Real Food on a Budget: Where to Spend your Money Pt. 2 - Poultry, Oils and Dairy!

In my last installment of this series, I explained to you the importance of grass fed beef vs. feedlot “store bought” beef and discussed the Dirty Dozen check list of produce.

Today, I am going to cover Poultry, Oils and quickly go over Dairy products.

Where to Spend your Money:

Poultry – It is very important to buy Free Range, Pasteurized Chicken. Unfortunately, this is for a lot of the same reasons as beef. Conventionally raised chicken (like what you would find at the store) are fed a primarily grain based diet. Thrown in with this primarily corn diet is old or bad eggs, chicken carcasses, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (let me remind you that chickens are NOT created to eat eggs OR chicken, they are vegetarians) Along with this, they are kept in confinement, usually never seeing the light of day their whole lives. Chicken Farmers will cram thousands of chickens in one Chicken House, where they are literally laying on top of each other. Because of this, there is a lot of disease that is easily spread to the chicken, so they are fed antibiotics. Also, most commercially raised chickens are raised in battery cages:

Chickens in Battery Cages

While free range, Pasteurized Chickens are fed a 100% vegetarian diet, they are never administered hormones, pesticides, herbicides, or antibiotics. They are free to roam around outside, creating a healthy chicken, reducing the spread of disease and actually producing juicier more flavorful chicken. If you’ve never tried free range chicken, I urge you too. The flavor is delicious and it’s much more tender and moist!

Free Range Chickens

Oils and Fats – The only two cooking oils I keep in our home? Coconut Oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Coconut oil can be found in your grocery store, but I find it’s much cheaper to buy it online. I buy mine at iherb , but Tropical Traditions is very highly recommended as well.Coconut oil is great for cooking, it can withstand high temperatures, so can be used in a skillet or stir fry meal. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is great for salad dressings, low temperature cooking, sauces, ect.

Because there is so much to say about how good for you healthy oils and fats are and how TERRIBLY bad for you other oils are, I am simply going to share a link. Please read this article for information on why to pick healthy oils and fats and why to avoid Polyunsaturated oils (corn, safflower, sunflower), Vegetable Oils, Canola Oil and Trans fats!  

How to Pick Healthy Oils

Dairy – Since I don’t eat dairy myself, I won’t talk long on this topic, but I will give a pieces of advice: Buy Raw milk. I am going to quote this article:

“Raw milk is the natural unaltered milk usually from cows, goats or sheep but in some countries it is camel or buffalo. It is not heated above the animal's highest body temperature which is usually 101-105 degrees F. (38 degrees C.) Raw milk is not pasteurized, homogenized or frozen, nor has it been altered with additives, chemicals, light or homogenization.
Processed dairy is any dairy that has been altered from its raw state by heating the dairy above a cow's body temperature. Pasteurization, irradiation, boiling or homogenization are the most commonly known forms of processing. Also, the processes of chemical treatment are used to enhance flavor, fortify and preserve bad-tasting milk that has been heat-treated and putrefactive. The common store type of milk is processed to the extent it turns blue. They add large amounts of dolomite (mined calcium carbonate, that is rock) to make it white and add irradiated hydrogenated vegetable oil as Vitamin D. Hydrogenated oil has the same molecular structure as plastic unlike natural raw milk. Additionally, irradiated oil is not Vitamin D yet the FDA allows them to call it that. The following processes are used to treat dairy:

• Pasteurization - heating milk to, at least, 130 degrees F. (54 degrees C.) for at least 45 seconds, or 160 degrees F. (71 degrees C.) for at least 15 seconds. Boiling means cooking the milk until is begins to vaporize, usually for at least 5 seconds.
• Irradiation - Exposing milk to destructive light such as high-intensity ultraviolet or radioactive contamination; also called cold-pasteurization
• Homogenization - Subjecting the milk-fat (cream) to high pressures and forcing it through a tight-meshed screen that causes the fat-molecules to rupture, turn rancid and spoil. Homogenization originated to hide milk that was low in fat. In early years, low-fat milk was considered less desirable and unhealthy. Homogenization today is performed to keep the cream from separating from the milk so that it will not sour and the milk looks even.

All of these processes destroy or damage the wonderful nutrients in raw milk.”  – from www.rawmilk.com

Basically, the Milk you have been drinking has no nutritional value. The vitamins and calcium in your milk have been depleted, then “put back in” in a synthetic form, which your body doesn’t recognize, so it forces itself to have a reaction. Which does your body no good at all.



Coming soon: Real Food on a Budget – Where to compromise Pt. 3