Saturday, December 8, 2007

Water...It Does A Body Good

Learned Lesson #1: I’m going to have to change the way I think about eating!

Anonymous asked me this….

Will 1 gallon of milk last all week? My family of 4 drinks 2-3 gallons per week...

And my answer is, yes it can last my family a week but I’ve had to make some changes about how we use it.

I grew up drinking a glass of milk with every meal AND whenever I got thirsty. I didn’t drink juice or water or anything else. I learned to consume LOTS of milk and when we first got married and didn’t have kids yet, we would go through 2 gallons a week. Now add four kids to the mix and we could easily go through 4 gallons a week without even blinking an eye.

When I started this challenge I really had to reevaluate our eating habits. The first change I made was to start serving ice water (sometimes with a sliced lemon in it) at meals instead of milk. The crew scoffed at first but after about a month it just became second nature and milk wasn’t missed. I let each kid have one glass of milk a day if they want it, but all but one of them could care less anymore. The rest of the milk gets used in baking. We also don’t eat boxed cereal very often so that really cuts down on the milk use.

And if it’s the calcium you’re worried about you can get calcium from fortified frozen juices, broccoli, kale, spinach, cheddar cheese, yogurt, soy milk, salmon, tofu, cottage cheese and lot of other foods that you either are already eating or can easily add to your diet.

There are some great benefits to upping your water intake too.

It enhances fat loss

Helps fight illness

Helps you look younger and …

Reduces Hunger


So if you’re serious about slashing your grocery budget, the milk versus water issue might be something you want to consider.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our menu for yesterday looked like this….

Breakfast - oatmeal with brown sugar and milk

Lunch – Tuna sandwiches on whole wheat bread (.89 cents a loaf at the bakery outlet store. I can’t even make homemade that cheap!) sliced apples

Dinner – (With Company) Thanksgiving Casserole, steamed Broccoli, and Brownies from scratch. The whole meal worked out to cost approximately $6.57 and we had leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

4 comments:

Duckygirl said...

I can relate on the milk drinking. My husband is a big milk drinker and we have a baby who drinks lots of milk, add any of the other kids or me and we easily go through a gallon or more a day!! Yikes, I really need to work on cutting this out. Especially since milk on our island here is $3.30 a gallon!!! I may try the lemon in the water tip, it may just make it more interesting for the kiddos :)

~Laura

Kacie said...

I was going to suggest using powdered milk in your cooking to save even more money.

But it looks like your regular milk costs less than I can get it here, anyway.

The cheapest I've been able to find powdered milk here is $12.99/for a box to make 5 gallons ($2.59/gallon). Here, I can't get regular milk for cheaper than $3.50, so it's worth it to me.

Anonymous said...

This is about your Thanksgiving Casserole you had...we have a recipe like that, only it doesn't call for mashed potatoes, but green beans. Then, I throw in a cup of dried cranberries and it is SO GOOD. And I figure we're getting veggies in it, so I don't feel as bad if I don't serve veggies on the side. But the cranberries were my idea and they make it so much better, I had to share.(Of course, not as cheap, but if you have an Aldi near you, you can get a bag for not as much as other stores. And they keep.)

Anonymous said...

I've just found your blog, and I'm loving it! DH doesn't drink milk due to it making him feel bad if he drinks too much, and I don't care for it. If I buy it to use for cooking/baking, it usually ends up going bad before I get it used up. So I use powdered milk for all my cooking and baking. It works great, and saves me from pouring $$ down the drain!