For Savings You Can Crow About, Get Creative With This Kind of Chicken!

About the cheapest type of meat you can buy is chicken leg quarters bought in five or ten pound bags. I eat a lot of that, even though I don’t like dark meat.

I won’t eat meat from thighs or legs off the bone. I just don’t like the taste. But at 70-80¢ a pound, it’s a good, cheap source of meat. So, I buy it in bulk, cook it enough so I can easily strip it from the bones, then put it in freezer bags and freeze it. (Don’t use the thin-walled plastic bags.)

I currently have about four pounds of such meat in my freezer. With this meat, I will do the following:

• Chop it, cook it on the stove top with barbecue sauce and make myself a chicken-meat sloppy Joe.
• Put some teriyaki sauce in the bag, leave it in the fridge overnight and use it for stir fry.
• Slice it, cook it a few minutes in a little olive oil in a frying pan, add mushrooms, paprika, sour cream and cooked noodles to make chicken stroganoff.
• Cook it the same way except this time add mushrooms, sour cream, grated parmesan cheese and either fresh or thawed, drained frozen spinach, a little basil, and a little garlic powder to make my version of chicken florentine.
• Layer it with spaghetti sauce, cheese and spinach for chicken lasagna.
• Chop it fine in my blender (I have a grate setting) and use it to make chicken spathetti.
• Chop it up, brown it in a pan with a little olive oil, some corn, black beans, onions, a chopped tomato, and a little red chili powder, add some sour cream, then use this mixture to fill steamed tortillas. (Add cheese and a few avocado chunks before you wrap the tortillas.)

In short, if you also don't dig dark meat, just disguise the taste with sauces, spices, herbs or marinades and you can make a number of delicious, meaty dishes….with the meat costing a fraction of what beef, pork or even white-meat chicken would.

Plus, if you precook it in bulk (I'll cook ten pounds worth in the oven) strip off the bones and store it in one-pound bags in the freezer, you'll have meat you can thaw and use in a few minutes. That can cut a surprising amount of time off your cooking, especially if you make double batches and freeze half to create your own microwaveable frozen dinners.

So...save money....save time....with cheap chicken!

Tasty, Fast and Low-Cost

As I've said in a few of my posts, I'm not a cook. My culinary goals basically consist in making sure I get a reasonable amount of nutrition without giving myself botulism.

However, even I sometimes have to contribute something to a social occasion and a few weeks back, I brought one of my favorite dishes to a meeting for about 30 people. At least twenty people ate my offering, no one sickened or died, and to my complete surprise, I was actually asked for the recipe by some of those present.

Thus encouraged, I'm offering my version of a low cost sort-of salad: easy to make, reasonably tasty and made with low-cost stuff you'll find in any supermarket.

Start with a a pound of frozen corn. (And no, you don't have to cook it first.) Put that and a half pound of frozen peas into a colander and rinse with water to thaw. Then drain. Add half a can of rinsed and drained black beans. (Rinse 'em until the foamy stuff is gone.) Rinse, chop and add two small or one large stalk of green onions. (Discard the really green part of the stalk.) Add two coarsely chopped Roma tomatoes. (I like Romas because they have less water and more meat than regular tomatoes.)

Next, add about two tablespoons of Thousand Island Dressing, a little salt to taste and a shake or two of red chili powder. (Don't overdo the chili powder.) Mix gently until the dressing and chili powder are evenly distributed throughout the salad.

That's the basic salad, but you can also add, if you like, some chopped cooked chicken, a cubed avocado, some cubed tofu, some sliced mushrooms, a bit of grated cheese...whatever you have on hand.

That's it. Takes about five minutes to put together, costs about $2 in ingredients for the basic recipe and makes a nice side dish for eight to ten people. (I doubled up the recipe for my meeting.) If you're taking it somewhere, don't thaw the corn and peas and they'll help keep the salad cool.

