“When you look at the USDA’s “food pyramid”, many of the things we should be eating the most of – grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables – happen to cost the least.”

Or so writes Jeff Yaeger of the Daily Green and author of the recent blog post: “50 healthy foods for under $1 a pound.”  Somehow, Yaeger provides answers – 50 of them – to the questions Campus Kitchen shift leaders ask themselves every day as they consider cheap, nutritional supplements to meals.

Below are  some of Yaeger’s more pertinent suggestions, with additional ideas for how best to use these raw ingredients in Campus Kitchen meals.

For under $1 a pound (on sale), supplement meals with:

  • Apples (buy in bulk) – process and use this canning article to store applesauce.
  • Bananas – Think Elvis, and use these in peanut butter and banana sandwiches as a meal addition or kids snack for  added protein and potassium.
  • Carrots – buy whole and use this video to cut down into carrot sticks for nutrition programming.
  • Chickpeas/Garbanzo beans – make your own hummus to serve with those fresh carrot sticks.
  • Cornmeal/polenta – an interesting starch to whip up and make fluffy with added milk. Here’s an easy polenta recipe you can use with donated cans of tomato sauce.
  • Eggs – if you’re like Jenny Sproul at CKWL, who recently received a donation of 400 pounds of eggs from Walmart, you won’t need to buy them.  But if you do, they make a great egg salad sandwich or ingredient for a quiche.
  • Lentils – A great way to add protein to a large, congregate style meal – in soups, salads, or sandwich spreads.
  • Oatmeal – a longtime staple of Campus Kitchens, students have thrown the old-fashioned oats in anything from fruit cobbler to an ice cream sundae bar, like the one CKNU helped serve during a recent slow cooker program.
  • Pork – use inexpensive cuts, like pork shoulder, to cook up curries and soups, or simply slip them into a slow cooker.
  • Squash – try baking acorn squash with a little brown sugar
  • Watermelon – a great way to provide a little built-in hydration to community partners during hot summers.
  • Yams/sweet potatoes – a dignified “super food”, this is a delicious and versatile starch to add to any type of meal, year-round.

Hungry yet? Get cookin’!

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