Affordable, high-quality food: $1 a day is all it takes

Over the last couple of months, we've acquired our orders from Big Coulee Farms, our supplier of pastured beef, pork, chicken, and turkey. We were excited to have our turkeys in time for Thanksgiving, and just last week, we had our first meal of pork chops in many months. We only ordered chickens in bulk last year, so when Rusty and Agnes ran out of pork chops we were out of luck until our own order was ready this year. They tasted even better than I remember them. Sorry, there is no photo, we all ate them before I even thought of breaking out the camera or iPhone for a photo. Here is a shot of the freezer and the pork. I'll try to add a photo of the finished dinner product in a future post.

Freezer full of goodness.

Just yesterday I called BCF and spoke to Vicky to order some eggs for this coming week. It was then that she informed me our split side of beef would also be ready for pick-up. When I got off the telephone, I added up our total costs for the bulk orders that will last us until next fall (note: this is not counting bi-weekly eggs in this total). It breaks down like this:

• 8 chickens ~$250
• 3 turkeys ~ $280
• 1 pig $594
• beef, split side (1/4 beef) ~ $507
• total = ~ $1,630

I don't have the totals for the poultry close to hand, so include the "~" as a qualifier in my totals. Bear in mind that each of our chickens can easily last for two meals for our famiy of four, and then be turned into stock, the turkeys are 18-19 pounds, our pork was just shy of 99 pounds, and we will be getting more than 60 pounds of beef, I figure. Quite a few meals of humanely, naturally-raised, pasture-fed livestock. It can't get much better than that.

One criticism that people level against eating pasture-raised animals is that the costs are prohibitively expensive. Yes, I realize that not everyone has a large freezer. But given what I am about to describe, it may be worth the initial start-up expense. These simple calculations show that even our large order, when considered in a per day, per person manner, works out to be pretty darned cost effective. You be the judge.

For $1,630 this works out to about $135 per month, about $30 per week, or $1.11 per day, per person for our family of four. When I look at it this way, it makes me wonder why it took us so long to "see the light" and start feeding our family this way. The next time that you hear someone talking about how they can't afford to eat real, healthy food, ask yourself this: Do you spend $1 per day on what you consume? Of course you do. Shouldn't you get your money's worth?

UPDATE 17 November 2012: I just picked up our split side of beef - it came to 82.4 lbs! So we have we now have about 275 pounds of pasture-raised beef, pork, chicken, and turkey in our freezer. 

New Website for Big Coulee Farms!

My friends at Big Coulee Farms have a brand new website! Check it out, and order the most amazing pastured beef, pork, chicken, turkeys, and pastured eggs from them! You'll be happy you did. 

Ethical livestock: Big Coulee Farms

This is the brochure for the family who raises our eggs and meat. Click on the following images for details of pricing and products available. You can check them out at the St. Albert Farmer's Market Starting in June. They also have bi-weekly deliveries available to St. Albert and also to Edmonton. Call Vicky for details.

Where I'm at

I haven't posted in a while; too busy with work, home renos, and a lack of interesting workouts for the past bit as I am nursing a sore knee. Because of this, I started a new joint formula supplement called SierraSil that is supposed to decrease inflammation by providing trace minerals that we are deficient in. I'll post later on how that works out.

I have received Mark Sisson's "Primal Cookbook" recently though, and tried his indirect method to grill steak (to help keep the free radicals and charring down). It worked great, and had our top sirloin about medium in around 20 minutes. Very tender, too. Unfortunately, the camera was not located in time to snap a photo! Next time...

Here's the deal as usual for the first bit and then the start of recovery week(s?) with mostly walking and swiming:

Monday 7 June: Walk 20 min; Swim 1,000 yds, 20:11
Tuesday 8 June: Walks X 2, 45, 20 min; Walk up 9 flights of stairs to an appointment (maybe the problem with my knee)
Wed 9 June: Walks X 2, 20, 45 min; LHT/Wicked Awesome Dumbbell Workout
Thursday 10 June: Walks X 2, 25 min each; Ashtanga Yoga at University, 50 min
Friday 11 June: Walks X 2, 20 min each; Mowed lawn; Started removing baseboards and acasing
Saturday 12 June: Walks X 2, 20, 25 mins; Remove baseboards and casing
Sunday 13 June: Walks X 3, 20, 30, 20 mins
Monday 14 June: Walks X 3, 25, 15, 25 mins; Painting
Tuesday 15 June: Walks X 2, 20, 45 mins; Swim 1,000 m, 24:15
Wednesday 16 June: Walks X 2, 20, 15 min
Thursday 17 June: Walks X 2, 20, 40 min; Swim sprints (500 yd warm up in 9:57, 6 X 25 yds in 18 s on 60 s gos, 200 yds cool down)

I hope that between resting the knee from weight, yoga and sprinting combined with the mineral supplement, that the pain will subside and I can resume some more vigorous activities. I'll just have to wait and see.

Out with the old

Yummy omelet and mixed greens salad; nasty picture. I think the lens on my Treo Pro has gone south.

Yummy sautéed European wiener (preservative and filler free, from the Grapevine Deli), mushroom and green onion with mixed green salad; amazing picture from my 9 year old's Sony Cyber Shot! I think I'll have to keep using Junior's camera from now on. I haven't been doing my food shots justice.

Excellent bacon and eggs; terrible hazy shot.

Same meal as above, still excellent even with no flash!