Now....I've done my duty in providing a tasty (at least so I was told by those who ate it) low cost dish. (And no, I'm not expecting The Food Channel to call.)

It's your turn. What's your favorite money-saving recipe?

Readers: Are Coupons Really Worth the Effort?

MoneyToSpare.net is now offering an 30-page e-booklet detailing a number of ways to save money on groceries. (See the sidebar for more info.)

One method that's not included is the use of coupons, for two reasons.

First, I've noticed that most coupons seem to be for highly marketed national brands that sell at premium prices compared to similar products. Getting a few cents off on something that's overpriced to begin with is not my idea of smart shopping.

Secondly, coupons seem to involve more time and effort than they're worth. First, you have to sift through the Sunday paper's avalanche of advertising; clip, if you can find them, coupons for items you actually want; then sort them somehow so when you go shopping, you can find the right coupon for a particular product. (Yes, I know that you can buy little sorting folders, I just wonder how much time they actually save.) Then you have to remember to use the coupons before they expire. (Do the little folders sort by date or alphabetically?)

It just seems to me that you'd end up putting in five minutes worth of work to save $.50 (on a product that's overpriced to begin with) which works out to paying yourself at the rate of $6 per hour, not exactly an exciting prospect.

Still, I may be wrong. (It happens!) So I'm asking those of you who use coupons to let me and the readers of this blog know what we're missing, by either sending me an email at csykes@syryn.com or leaving a comment.

Show me the error of my ways! Convince me and I'll collect the best coupon expert's tips and include it in an update of "8 Ways To Save Up To 40% On Your Groceries."

P.S. Yes, I do know about cashier coupons and other special coupons that offer "2 for 1" deals or "$1-off" deals. But these aren't that common. So let me know how you make out with "regular" coupons...and for a valid comparison, please calculate and include the time you spend clipping and sorting.

The Time/Money Formula

Sometimes it can be hard to know if a time-saving product or technique actually is worth the extra cost. Here's a simple formula that will help you decide.

First, you need two pieces of information: how much extra the item costs you, and how much time, expressed in minutes, you'll save by buying it.

Once you know this, divide 60 by the time saved and then mulitply by the extra cost. This will tell you how much money that product is really costing you, expressed in dollars per hour....and that can be an eye-opener.

For example, in my article "Time Saved, Money Wasted" I talk about pre-peeled onions that cost $1 extra each. (I'm not kidding!) It takes a whole thirty seconds (or .5 minutes) to peel an onion (and yes, I did peel an onion and I timed myself) so when you plug these two figures into the formula, you get:

60 divided by .5 minutes = 120 x $1 = $120 per hour.

That's right. You're paying for that extra half-minute at a rate of $120 an hour!

Let's try another example. If it takes three minutes to pack a lunch for your child, and one of those prepackaged, grab-and-go crackers, meat and cheese lunches costs $1.75 more than than your do-it-yourself ingredients, how much are you spending per hour to save those three minutes?

60 divided by three minutes = 20 x $1.75 = $35 per hour!

(Maybe filling a lunch box with a P&J sandwich, a banana and a refillable container of apple juice--which would cost about a $1--is looking like a better idea?)

Example #3:
It takes you 30 minutes (actual prep and cleanup time) and cost $3 worth of ingredients to bake a homemade pie. A frozen pie involves no prep time and the baking time is only five minutes longer, for a net time savings of 25 minutes. The frozen pie costs $6, or $3 more than homemade.

60 divided by 25 minutes = 2.4 x $3 = $7.20 per hour.

At that rate, I say "Buy the frozen pie!"

There are actually two versions of the Time/Money formula. The examples above let you know how much money it can cost you to save time. In a few days, I'll show you the flip side: how much time it can cost you to save money.

Hey, Chef, What's For Dessert?

Having published my “throw in whatever’s in the fridge” burrito recipe, I got an email from a friend, to the effect that I should have included something for dessert.

