Live Below The Line: Day 2

Daily posting is going to be a challenge in itself!  So I will keep these posts brief.

Yesterday went more to plan than Monday.  So I can show you how we spent that days money.  We went a little over what was planned because Mum, bless her heart, decided to make naan bread and give us some.  Because we went so far under budget on Monday, I factored it in and we had a garlic naan entree which was very much welcomed by Murray who had his first day back in the actual physical office* yesterday since the start of lockdown.

This is what we ate yesterday:

Now before I go into the nutritional deficits I want to talk about costings.  I have costed this by the cost of the purchased ingredients, divided by the quantity used.  I googled every single item to check the weight by cup or equivalent measure to ensure this was accurate.  I purchased from where I usually do (Pak n Save and our local Asian grocer) and while I did swap for cheaper brands where possible, I did keep to our usual brands on a few things (mostly because our usual brands are cheap!)  The licorice tea is cheaper than it usually would be because I bought it a while ago at the Clearance shop for cheap.  The black tea is Homebrand - also very cheap.  We opted for the cheapest fruits and veg - which are, incidentally, what is currently in season.  I honestly tried to get as much bang for our buck as we could without changing much about where and how we usually shop.

So lets look at what adults are supposed to eat every day and see how today's eating stacks up:

Two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables
At least six servings of grains
At least two servings of dairy or dairy equivalents
At least two servings of legumes OR one serving of seafood, eggs, poultry or meat.

 Abby's mandarin tree.  We have seven fruit
trees, all fruiting age (three first fruiting this year)
The ability to plant and own fruit trees is a privilege.

The obvious outlier is we are missing a fruit serving.  And while we could have had another kiwifruit instead of the naan, you must remember that this was extra.  We were being polite to my Mum, and this was not planned for.  I worked really hard on this budget, and while there was wriggle room for another piece of fruit on some days, there was not room every day.  If we could eat the fruit that we get for free from our neighbours, or our own trees, we could have made up that deficit.  But the fact we have fruit trees, and friends with fruit trees is a privilege.  So for this week, like those without these privileges, we make do with less.  We DID have enough servings of vegetables.  This is mostly because we had left over salad from a family BBQ on Sunday which we did not want to waste so costed it out and had it with dinner.  The salad, plus the corn in the fritters, plus the carrot snack and in the soup makes our vege tally about four.  So that's good news.

Last nights dinner - filling and tasty, although the salad was weird
(2 leftover salads mixed together)

In the grains department we make it to about five servings if we count the Anzac biscuit and popcorn together as a serving.  We had rice with our soup.  The problem is, ALL the grains in todays diet were not whole.  All were the cheap options - white rice, white flour etc.  So nutritionally, it doesn't quite hit the mark.  Dairy is very much lacking.  I'd stretch and say we each had about one serving with the feta in the salad, the yoghurt in the naan bread and the milk in our breakfast and coffee put together.  The protein is also a miss.  We did have one serving of legumes with the soup for lunch and had about 1/4 of an egg in the corn fritters (as they serve 4 meals), and a few walnuts in the salad but that's it.

And I was trying!  I was really trying to create filling, balanced, healthy meals.  And while it certainly wasn't the worst diet a person could have, it still missed the mark.  The amount of money is just not enough to buy those expensive things - the dairy, the simple proteins, the fruit.  So did I go hungry yesterday?  No I did not.  Was all my food awful?  No it wasn't.  But my nutritional needs were not met.  This is why the kids are not doing this challenge.  While they could easily subsist on a diet of tomato soup, plain pasta, white bread and noodles and come under budget, they shouldn't.  They are growing.  They are learning.  They are kids.  But many kids do.  And it isn't about parenting, it's about a simple lack of funds and trying to keep those tummies full.  Simple carbs achieve that.

Tune in tomorrow where I will show off the only meal with meat for the week and sing the praises of the new Lunches In Schools programme.

* He slipped up and had a coffee at work which has a fancy pod machine, so I had to factor that in.  An expensive slip at 50c a coffee!  Hoping it doesn't happen again today as we don't have much more wriggle in our budget.