Food for Two Weeks

My husband will be gone for two weeks, so I went foodshopping and tried to stock up with enough food while he's gone. It's easier to do that than trek to the grocery store with two kids.

It cost $143 total, but that was really high because I bought $43 worth of baby formula.

I categorize my food list by meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. I do that to plan out different meal types for the week.

For breakfast's: 2 bananas, Kashi cereal, cream of wheat, Natural Quaker quick oats, and for my daughter, regual Quaker Life cereal (6 g sugar for 3/4 cup serving) and cinnamon raisin toast. I had enough milk leftover from last week, so I didn't need to buy that. I skipped orange juice, too, because my husband prevously bought store-brand somewhere else.

Lunch's: I'm tired of peanut butter and jelly, but my daughter loves it, so I bought another store-brand jar of grape jelly, and Skippy Natural Peanut Butter. That's the only PB brand I could find for the best price that doesn't have Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHO) and also the oils don't rise to the top of the container (no need to stir). However, I still try to use it in moderation because it is still high in fat (16 g fat for 2 Tbsp serving). My philosophy is: it's peanut butter, of course don't look at the fat content! You know it's fatty. It's more important to watch the PHO because you can always burn the fat, but you can't stop the arteries from clogging if you're going to eat foods with PHO. Tyson chicken nuggets and my husband bought Chef Boyardee previously.

My dilemna for lunches is that I need something I can pack up for when I have class or go to the office. I usually rely on left-overs if possible. I would rather avoid all lunch meat as much as possible because of the nitrates that are used as a preservative and are carcinogenic. However, I did buy bacon for BLT's this food shopping trip. Bacon also has nitrates and is fattening (6 g for 2 slices) so for sandwhiches I'll try and limit the amount of bacon to 2-4 slices. Also bought lettuce and tomato. I already had bread from before (whole grain white).

Here's my pet peeves with bread: I don't like wheat bread because of a sick association from when I was pregnant with my first daughter. I really like rye bread for everything but peanut butter and jelly and since I try not to eat too much lunch meat, then I don't buy that much rye bread. I'd be better off making my own bread. It's really easy, but takes some time, which I don't have!

Soups: The high sodium content isn't good, but for the price, soup makes a cheap, quick lunch. We stocked up on Ramen noodles previously, which is good because I can control the amount of powder (=sodium) I put into the pot!

Snacks: whole grain Goldfish, Snyder's Yellow Corn Tortiall Chips (on sale, no PHO), Ortega Salsa (best price), store-brand sharp cheese, Yoplait Dora yogurt (checked the date, so I got two), Del Monte sliced peaches in plastic cups (for lunches), 2 bags of chocolate chips (I intend to make home-made chocolate chip cookies), Rold Gold Honey Wheat Pretzels.

Dinner: store-brand parmesan and mozzorella cheeze, sliced provolone cheese, Mama Mary's pizza crust (3 small ones), light sour cream, jar of artichokes, small container of regular mayo, frozen Kashi Mediterranean pizza, 1 and a 1/4 lb ground turkey, hamburger rolls, frozen containers of vegetables (sides dishes for dinner) of: Birds Eye sliced green beans with almonds (2), Green Giant broccoli with cheese(2), Green Giant corn. My daughter would normally eat those vegetables. Already have Idaho potatoes at home, which I will make home-made french fries out of for the burger meal and I already have pizza sauce for the semi-homemade pizza. (I consider it "semi" homemade because I won't make the crust from scratch. That's also easy to do, I'm just saving time).

Extras: store-brand salted butter, large dozen eggs

I did not buy toiletries or household products since I made a separate trip to Walmart for those items.