Okay, if you’re a glutton for punishment, here you go. I do have to give credit to Amy Dacyczyn, writer of the wonderful Tightwad Gazette books. I didn’t copy her recipe, but I did remember that she’d turned a discarded piece of fruit into an “apple crisp” and that gave me an idea of what to do with a one-bite apple.

It’s getting harder to find tasty apples. Red Delicious apples used to be good, but they’ve gotten rather mealy in texture over the years, so I’ve switched to Galas and Fujis. Unfortunately, the last time I went to the grocery store, they didn’t have any Galas or Fujis. So I decided to be adventurous and buy a green apple. I have no idea what kind it was, just that it was bright and shiny and tasty-looking. I bought two.

Those of you who are actual cooks have probably figured out where this is going.

The next day, I pulled one of my lovely green apples out of the fridge, sat down at my computer and took a bite. And promptly spat the chunk of apple out on the keyboard.

I had heard the phrase “baking apple” before, I’d just never before known why some apples were “eating” apples and some were “baking.” Now I know. Baking apples are T-A-R-T.

I looked at the apple. Except for the single bite, it was a perfectly good apple. A shame to just chunk it. Against my principles. What to do? Well, if it was too tart to eat, the solution would be to sweeten it somehow, yes? The phrase “apple crisp” floated into my brain. If I recalled correctly, Amy’s description had involved some type of sugar (or was it syrup?) and some kind of... Bread? Oatmeal? Crumbly stuff?

I bent my powerful mind to the problem. Ten minutes later, the powerful mind have come up with nothing, I went to check the kitchen for inspiration. And suddenly realized I finally had a use for the last cup of multi-grain cereal in the box. You know, the stuff that’s still reasonably fresh, but it's been smashed into such small pieces that if you pour milk on it, it’ll be mush in thirty seconds? I chopped the apple up into small pieces, put it in one of my little silicon panikins and poured the cereal dregs over it. Now I needed a sweetener. I found what looked like a chunk of grainy concrete in the fridge that turned out to be a slab of brown sugar. Took a hammer to it. (Put a dish towel over it and tap gently.) Stuck some in a coffee cup, added a little water, came back a few minutes later and poured the resulting rather chunky syrup over the apple/cereal mixture. Stirred it up and stuck it in the toaster oven. Temperature? Somewhere between 200 and 300 degrees. Came back ten minutes later, stirred the mixture, cooked it another few minutes, turned the toaster oven off, came back twenty minutes later and tried the concoction.

It was DELICIOUS! And another way to get fruit into my “I only like meat and starch” body.

I’m going to chop up the other green apple, freeze the pieces and get another box of cereal. So in another week or so, I can enjoy another delectable Apple Crisp ala Sykes.

Eat your heart out, Amy.

On a Lighter Note - Why I Write Articles About Finance, Not Cooking

Some one asked me recently if I knew any good, inexpensive recipes.

She’s asking the wrong person. I watch Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares because I’m interested in problem solving, not food. (Besides, ol' Gordon's kind of cute.)

My level of cooking is anything but sophisticated. I make this claim because every time I pick up a newly published cookbook and read the ingredients list, I either don’t have the faintest idea what the listed items are, or they’re so expensive it would be cheaper to just haul myself down to the nearest bistro and enjoy a night out. Mushrooms must always be Shitaake or Portobello. (Portabello? The mushrooms that come in big slabs.) Ka-ching. Salt must always be sea salt. Ka-ching. You have to use herbs that I’ve never heard of and they must always be fresh, (at $4 per oz.) The cheese must always be from the milk of Alpine-pastured, rare-species goats, KA CHING! And what the hell is arugula? Arugala? (Okay, I don't know how to spell any of this stuff.)

There’s a antique mall near where I live and I like to go in and browse. Every once in a while I’ll pick up a fifty-year old cook book and find ingredients like: potatoes, carrots, lettuce, mushrooms, butter, flour, celery, roast beef, and for those who like to live life to the fullest, a “dash” of wine. Oo-la-la! I always find myself remembering that Mom fed me this kind of food and—this may just be nostalgia for a fairly pleasant childhood—it tasted pretty darn good.

