energy efficient to a poor man’s body. Funny, but true… Ha-ha! 

For example, I bought a package of Little Debbie Fudge Brownies (chocolate is good for you, damn it!) the other day.  It was a package of six, 280 calories each, for $1.59.  Okay, I multiplied the 280 calories times 6 to get the total amount of calories in the package, and this came out to be 1,680 calories.  I divided that by $1.59 and the ‘calorie per price’ ratio was 1,056 calories per dollar.  By the way, that is a really good ratio.  Just think, you can buy a silly Lean Cuisine frozen dinner for $2.50 or more and only get about 2 or 3 hundred calories, but one dollar on the brownies bought over a thousand calories.  Hey, are you getting the drift now?

Another example, I bought some microwavable popcorn that had a total of 2,400 calories for $3.99 and the ‘calories per price’ ratio was 601 calories per dollar.  Now, it wasn’t as cheap as the brownies, but it is still way more efficient (energy wise) than the Lean Cuisine crap.

Alright, here’s where some wise ass could say, “look, rock head, junk food is going to be cheaper per calories than real food.” Then that’s when I would say, “look, dear challenged one, nobody said that this ratio had to be used on ‘junk’ food versus ‘real’ food.” 

See, that’s just it right there…  You can use this calculating method to compare any types of food, when it comes to calories per price.  In fact, if you’re a health nut, you can alter it and start calculating a ‘price per protein’ ratio, and so on.  The point is, as high as everything is today, and the fact that a lot of us are struggling to have enough funds to live comfortably, it doesn’t hurt to get the calculator out and start doing some math to help slash some of those grocery bills, utility costs, and whatnot.

Image Credit: Pixabay.com - Free to Use & Share

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Pink Slime in your Ground Beef?

This is an old blog post from a website of mine that I recently deleted. The original date of this post is April 9th, 2012.

Most of us are aware that, unless you grow your own food and raise your own livestock, you don’t really know for sure what all is in your food!  More concern lies in the processed foods and the meat you buy at the local market, and the produce is rarely organic, as well.

This post is mainly addressing beef, and more so, ground beef. As if the antibiotics and added hormones wasn’t enough, we run into something else, a cheap filler, known as “pink slime.” Before I say anymore, are you ready for a good ol’ supermarket hamburger?

I’ll go ahead and copy & paste a quick excerpt from Wikipedia (including my occasional bouts of commentary within the excerpt) about this subject, to get the ball rolling:

“Pink slime, also known as lean, finely textured beef (LFTB), boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT), and soylent pink (Ha-ha! Have you ever seen the movie Soylent Green?), is a beef-based food additive that may be added to ground beef and beef-based processed meats as an inexpensive filler. It consists of finely ground beef scraps and connective tissue (sounds like reprocessed roadkill, if ya ask me) which have been mechanically removed from the fat. The recovered material (Yikes!) is processed, heated, and treated with ammonia gas or citric acid to kill E. coli, salmonella, and other bacteria (Thank you very much for doing such!). It is finely ground, compressed into blocks and flash frozen for use as an additive to beef products.

In the United States, the additive itself cannot legally be sold directly to consumers but can constitute up to 15% of ground beef without additional labeling (sort of like how they don’t have to list Trans Fat if it doesn’t reach 0.5 grams per tiny serving) and can also be added to other meat products such as beef-based processed meats. Prior to the invention of the disinfection process, beef scraps could only be sold as pet food or as an ingredient for cooking oil. (That’s good news folks, we are now eating stuff they put in pet food!)

Widespread public attention was drawn to the product in March 2012 by a series of reports at ABC News, which reported at that time that 70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contained the product. Subsequently, many grocery stores and supermarkets, including the nation’s three largest chains, announced that they would no longer sell products containing the additive.”

Please note:  Pink slime is not permitted in Canada. Also, Pink slime does not meet the legal requirements for sale in the United Kingdom.

What in the hell is going on here?

One of the main reasons I wanted to post this is because I have recently eaten some “real ground beef” that came from a farm-raised cow.  My mom and my stepdad usually buy half of a cow on occasions from a local farmer, get it processed, cut, packaged, and they freeze it in bulk.  I was over there the other day, and she gave me a few packages to sample.

Well, I generally try to buy good cuts of beef, pork, etc.  But, when it comes to ground beef, I usually just snag up whatever looks decent and go on my way. I figure that ground beef from the grocery store will still taste better than fast-food burgers, for example.

Anyway, upon eating some of this “real” hamburger meat, I was like: “What in the hell is this?  This tastes like steak meat or something.  Dang, does hamburgers supposed to taste this good?” Ha-ha! It has been so long since I had “100% real” ground beef, that I evidently forgot what the stuff tasted like.

Oh, if you’d like to read about the controversy, consumer concerns and whatnot, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Slime

People need to know more about what is going into their food.

And, if at all possible, grow your own edibles and either try to raise your chickens, cows, pigs, etc., or at least try to buy from a local farmer that you can trust.

