In order to make sure everyone in the family gets their nutritional needs met month long, but you don't overspend or give in to temptation to buy junk foods, it is best to plan a general menu for the month. Base it on what's seasonal and available, and on your budget. When you're just starting out, you might not know what your budget should be, so let's think about what a person ideally eats in a month in raw terms. We'll start with what a person who is a big eater may eat in a day using the traditional western meal structure.
Breakfast:
- 2 fruits and/or vegetables (which amounts to something like a salad made of 1 cucumber and 1 tomato or an apple and a banana)
- 2 eggs
- 1 piece of toast or a roll or a bowl of sour porridge or muesli
- 1/2 cup sour cream, labane, or yogurt
Lunch:
- 2 fruits and/or vegetables
- 1 cup of soup
- 200-250 g. meat or beans cooked with animal fat
- 1-2 slices of bread, or a bowl of sour porridge, rice, millet, couscous or ptitim
Dinner:
- 2 fruits and/or vegetables
- 1 bowl (maybe 1.5 to 2 cups) soup
- 200-300 g. meat or beans cooked with animal fat
- 1-2 slices of bread or a bowl of porridge or grains
- a home made dessert
If a person eats like this then every month they will need something like:
- 30 cucumbers
- 30 tomatoes
- 30 apples
- 30 oranges
- 3-4 gallons of yogurt, milk, or cheese
- 6 kg. meat
- 6 kg. beans
- 2 loaves of bread
- 2 kg. grains
This isn't exact, but you're hopefully getting the picture now. I don't know many people who actually eat this much though. So in reality, you should probably account for something like 4-5 kg. meat per person, buying 10 cucumbers and tomatoes per person per week, refreshing dairy as needed, and keeping a stock of dried beans and grains around.
To keep your budget within reason, you should plan for the least expensive way to get your nutritional needs met. For most people of middle income and below, this means saving relatively expensive meals for weekends, and eating nutritionally dense but economical foods during the work/school week. What that means in exact terms depends on where you live. Beef is fairly cheap in the U.S. but in Israel the cheapest ground beef that is barely pet food grade costs about $3 per pound. Lamb and strangely quality pork, are less expensive than beef in Israel.
This is where planning meals around the local economy comes in handy. I know it has almost become a cliche, but buy local buy local buy local! Balance your specific nutritional needs with what people whose ancestry is connected to the local climate eat. For me, that means adjusting African and Native American food needs with the middle eastern climate. I had to incorporate Arab and Bedouin foods and cooking styles into my diet.
So my monthly grocery list (family of 3) in the fall usually looks like:
- 6 chickens
- 4 kg. quality beef
- 1 kg. lamb fat
- 10 kg. potatoes
- 5 kg. yams
- 2, 2 liter jugs of yogurt
- 2 kg. various local cheeses
- 1 liter olive oil
- 1 kg. butter
- 2 kg. honey
- 6 dozen eggs
Then weekly I buy fresh fruits and vegetables as needed.
Every 3 months or so, I get 5 kg. jasmine rice, 2 kg. oat flour, 2 kg. millet, 2 kg. pinto beans, 2 kg. white beans, 1 kg. split peas or lentils, and where there's a sale, I get ptitim. I also get sausage and dry salami here and there.
...because in a week, I know I'm going to make chicken almost every weeknight, beef on the weekends, plenty of beans spiked with animal fat and maybe some sausage, potatoes at least twice a week, some kind of sour porridge or fermented grains every day, and lots and lots of fruits and vegetables.
Fast Days
At some point, for the sake of reteaching your body to endure periodic deprivation or for religious reasons, you may want to do a weekly fast. You should pick a day (24 hour period) when this will be easy for you, when you will only have water. If you have a diagnosed metabolic problem (such as diabetes, hypothyroid, or hypoglycemia) on this day you should give yourself only the minimum requirement.
Children under 16 years old should not be pressured to fast at all, especially menstruating adolescents. Many will choose to do it on their own or do a juice fast as young as 12 years old, and it won't hurt them so long as they're encouraged not to go beyond the point of real discomfort.
It is best if everyone who chooses to do a weekly fast, does so on the same day, because then you can all break the fast together.
Bringing It All Together
Variety is the spice of life, so they say, so it's a good thing not to have the same thing every day. What you can do though is determine what you're going to have on various days of the week by themes. Make a weekly schedule like:
Sunday Church Day - Since you know you'll have church between 10am and 12-1pm, plan for a late lunch. Have a light but nice breakfast of fruits and/or vegetable salad, a couple of eggs, sausage or cheese, and very little or no bread or porridge because starches make you sleepy when you have to sit after eating them. To stay awake in church, skip the toast.
Sunday lunch can be just a little something to tide you over until the big Sunday dinner.
Weekdays can have a theme like:
Monday - Make something with leftovers.
Tuesday - Carribean day.
Wednesday - Italian day.
Thursday - Dairy fest (good time to use up milk and cheese)
Friday - Fun day (Make finger foods and other fun dishes the kids love)
Saturday - Barbecue
Then get more detailed like:
Sunday Breakfast
cucumber and tomato salad
fresh fruit in season
omelettes with onions and cheese
yogurt with a sprinkle of crispy oats
Sunday Lunch
tuna and greens salad
fennel with olive oil
lemon grilled chicken
cheese chunks
a crispy country roll
Sunday Dinner
bruschetta with tapenade
vegetable soup
roasted chicken
hominy stuffing
cheesecake for dessert
See, you go from a general idea of what you need and your budget, and then plan exactly what you want to eat on a particular day. When you're used to things, you can do it without thinking about it too much, but you'll still have a plan in your mind.
Planning saves you money and lots of time in the kitchen. When you start to eat naturally, it seems like a lot of work, and it kind of is. It's just considerably less stressful when you plan ahead.
