Haha... "western" diet... you mean the McDonalds diet? Not all our food is bad XD (just most of it)

Poet has to count salt instead of calories... because American food is PACKED with the stuff D:

No, I wasn't really thinking of fast food, probably because I never eat it myself. But just your regular - bought from the supermarket - stuff. How many people prepare food from scratch now? So much pre-packaged food is so highly processed now. Made from highly refined white carbohydrates that are basically just stodge.

I try to avoid any white foods. Though I can't afford wholewheat pasta any more ._. and I've never been able to afford unrefined sugar : /


You know, this is something that I do not understand about food costs. WHY does wholewheat bread and flour, and brown rice etc. cost more than its highly refined white counterpart? Surely it should be cheaper because it's been through less expensive processing?

If I ruled the world, it would be cheaper. The healthier a food was, the cheaper it would be...that nasty cheap white bread that's like foam rubber/cotton wool and is more air than substance, and gunges up your teeth because there's zero fibre in it. That would be expensive

Poet likes to cook, so poet makes most of their food from scratch. Poet loves to make Pizza, though whole wheat pizza looks terrible, with some olive oil and fresh ingredients, it makes a dang tasty pizza

Poet's brother eats Taco Bell every single day though. He's convinced it's healthy... =.=

Whole wheat pasta? that sounds good.
Poet eats white bread, but that's really all. Wheat bread just feels too grainy and poet prefers the soft bread.

I don't know... I go with the Japanese white rice... I dunno if they bleach it or anything though.

Jelly for world dictator! I'd vote for you!

You might live to regret that decision

All white rice has had outer bits removed. I don't actually like the taste of white rice any more, it's too bland :c If it's on offer I'll occasionally buy risotto rice and so on. But for "ordinary" stuff it's brown all the way for me. I cook green or brown lentils in with it too, for added noms and goodness

If I bake bread I use white flour. Which brings me to something else which pisses me off about nasty supermarket white bread xD I buy the cheapest white flour (again because I can't afford anything else) So flour from the "basics" range that all the major supermarkets here do now. If I make bread from that flour, it comes out like the instore bakery stuff that the supermarkets charge an arm and a leg for >_> Bearing in mind that you're supposed to make bread from proper "strong" bread flour that has a higher gluten content.

A 1.5kg bag of Basics white flour costs me 47p. You could get 2 fullsize loaves from that. One loaf of the shittiest, cheapest white bread costs more than that...

Poet only really eats white rice with sushi. Helps tone down the wasabi.

Yeah it does seem that food is a lot more expensive than it needs to be. Poet can actually make a $12 (7.4706 pounds? That doesn't sound right...) pizza at over half the cost while using whole wheat dough.
I grind my own wheat, I just use basic olive oil, I even use freshly diced ingredients... but for the life of me I can't find why it's so much cheaper XD must be expensive to have teenagers sitting around waiting for orders.

Oh I would survive. Jelly wouldnt kill her fellow menewshans... just hurt us... very... very... badly... but hey, if it reduces prices I'm all for it!

Ah, you'll be able to tell me! WTF are wheat berries? I see them all over Tumblr in various recipes. Are they grains of wheat? They must be, WTF are they called berries

Ooh! Those things! I don't fully know, but they're like chewy wheat grains (probably wheat soaked in water) *summons wikipedia*

The term wheatberry or wheat berry refers to the entire wheat kernel (except for the hull), composed of the bran, germ, and endosperm. Wheatberries have a tan to reddish brown color and are available as either a hard or soft processed grain. They are often added to salads or baked into bread to add a crunchy texture. If wheat berries are milled whole-wheat flour is produced.

Wheatberries are the primary ingredient in an Eastern European Christmas porridge called kutya. In France, pre-cooked wheatberries are commonly eaten as a side dish instead of rice or corn. This side dish is often referred to as Ebly, although this is actually the name of the first brand of pre-cooked wheatberries to hit the market.

Also... they're that food that looks like this cereal...