I suppose one could take these recipes and update them a bit, substituting trans-fat free oil for lard, for example, to see if that works. (My friend who loves to cook informs me that it wouldn’t.) I’ve just never bothered. I’m the kind of person who just makes things up as she goes, and if I eat it and it tastes good and I’m still alive the next morning, I do my best to remember what I threw into the pot the night before. So I can do it again a few days later.

Sometimes, according to my friends, the results can be a bit bizarre. For example, that same friend absolutely refuses to even taste one of my favorite concoctions, macaroni and cheese, with onions and lima beans stirred in, the whole cooked or baked until the mac and cheese is crusty. I love the stuff. She shudders at the very thought.

Still, I suppose these experiments could count as original recipes and I hereby offer one up, with no guarantees.

First, let me explain that most of my ‘recipes” are created when I look in my fridge and find I’ve run out of those items I usually eat. What follows is a careful examination of what is there, and a careful consideration of the question: “If I throw a little of this and a bit of this and a handful of that in a pot and cook it, will it taste good?”

Here’s one such combo that did, and I still make it...and like it...and have survived eating it a number of times.

Take a frying pan. Add a squirt of oil. (You expected precise measurements?) What kind of oil? Whatever you have. While it heats up, chop up the last little chunk of onion in the vegetable drawer. And the still-good half-a-tomato. And the quarter-of-a-green pepper. And the meat off one of the two chicken legs that you stuck in the freezer a few days ago, after you cooked a whole roast chicken for dinner. And the last handful of frozen corn left in the package. Throw everything but the tomatoes in the frying pan, medium heat.
Brown everything . While it’s browning, browse through the seasoning shelf. Chili powder? Why not? A few shakes worth. The cream colored powdered fajita seasoning? Toss a capful in. Add the tomatoes, which gives the stuff enough liquid to start making a sauce. Turn down the heat. (How far down? Enough so that the stuff doesn’t start burning.)

Grab a few frozen tortillas out of the freezer. Put them on a plate, upend another plate and put that on top, put this in the microwave. (What, you thought I’d have a tortilla warmer?) Do not turn the microwave on yet. Turn the heat off on the frying pan.

Look for other stuff to add. In the pantry, a can of black beans. Why not? Drain, rinse, add two handfuls to the frying pan. Turn on the microwave for fifteen seconds. Check tortillas. If they are still cold, try another fifteen seconds. While waiting, look for more stuff to add. Aha! A handful of chopped cheese in the fridge. (What kind? Whatever is there, of course.) A half an avocado. Mashed, spread lengthwise across the center of the now-steamed tortillas. Add a sprinkle of the chopped cheese.

Take a spoonful of sour cream (very useful stuff) and add it to the frying pan. Turn on the heat for a minute and stir until you have a thick sauce. Turn off the pan, spread the mixture along the center of the tortillas, roll the tortillas, cook (still on the same plate) in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the cheese and you have —food! Takes about ten minutes, uses maybe three dollars worth of food, serves three and you have one frying pan, two plates, one drainer and two spoons to wash.

Don’t overdo the chili powder.

Groceries: Sweet, Sweet Store Brands II

How much can you save by buying store brands instead of national brands?
Here are a few examples: (These store-brands are all products that I have bought and used.)

Hy-Top is Brookshire’s store brand.

Apples & Cinnamon instant oatmeal, 10 packet, 12.3 net oz box.
Quaker Oats, $3.39
Hy-Top, $1.69

Steak Sauce 10 oz bottle.
Heinz 57, $4.49
Hy-Top, $1.78










Great Value is the Wal-Mart store brand.

