Tag: diet

Food for Thought: 8 Tips for Saving Money on the Body Ecology Diet

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In a previous post, I mentioned how expensive it can get to be on the Body Ecology Diet (B.E.D.). Here are some helpful hints to minimize the impact on your wallet:

  1. Make a list an scope out your grocery stores. See what each store has available and at what price, before you buy. Also, few people realize that they can submit a request for their local chain store to carry an item. Have your friends ask too. The more people that ask for it, the more likely it is that they will start carrying it. Also, they will most likely price it lower than you will find it at “healthy living” stores!
  2. Try ethnic stores. They often have hard to find ingredients at a reasonable price. Once I figured out that the “sea vegetables” on the B.E.D. were really just different kinds of seaweed, I went to my local Asian market and stocked up for a fraction of the price. I also got various noodles and grains there too! For both everyday and hard to find spices, I go to the Mediterranean grocery who sells them dirt cheap! For the special blue corn tortillas, the Tortilliaria down the road is awesome! Check these places first, before wasting your money at more expensive grocery stores.
  3. Buy in bulk. Costco really surprised me. They have a LOT of B.E.D. safe and organic options at lower prices than you can find them in grocery stores. Here is some of what I left with: both chicken and ground beef, many different veggies, lemons and limes, blue corn tortilla chips, probiotics, flax meal, and a giant sack of quinoa. The only downside is figuring out where to put it all.
  4. Garden or join a community garden. Anything you grow your self will save money. Herbs are the easiest and can be done is small pots on a window sill, if you don’t have a green thumb or a yard. If you are not confident in your gardening skills or if you live in an apartment, try participating in a community garden. Often, the others there will help you and give you helpful tips, because they benefit from your successful crop too!
  5. Look into local co-ops or delivery services. I subscribe to a local delivery service, here in the Triangle. I pay $20 per week (I can skip weeks, if I want) for the small box. I fill my box by picking and choosing from a list of available products from local farms that they post each week. They deliver a few days later. I have personally found this to be cheaper and more convenient than going to the farmers market. I have also heard of local co-ops that offer boxes of a variety of veggies at a discounted price. I wish there was one here.
  6. Cook in bulk too. Pick one or two days a week to cook or prep a large batch of something. Portion it out and can, freeze, or refrigerate it. You will save time and money not cooking everyday. You will also have ready to go lunches, which will discourage you (and maybe others in the house!) from cheating by eating at a restaurant.
  7. Look for generics. The B.E.D. has a lot of branded supplements and other products. Read their labels and try to find a cheaper alternative.  For example, their SuperGreens powder is twice as expensive as the Go Greens powder I tried. Or try the even cheaper Amazing Grass.  I was able to find most of the others too. Alternatives to the branded sweeteners can be found in your local grocery stores. I prefer the “In the Raw” brand, as others have additives. And, as a bonus, they sometimes actually have coupons in the paper for those!
  8. DIY as much as possible. I am told, making your own coconut kefir and “cheese” can save you a lot. Unfortunately I cannot do it myself, because I have yet to find young coconuts in any of my local stores, and I also don’t own a meat cleaver (necessary for hacking the coconut open). However, I do make my own kimchee, as well as other fermented veggies. Basic kimchee is easy and requires few ingredients; cabbage, sea salt, fish sauce, and gochugaru pepper flakes. You can also customize the flavor to suit you. I prefer to add garlic and reduce the usual amount of spice, as it can irritate the digestive tract. A pint jar at my local grocery store is $7! At the Asian market it is $3. It cost me about $3 in ingredients to make my own and it yielded 3 quarts. I saved my self as much as $39!

If anyone has some more money saving tips or any questions about what I have mentioned, please comment blow!

New Year, New Site, New Diet!

Hi Everyone!  Happy New Year! I have officially changed my site to this new one with my own domain name! Yay! It took me a while to decide on the name. I hope you like it!