This is just an informative post to help raise awareness about all the crap they are putting in our food, as if many of you didn’t already know…

All of this pink slime stuff reminds me of when I used to be a butcher.  When it came time to run the ground beef from the pre-bought tubes into the grinder, it would often look “different” when compared to the hamburger meat I’d make from beef trimmings.  I’m not sure if any of those cheap beef tubes had pink slime in them or not, but one thing is for sure, when I ground my own hamburger meat from lean beef mixed in with fat trimmings, it just appeared and smelled more real as opposed to that other crap they had in the tubes.  Oh, and the better taste is usually a dead giveaway…

Update: Good News! There have been some recent efforts to eliminate pink slime in our ground beef in the U.S.  Even McDonald’s, Burger King and Taco Bell announced they would discontinue the use of BPI products (the company that was at the center of the Pink Slime controversy) in their food. I hope this trend continues… BUT, what will they think of next? I recently read on some science site that there are experiments going on right now, where they are trying to grow meat in the lab! My gawd!

Update #2: Well, it is now the year 2019 and it seems that this mystery slime is making new headway back into the market. Here is a recent quote: "Beef Products Inc. (BPI), the South Dakota-based meat processing company at the center of 2012’s “pink slime” controversy, just won a long-sought semantic victory. For years, the company has argued that its signature product is safe, wholesome, and not unlike everyday burger meat. Now, BPI has enlisted a powerful ally in its effort to recoup its image and reclassify its product: the federal government.

After a months-long evaluation, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) determined in December that BPI’s signature product—the offering famously called “pink slime” in an ABC News exposé that got the network in a lot of trouble—can be labeled “ground beef.” Legally speaking, it’s now no different from ordinary hamburger, and could even be sold directly to the public." To read more about this, visit: https://thecounter.org/bpi-pink-slime-ground-beef-usda-reclassifed/

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Image Credits: perpendicularity.org/blog/ [link is no longer active]

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Secondhand Smoke vs. Air Purifiers

 

This is an old blog post from a website of mine that I recently deleted. The original date of this post was sometime during the year of 2010.

There are many reasons to have air purifiers in your home, and it doesn’t hurt to have several scattered throughout your house since most modern purifiers use very little electricity – due to their highly efficient fan motors and lightweight rotors, wheels and/or blades.

…Indoor air pollution is more common than most folks would think, and this is especially important for the ones who suffer from allergies.

Speaking of that, if you are concerned about indoor pollution, you may also be interested in my post entitled “Aromatherapy – Healthier Alternatives to Scented Candles,” that I wrote a while back. On another health-related note, if you’re more interested in eliminating toxins from your body, visit the “Milk Thistle – Liver Detox” page.

Okay, this particular post is about Secondhand Smoke vs. Air Purifiers. Of course, the best way to eliminate tobacco smoke in your home, is to simply do all of your smoking outside, use a designated area or room that is closed from the rest of the house, or take the more challenging option by quitting all together.

In general, most air purifiers are built to reduce large & small air borne particles such as dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, miscellaneous allergens, etc. However, they are less effective at reducing secondhand smoke, but some are far better than others. Don’t even bother wasting your money on the ionic purifiers that are found on the market, that is, if you’re concerned about reducing secondhand smoke in your home. You should always go with the ones that come with a pre-filter, charcoal layer, and a changeable filter.  The pre-filter is washable and should never need replaced – it is used to catch the larger particles and to increase the life of your main filter.

If you’re looking to save money while using a more effective method at reducing tobacco smoke from the place that you dwell, take heed to this: Since most (even the ones that claim to be reusable) changeable HEPA filters (High Efficiency Particulate Air filter) will lose their effectiveness after cleaning/washing them, they need to be completely changed. So, after your expensive filter (that comes with the machine) becomes dirty, don’t bother replacing it with the factory recommended filter. Just go out and buy a high-quality filter medium for a central heat & air unit and cut it into pieces that will fit into your air purifiers. You can often buy a big sheet of this filter medium for just a few dollars and, in turn, make several small-sized filters for your existing purifiers. Not only can you afford to change them out more often for a more effective smoke removal method, but you also no longer have to spend all that money on the name-brand, custom-fit filters.  When buying these large filters, I do suggest that you spend a couple extra dollars and get one that also comes with a charcoal layer for extra filtration and odor removal properties.

Below, I’ll provide a link to a variety of air purifier related products. Personally, I just go with the simple, reliable Holmes Purifiers. I’ve used them for years without any trouble.   Besides improving the air quality, I also keep a couple of them running in my bedroom for the mild roaring sound; the soothing noise acts as a natural sleep aid, for me. Anyway, another alternative to reduce secondhand smoke in your home, is to either use or install exhaust fans in a designated room or rooms. If standing under it while smoking, a well-functioning exhaust fan installed in the ceiling will suck the smoke right out and, depending on how it is installed, blow it either into your attic or out through the exhaust pipes that leads to the top of your roof to send the smoke outside, back into nature to settle naturally.

Shopping (Affiliate) Link:

‘Click Here’ for a large variety of Air Purifiers

Image Credit: Product Image - Fair Use - Amazon.com

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