Calcium Fortified Orange Juice from Concentrate, 64 fluid oz.
Minute Maid, $2.93
Great Value, $2.08









Freezer Bags, 20 count, quart size.
Ziploc, $2.37
Great Value, $1.12





$13.18 -National brands
$6.67 - Store brands
$6.51- Savings

Four items, items that anyone might buy, and just by going with the store brand on these alone, you would save $6.51. But suppose you bought ten or twenty store versions on your weekly run to the grocery store? You could easily save $30 or more, for a monthly savings of
almost $130 and a yearly savings of more than $1500.

Savings like that are worth trying a store brand. I will say this: If you try a store brand with the attitude that “I’m being forced to do this, and I know it’ll be awful”....

.... it will be awful. In your opinion, at any rate. But if your attitude is “Boy, I hope I like this as well, because I’d love to save all that money!” chances are you will like the store brand and you will indeed save all that money. If you want to be absolutely sure your preconceived notions aren't affecting your decision, get the store brand before you run out of your national brand, then have a friend help you do your very own “blind” taste test. If you can honestly tell the difference and you really think the national brand tastes better, buy it with my blessing.

I'll also say this: mustard is mustard, but some foods involve a mixture of tastes. Chili, for example. I buy Wolf Brand Chili. I've tried store brands (and I've tried Hormel) and I just like Wolf Brand best. When there is an actual difference in ingredients, try the store brand , then buy what you really think tastes best.....and hope it's the store brand!

Sweet, Sweet Store Brands

One of the easiest ways to cut your grocery bill is to, whenever possible, buy store brands instead of national brands A store brand is simply an item sold under a label specific to that store. For Wal-Mart, it’s Great Value. For Brookshire’s, it’s Hy-Top. For Albertson’s it's...well, Albertson’s.

I was watching a cable show the other day that featured a gentlemen billed as an expert at helping people fix their desperate financial situations.

In my humble opinion, he didn’t do a very good job. Yes, he showed that week’s client that she was going broke fast spending more each month than she made, and he worked up a budget for her....but he did little to change her attitudes towards money and how she spent it. One example? He told her to buy store brands, but never really went into detail why. In one scene, the lady is shown in the supermarket trying to pick ketchup....and her reaction to the store brand is “Ugh! I’m not going to buy that stuff!”

Why do we react that way? Because the makers of national brands spend a lot of money persuading us that there is a vast difference in quality between their products and and the store-brand equivalent.

Sometimes there is. Very, very often, there isn’t.

Let’s face it. Frozen peas are pretty much frozen peas. I’ve read that sometimes the peas in a store-brand bag aren’t of “uniform” size , though I’ve personally never seen any evidence of that. But even if true, so what? We’re buying peas, not matching pearls for a Tiffany necklace.

Pasturized milk....is pasturized milk. (I once had a store clerk tell me that the national brand they sold and their own store brand came from the same supplier, they just got different labels in the packaging plant.) Raisins are raisins. Mustard is mustard. And store brand mustard and store brand ketchup taste just fine on my hamburgers, thank you very much.

Salad dressing, instant oatmeal, raisins, mustard, milk, instant tea, orange juice, cereal, steak sauce....those are just a few of the store-brands currently in my pantry and fridge....and I'm pretty picky about the taste of what I eat. If it didn't taste as good--and in my opinion, sometimes better--than the highly advertised national version, I wouldn't buy it.

How much does buying store brands save you? I’ll show you some examples, complete with pictures and prices, in Part II of “Sweet, Sweet Store Brands.”

Drowning in Hype - Footnote

I read the paper each day, and when I opened it to the business section this morning, I had to start laughing. There was a short piece from the Associated Press about how Pepsi-Co has promised to spell out the initials P.W.S., found on its AquaFina water bottles, which mean...Public Water Source. In other words, municipal tap water. The same group that won this concession from Pepsi, Corporate Accountability, is also asking Coca-Cola to do same thing on its Dasani water bottles.

The point? What I’ve already pointed out in my original “Drowning in Hype” article. Don’t assume that because water is bottled and heavily advertised it comes from moutain springs or exotic aquifers.

