Before we start cooking, we need to go to the market. But you gotta be careful, as this place is a scary place, full of high priced foods, most of them not too healthy, waiting to JUMP into your cart! Let me ask you: When you walk into your local market, I bet you walk to the right of the store to start your shopping. This is not by accident, as marketing people have designed stores so that you run around the outer aisles first, calling this the race track. It is here that you get all sorts of mixed messages sent to your brain, confusing it with "staples" and "prepared" luxuries, setting you up for the trip down the inner aisles where the real profitable stuff lays in wait!
Case in point, canned tomatoes. First of all, these 'maters pose a health risk, as the acid in these jewels eat away the linning of tin cans, allowing bisphenol-A to leach out into your food. This stuff has been shown to cause evertyhing from Diabetes to heart disease. Add insult to injury, a 16 ounce can of chopped with herbs (a basil leaf-how generous), which contains about 4 ounces of moisture, can cost upwards of $1.49! The fresh ones that you already purchased on the race track for $.99 for your salad, should get a second look to be used for your pasta gravy, too! The same goes for most of the inner aisle items, especially in the spice aisle. Here you will find a 4 ounce jar of some celebrity's meat rub for $4.99. Sure, it has a great picture on the label, but look at the ingredients. Most of these are at least half salt! Do the math! You could end up paying 15 bucks for a pound of salt---Marco Polo didn't even pay this much!! As time goes on, I will show you how to make all the blends you could ever need, all at a fraction of what you would normally but them for.
Back to the market. How can we be more thrifty here, but yet, load up and feed the family like we want to? It's called "Scratch Kitchen," and so keep coming back here so I can share my secrets with you and put you on the road to healthy eating as well as healthy savings!