Day 6: in which I get lazy

"A bowl full of mush and an old lady whispering hush." How many times did I read "Goodnight moon" to my kids?

Anyway, I started the day with a bowl full of oatmeal with about 1.5 ounces of raisins mixed in for flavor and texture. I made it with 1% milk.

Breakfast	Quantity	Cost	Calories
oatmeal	1.00	$      0.33	153
milk	1.00	$      0.31	102
raisins	1.00	$      0.43	120
		$      1.08	375

After breakfast I headed out to look for new convenience stores to shop in and a place to get a hair cut, because I am starting to grow a pony tail.


While on my way to find the store Sally told me about, I passed Downtown Discount Beverage, which happened to be right across the street from the barbershop I was looking for. I suspect Downtown Discount Beverage is part of the greater Dover Discount Beverage chain and the owner's plan to take over the world.





I picked up a few more essentials for the larder.

Store	Item	Price
Downtown Discount Beverage	shortening	$      6.19
Downtown Discount Beverage	minute rice	$      3.09
Downtown Discount Beverage	corn muffin mix	$      0.95
Downtown Discount Beverage	baked beans	$      3.19

Let's face it, stuff is pricey at convenience stores.

After I picked up the minute rice and mushrooms I got it in my head that I could make a teriyaki stir fry by adding the chicken and carrots I already had. Adding celery would be a nice touch, and since I had seen celery at Tedeschi, I headed that way.



Once I was standing in front of the Tedeschi cooler with the celery, the pre-made sandwiches started to look really good to me. So I grabbed the celery, an Italian sub, and an orange to make me feel better about caving in for the pre-made sandwiches.

Store	Item	Price
Tedeschi	Italian Sub	$      5.59
Tedeschi	Italian Dressing	$           -
Tedeschi	celery, bunch	$      2.69
Tedeschi	orange	$      0.99

When I got home and unloaded, I realized I had forgotten one essential item for making my teriyaki stir fry - the teriyaki sauce, which I had seen at Downtown Discount.

Lunch	Quantity	Cost	Calories
Italian Sub - Tedeschi pre-made	1.00	$      5.59	615
Italian dressing	1.00	$           -	80
coffee	7.00	$      0.66	15
		$      6.25	710

Because of the cost of the sub, lunch was the most expensive meal I have had so far in the Food Desert. The convenience and ease is the convenience store's siren's song. To be fair, the sub was decent, especially for an off-the-shelf, pre-made sandwich. The bread was fresh, there were a few vegetables on it, and the meats were generous. But it packed almost 700 calories once I added the dressing, and it cost more than I spent on my food the entire of Day 5. However, I have not seen that quality of selection of lunch meats in any of the stores I have visited so far. Not that lunch meats are especially good for you. But as I've already noted, getting variety and semi-healthy food is a challenge in the Desert.


Dinner was half the can of baked beans and a serving of Minute Rice.

Dinner	Quantity	Cost	Calories
Baked beans, canned	1.00	$      1.60	420
Rice, instant	1.00	$      0.39	170
		$      1.98	590

I felt guilt with this meal given it was pretty much sugar and simple carbs. It had been years since I last used Minute Rice. Kerryn pretty much converted me to brown rice when I did the $3 Diet, and that's what I've gotten used to. It was strange to go this far down the procesed road.



But the carb blast didn't stop there. I finally got around to using my Budweiser acquisition to make... Beer Bread! Beer bread is perhaps the simplest bread I know how to make. Four ingredients.

Beer Bread
	Cost	Calories
3 C flour	$      1.20	1320
6 tbsp sugar	$      0.20	288
beer	$      0.83	120
I can't believe	$      0.20	60
shortening	$      0.02
	$      2.44	1788

Mix the first three ingredients together, put it into a greased pan. Cook at 350 for 45 minutes. Take the bread out, add 3 tbsps of butter, bake another 15 minutes. Yesterday I cut the butter to one tbs to try to make the bread a little healthier. But I'm afraid this is really just a carb calorie bomb.



I actually felt a little guilty eating it for a snack after dinner. It has a nice sweet flavor and soft density. But it packs a caloric whack. It was calorically efficient, though. Just not good calories.

Snacks	Quantity	Cost	Calories
peanuts	1.00	$0.59	260
orange	1.00	$0.99	62
beer bread	0.15	$0.36	261
		$1.94	583

Overall yesterday was high calorie and high cost. Being lazy is costly. Eating healthy is a discipline, whether you are in the Desert or not. I let it go a bit yesterday.

I did walk for an hour later in the evening to burn a little of this stuff off.

Day totals:

Cost: $11.24
Calories: 2,258
Weight: 171.9
Exercise: 394 calories/12,997 steps
Net calories: 1,864