Check the label for the source. Then see how (or even if) the water’s been filtered. Or just buy jugs of distilled water from the supermarket and put them in your own bottles. Or add a filter to your home water faucet ....and drink your own “P.W.S.” water!

Still Drowning

A short addendum to “Drowning in Hype”....

My local newspaper ran a piece a few days ago on the “bottled or tap” water debate.

The writer assumed that no one would drink water right out of the tap, so the choice she presented was between filter-equipped water pitchers, hook-to-the-faucet devices and bottled water. Fair enough, especially since she gave a cost-per-hundred gallon comparison that I found useful.

The water pitcher was $25, with six replacement filters costing $27. The cost per hundred gallons, as estimated by this writer, was $35. The cost for the hook-to-the-faucet device? $34 per hundred gallons.

So far, so good. But then I read the next paragraph and started laughing.

The writer suggested that if someone wanted to “splurge” on their water, they should buy a certain “natural artesian water” that comes in “pretty square bottles bearing tropical flower designs.”

Cost for 100 gallons? More than $ 670.

Oh, yeah. You pay almost twenty times as much to get a pretty label.

But, Cathy, you say, this is natural artesian water. It’s got to be twenty times better, right?

Really? Artesian simply refers to water that’s pumped from a hole in the ground, instead of out of a river or lake. There’s no guarantee that such water is pure. (In fact, in my part of Texas right now, there’s a lot of worry about pollution leaking from both natural gas and waste injection wells into our underground water tables)

As for “natural”.....I hate to say this, but I have a large pile of manure back behind my barn that I could, in good conscience, label as “100% natural.”

Neither term—natural or artesian— guarantees that the water is clean.

Clean water should be your goal. Pure water is what you should drink...and you can get it for a lot less than $6.70 a gallon!

Drowning in Hype

Which would you rather drink?

I’m looking at three types of bottled water. One contains sulfates (10), chlorides(4) and nitrates (1). Are those dangerous? I don’t know. Are we talking parts per thousand? Per million? I don’t know that either, because the label doesn’t say. I also can’t find anything on the label that shows how this water was purified, or indeed, if it has gone through any type of purification at all. The water itself is from Europe.

The second type also lists no purification methods, and uses water from Texas.

The third type has been gone through the following purifications: carbon filtration, reverse osmoses, distillation, UV treatment, microfiltration and ozonation. In other words, this water is about as pure as water can get. Sheer H2O.

Which do you think is most expensive?
The first type of water is 5¢ per fluid oz. The second is 1.2¢ per fluid oz.The third type comes in a gallon jug and costs .5¢ per fluid oz. Note where that decimal point is. This water costs a tenth of the price of the first water.

How can this be? How can a purer water cost so much less?

Because Wal-Mart doesn’t spend millions of dollars advertising it’s Great Value house-brand jugs of distilled water.

Evian, on the other hand, spends lots of money on advertising.

That’s right. The first type of water is Evian, which, says the label, is from a spring “in the French Alps.” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? And it may very well be that this water is very, very clean. But we shouldn’t assume that just because it comes from a spring in a European mountain range. I mean, I find myself wondering where Heidi’s goats go to drink. (Okay, Heidi and her goat herd live in the Swiss Alps. But I bet there are goats and cows and all sorts of thirsty critters in the French Alps, too.)

The second type of water is Ozarka, and this particular bottle comes from two springs, in Roher and Mofit, Texas. Doesn’t quite have the pizzaz of French Alp water, does it? (No snow-covered mountains, but there is a very beautiful painting of rushing water flowing between pristine green banks on the label.)

Again, this may be very clean water, but bubbling out from the earth doesn’t in and of itself guarantee that water is cleaner than multi-purified and distilled water. (Actually, considering that last year there were reports of springs drying up all over Texas, the thought of Texas spring water doesn’t seem particularly appetizing. Just my humble opinion.)