With the New Year I also decided to begin a new gut healing diet. Over the years, my diet has become more and more limited, as I become increasingly intolerant to more and more foods. I won’t bore you with my months of research prior to this. The gist of a gut healing diet is that by eating foods that are gentle on the digestive tract, you allow it time to rebuild and heal itself. Once it is healed, hopefully, you can begin to eat small amounts of the foods that you are currently intolerant or sensitive to. Big warning – even if the diet is successful, you should NEVER go back to eating a bunch of junk food. If you do, your gut will start malfunctioning again and you will be right back to where you started. My goal in this is only to not have to worry so much and be so particular when I go out to dinner with friends or for work.  Seriously, I am going across country to a week-long conference in a few months and I’m terrified I might get “glutened” and have to miss some of it.

Anyway, I have dieted for about 3 weeks now. I began the New Year on the GAPS diet. The GAPS diet didn’t last long (1 week) for me, because you have to suddenly cut out so many addictive things: Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, pain killers. Also the “intro” GAPS diet is nothing but soup, ALL DAY. By the end of the first week, I seriously considered having my boss take me to the hospital because I almost passed out at work. Obviously, it isn’t something you should do if you have to leave home, especially if you are active. Also, I got wicked heartburn and you aren’t supposed to take antacids. And yes, to those who have had GAPS success stories, I understand a lot of those terrible feelings are from candida die-off toxins. However, I needed a diet more suited to me.

After much more research,  I came upon the Body Ecology Diet.  It is a sort of blend of several different diets I have heard of before. It follows the same general structure as the GAPS diet (so I really didn’t do so badly starting on that one), but adds in elements of the acid-alkaline diet and the blood type diet too. Basically each person can have their own custom diet, based on their wishes (has a vegetarian/vegan option) and their blood type. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to find recipes to use. I will be posting some of mine along the way to help anyone who wants to try it out.

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Some Pros:

  • You can eat as much (in quantity) of the approved foods as you want, with the stipulation that 80% of whatever you eat is veggies, while the other 20% is meat, starch, or eventually other non-approved foods.
  • It is a healthy whole foods diet.
  • I am losing a little weight! Not guaranteed, though.
  • You don’t have to buy all the expensive Body Ecology branded merchandise or meal plans to be on the diet. Much of it can also be DIY. I only purchased the book ($2 for kindle edition) to understand the diet. You can get most of the info online, but it can be difficult to navigate.
  • You get to learn creative new ways to prepare foods.
  • You can use stevia and monkfruit sweetener to help with sugar cravings.
  • Coconut aminos are okay too, so you have a good soy sauce replacement.

Some cons:

  • It is a fairly long process, with a minimum of 3 months on basic diet, before trying to add in more difficult to digest foods.
  • They recommend never eating sugary baked goods, non-cultured dairy, or drinking alcohol ever again (yeah, right! I will definitely cut it way down, but not completely out).
  • At least in the beginning, you have to cook and shop all the time! You have to cook or prepare every meal. I seriously go to the store every other day. I simply don’t have the fridge/freezer storage to hold it all. My pantry is practically bare though. There are very few pre-pack and dry goods on this diet. I also recommend making big meals, portioning them out and refrigerating/freezing some for later. I have spent the last several weekends cooking to stock up for the work week.
  • It is crazy expensive. My grocery budget has nearly doubled, though my smaller dine-out budget got halved too. Everything should be organic or local. Bonus for both. Many products can only be found at Whole Foods (most notably coconut kefir/probiotics). However, I have found quite a few staples at Costco: organic beef, chicken, quinoa, etc.
  • All of my medications (even OTCs) to control my various issues are banned on this diet, as they feed the problem. The diet promises to eventually clear up those problems in time, but I apparently have to suffer in between. While this is more of an inconvenience for me, I worry more about those on the banned medications that ward off dangerous problems like heart attack and stroke.
  • It would be pretty much impossible to do this diet if you are allergic to coconut/treenuts. Staples include, coconut kefir, coconut oil, coconut yogurt,  and coconut aminos.

Sorry, I know this is basically a novel, but I felt it needed to be said. I will keep you posted on my progress and recipes!