So they are just grains of wheat Calling them berries to make them sound cuter, in the hope that more people will eat them >_>

I'd eat them, I bet they're really tasty, but for many it would just be "EW, healthy food! "

I'm currently looking for recipes for that Christmas porridge, that sounds delicious

That's likely because they feel like there is water in them like a berry.

They're "tasty" but it gets old really fast if they're all you eat.

Send some my way...

I'm quite sure that if they're even sold over here, it will be one of those things you can only get in a health food shop, and you need to sign a mortgage agreement before they'll let you in the door of those places >_>

Ukrainian Christmas Kutya Recipe - Food.com - 77525

Does look tasty though, especially if you put a bunch of spice in there, and you could creamy it up more with some oats...

I think I'll go look for wheat berries on Ebay

well wiki did say

Eastern European Christmas porridge

So I wouldn't be surprised. I think they would be sorta cheap...

be careful of some of the unusual food items XD

I like unusual food :O

Me too... especially when I take a bite and everyone freaks out within 4 tables away at a restaurant XD

xD That's just mean!

Hmm, very few results for wheat berries on UK Ebay :( And as predicted, it's expensive!

Not my fault they are grossed out by snails and frogs...

*pouts* Why is all the interesting and healthy food expensive? :(

Ah well, if I search for wheat grain, there's people selling it in bulk, far cheaper.

1kg Bag of Bob's Red Mill wheat berries - £8.55 + £1.50 p&p

5kg of premium milling wheat - £7.25 + £6.50 courier delivery - not ideal for me, but better for someone.


Also...

well, see for yourself!
Ebay
Amazon
Non-brand from Amazon

At least they're a space saving food. If I remember right they puff up after you cook/soak them.

Non-brand foods are just as good usually... they just don't have a fancy logo...

Red Mill is way overpriced. I don't get why they price things so high.

I also don't understand why natural foods tend to be more expensive. It really makes no sense at all. I buy stuff that's normally expensive when it's on sale. There's a market here that's pretty good priced as far as natural foods go that I love. I try to eat as natural as possible, which is hard considering that something that you'd think is good for you really isn't.

Oh I avoid brands where I can. This is just the first time that I've ever looked into wheat berries. I'd far rather buy something from a small producer. Particularly if it's specified as organic

Branded organic foods are always astronomical in costs Add that O word and that means KERCHING! to them : /

If it was possible and farm equipment wasn't so expensive I'd be growing all my own food. I do what I can in the space I have though. Wheat is one of the things I was going to try to grow next year though I hear harvesting it is kinda of a pain.

Poet wont eat organic fruit though... poet almost always finds a worm in their organic apples... *bleh*

I never had a problem with growing my own. My fruit this year was amazing except the pears because the squirrels got to them. I don't use any chemicals, just sun and water.

I have had that happen before a few times from smaller farms though. I also had that problem with cutworms in peppers...ew!

I don't have any outside space at all. And whilst I love to grow things indoors, I'm not very good at it Things that fruit don't grow well indoors anyway, I'm way to lazy to mess about with pollinating stuff by hand!

I grow some vegetables in my parents' yard. We don't have a lot of garden pests, really, for some reason. Just snails, which don't really bother me, and tomato worms, which creep me out so I feed them to the turtle before they can ever get at the tomatoes.

When Zack and I get our own house, I'm planning on growing even more of our food at home. It's just better for us that way...and it tastes better.

Calorie-free snacks are not a good way to break snacking habits. Fruit is better, but even that's still not that good - because when you eat a piece of paper or an orange when what you really want is potato chips, your mind goes "HEY SEE I'm being good I deserve a reward now oh I know just the thing a double serving of potato chips sounds super right now!"

It doesn't work. You've gotta either limit your portion sizes or find a lot of different healthier options that you really like.

And lower calorie does not necessarily equal healthier.

So the ONLY thing this crap is good for is enabling anorexia. Way to go snack company! >_>