I looked at other waters as well. Some advertised themselves as coming from an "aquifer deep in the earth.” Well, the water I usually drink comes from an aquifer deep in the earth--via wells dug by my local water district-- and I get it by turning on my faucet. Some companies tout the fact that their water is “minerally free.” Surprisingly, others proclaim that their product has “added minerals.” So I guess there are good minerals and bad minerals. Darned if I know which is which.


The bottle on the right, according to its label, contains water "filtered though a state-of-the-art purification system." It also contains a "negligible amount" of salt. The jug on the left contains water that has gone through "carbon filtration, reverse osmoses, distillation, UV treatment, microfiltration and ozonation." Decide for yourself which water is cleaner. Assuming that they're equal in terms of purity, why would you pay 79¢ for the 12 oz. on the right when the gallon on the left costs 64¢? (If you pick the bottle on the right because it will fit in your car's cup holder, fine...but I'd suggest you refill it from the 64¢ jug!)


Others claim sources even more exotic than snow-kissed mountains, including a relatively new brand from Fiji. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Waving palms, trickling waterfalls....and four government coups in the last twenty years. I find myself wondering if there’s a Fijian equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration, and if those folks are paying attention to the purity of the local water or wondering if they’ll survive the next change of government.

The point I’m making? Beautiful labels and exotic-sounding sources do not necessarily mean that water is purer, cleaner or better for you than the water that comes from your tap. In fact, some bottled water may be that from your tap, since some companies simply bottle city water. (Look for the word “municipal” on the label.)

So ignore the ads featuring murmuring brooks and glistening waterfalls. If you don’t like the taste of your tap water (or you don’t trust your local water district to keep it clean) don’t buy the pricey stuff for the equivalent of a buck a glass or more. Get a filter for your kitchen faucet. Or buy distilled water. I’m willing to bet your local grocery store has it for significantly less than a $1 a gallon.

Would You Pay 89¢ for a Tiny Amount of Salty Water?

Two ounces of water is about equal to two swallows. Would you pay 89¢ for that, especially if you knew it was laced with salt and various chemicals?

Don’t be so quick to say “Of course not!” You may be doing exactly that, or, to put it another way, paying considerably more per pound for fresh meat than the stated price.

Why? Because many pre-cut, pre-packaged meats inow come injected with various percentages of water and “other ingredients," including salt, flavorings and other chemicals.

Supposedly, this is done to “enhance” or “premarinate” the meat, since today’s leaner cuts have less flavor than the richly marbled meats of the past. Well and good; but when you start calculating the actual cost of such “enhancements” you may well decide to pass on such cuts and marinate your meats yourself, espcially if you’re trying to limit the amount of salt in your diet.

For example, a recent check of both the deli and meat cases in my local supermarket turned up these examples.

Cooked Ham: $2.99 a lb, 33% water and “added ingredients.” 33% is one-third of a pound or about 5.3oz and you’re paying 99¢ for that. ( One-third of $2.99) That also means that only two-thirds of every pound you buy is meat, so you’re actually paying $1.49 for one-third lb of meat, or nearly $4.50 per pound.

Sun Dried Tomato Turkey Breast, listed at $5.99 lb, with 15% added water and other ingredients. That means that approximately one-seventh of a pound of this meat, or about 2.4oz, is water, and costs 89¢. ($5.99 divided by 7.) ) Divide the price by six (since only six-sevenths of this product is actual meat) then multiply that figure by seven and you’ll get the price of the meat alone of $6.98 a pound.

Bone-In Ham Steak Slice, $3.29 a lb, 25% water and other ingredients. This works out to 4oz per pound of water, salt and chemicals, at a cost of 82¢, and an actual cost of the meat of $4.38 per pound.

Want to pay those kinds of prices? It’s up to you. But you should at least glance at the label on all prepackaged meat....then decide if you really want to pay the listed price for meat plumped up with water and salt.