Korean Food Experiment
Inquiring minds want to know: is eating Korean food cheaper long-term than American food? Will eating Korean food - which tends to be lower in meats and fats but higher in vegetables and carbs than American food - be better for our health? JunkMale and I intend to find out. For the next 4 weeks or so, we will attempt to go on a Korean diet.
The picture above is from after our dinner tonight and right before our dessert of fruit. At the bottom of the picture is 잡채 (japchae), which JM's mom sent home with us yesterday. Since I am not able to go to the Korean market until tomorrow, the side dishes were a bit lacking. From the left around clock-wise is mixed rice, potatoes, and seaweed. Dessert will be mangoes and oranges, again courtesy of JM's mom. :-D
Our weekly grocery budget is $50. So, for this 4-week experiment, the goal budget is $200. Everything we ate tonight was either given to us for free, or we already had around the house. I made a trip to the good old American grocery store earlier today to buy 2 gallons of organic milk (on sale!!), 18 Eggland's Best eggs, soy milk, cereal (OK, so we're still having American breakfasts... but in our defense, that's what we ate at the in-law's), and a few non-food items. The total spent so far is $20.
Tomorrow is the big spending day, as I make a trip to the Korean market. Unlike with American food, I will probably not be able to make a weekly shopping trip there, so I will have to buy just as much food as I think we will eat before it spoils.
I will keep you posted on how things go!
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food
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frugality
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health
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Korean
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I look forward to reading this! Your dinner looks good, except for the seaweed. Tried it, didn't like it.
We don't have any Asian grocers close to our house, but I have enjoyed occasionally going to the one near my MIL's house. I found some really fabulous stuff there!
Oh cool! I'm looking forward to hearing how things go as well!
Mmm, 잡채(japchae)... I could go for some of that. I have some 당면 (the noodles for the japchae) in my pantry, but I planned to use it for 만두 (dumplings)... either way it requires time I don't have, so it may be a while before I can make either. It'll be worth it when I can squeeze it in, though! Did you get to watch JM's mom make the 잡채(japchae)? I'd love to learn how she makes it; I bet it's really good...
Anyway, sounds like a fun experiment! I don't think 4 weeks is long enough to find out much about the effect on your health, but I'm curious how the budget part turns out.
Glad you made it home safely. :-) Did Luna come along, or did you find somewhere for her to stay while you were gone?
By being better for our health, we mean weight, mostly. For whatever reason, both of our weights have been creeping up ever so slightly. I think both of us are still within 5 lbs of when we started noticing, but this is not a trend we'd like to continue.
Also, some "digestive expediency" (the good kind) was experienced by some who traveled down to Florida, so we want to see if that will continue on the Korean food. We thought we got good amounts of fiber in our diet, but maybe we're wrong ;)
And of course, by "diet," we mean "regimen of consumed food." We do not mean diet as defined by the majority of the population, which seems to mean "eat-sort-of-healthy-to-lose-a-few-pounds-then-go-right-back-to-eating-like-I-always-did-and-gain-it-all-back." (I don't understand those people)
Luna came with us. We are not fans of leaving her with strange other people for extended periods of time. You can bet that if we're traveling by car on some leisure trip, that Luna will probably be coming with us. Luna was able to enjoy the freshest fish she's ever had, courtesy of the backyard canal. More on that later..
Looks yum! We have eaten a chinese/vietnamese diet for the last 10 years and its way cheaper. We are a family of 4 and it costs me about $50-$60 a week to feed us for all meals except for 1 dinner a week being eaten out (which is usually vietnamese or chinese and way cheaper than going to applebees). Good luck can't wait to read how it goes!
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