Food Fair: Shepherd's Pie, Bavarian Smokies, and Full Fat Yoghurt

There were some yummy dishes whipped up this week. Here are a few from last Sunday's dinner. Shepherd's Pie made with ground beef, onions, carrots and parsnips topped with mashed potatoes mixed with butter, Parmesan, Romano and cheddar cheese baked for about 45 minutes at 350 F. Yummy! Dessert was black berries and strawberries with cream.

On Thursday I found these great Bavarian smokies with no preservatives or fillers at my local deli, the Grapevine Deli, in downtown St. Albert. They were amazing. I had them on Thursday (Upper photos with carrots, parsnips, green onions, sauerkraut and hot mustard) and again tonight (Lower photos with mushrooms and onions sautéed in butter with butternut squash and spinach salad with dark chocolate with almonds for dessert!). 

I leave Tuesday for a conference for 6 days. I hope I can keep up the solid real food selections when I am away.

Time keeps flying

Once again the week passed by in a blur. Lots happening at work and at home. I visited the kids' school twice, once to talk about my work (that seemed to go well) and once with the SO to see informational/fundraising presentations by Daughter #1's grade (very well done I must say!). Things are ramping up a bit at work with talk and poster preparations for a local conference this coming Friday and then an international conference the following week. This on top of the usual manuscript editing, lecture preparation and lecturing, midterm administration etc. All in all, running on all cylinders. At least everything seems to be going more or less as planned.

On the exercise side of things, the workouts have been pretty good, even great. The only slight hiccup this past week is that my knees are giving me a bit of a twinge here and there. Nothing major, just letting me know that they are there and that I should pay attention to them. I am not certain what is causing this but I have played around with wearing my orthotics and, for the most part as I have been doing for a while, going without them. I don't notice any difference in the knee department but I do feel like the orthotics seem to overstretch my plantar fascia.

One thing I am thinking of trying this week is to replace my LHT/TUL/SS workout using weights with a bodyweight workout, in case the weighted squats and/or deadlifts are aggravating my knees. Richard over at Free the Animal recently posted about changing up his LHT routine and the positive results that he felt. Reading this and with my knees talking to me, I figure I should give it a whirl. Not to mention that I have been on the weights for a while now, and with reducing my LHT workouts to once a week I miss the bodyweight workouts that I used to do in addition to the LHT weight workouts. I came up with a couple of bodyweight/HIIT type workouts that take between 10-15 minutes of actual exercising and will work just about every muscle group and, if history holds, will leave me out of breath and wishing I was on the weights! I'll post again to update with what specifically I use for the workout; I plan to do this tomorrow morning.

In the midnight hour (and the rest of the week, too)

Given the time I am finishing this post and the subject of the photo above, I figured the title of the post was fitting. Not to mention, I haven't been away on purpose at this time of night very often lately.

I can't believe that here it is Saturday again. The week was filled with the usual things like taking the kids to school and to their activities and the normal work stuff (lectures, manuscript editing/writing etc.). We also had a prospective graduate student visit the lab so there were meetings and meals out to chat and for her to get to know what we are all about. On Friday, I participated in a "work/life balance forum" for the graduate students in the department. I didn't feel particularly "balanced", but my wife and I seem to make it work most times, so I guess I had something to offer.

Speaking of balance, I did manage to maintain a good diet and keep up the exercise in spite of the busier than normal week. When going out to dinner I chose the grilled tuna salad for dinner and for lunch the next day wings with sweet potato fries. The fries were "lightly breaded" with something (likely a grain product) but on balance there was a higher sweet potato content than whatever the breading was made from. Tonight there were some wings and sweet potato fries again (habit? rut? you be the judge) and then some dry ribs. There was no breading on these fries (different restaurant) but there was something that may have been corn meal on the dry ribs. I need to ask about these things before ordering, but again, there was way more rib than the light coating, whatever it was made of.

There were also some fitness activities of many varieties this past week.

Here's the (long) deal:

Sunday:

• About a 30 minute walk at a brisk pace with the dogs.

Monday:

• LHT/TUL/SS;
• Bent over rows - X 13, TUL = 1:30, 60 lb barbell
• Standing overhead press - X 7.5, TUL = 1:09, 60 lb barbell (need to keep slow)
• Deadlifts - X 13, TUL = 2:31, 70 lb barbell (stopped when form broke down)
• Bench press - X 8, TUL = 56 s, 90 lb barbell
• Squats - X 10, TUL = 1:15, 80 lb barbell
• Curls - X 6.5, TUL = 59 s, 2 X 25 lb dumbbells

• I also went for a walk with the dogs in the morning (~ 40 min) and at night (~ 20 min brisk).

Second half of the week and weekend round up

Thursday the SO and I walked the kids and dogs to school. Later on I channelled some of daughter #1's sprinting fever and took Finaly and Libby along with the SO to the park at the kids' school for some outdoor sprinting in the snow, the first sprinting outside since last fall. .It was a great day, bright, sunny and right about +4 C.

Here's the deal:

• walk to the park ~ 10 minutes for warm up; stretch
• 6-7 X ~15s/~ 60 m @ 50% with about 20-30s rest between each
• 6 X ~12s/~60 m @ 85% with about 60 s rest between the first 3 and then less between the last 3
• walk home from the park ~ 10 minutes for cool down

Later on we walked to and from the school again to retrieve the kids.

On Friday, we (the SO and I) walked the kids to school and went for a bit more of a walk afterward (~ 25 minutes) and then I made it to the University and had a very good 1,000 m swim.

Here the swimming deal:

• 250 yds freestyle
• 250 kick (mostly all flutter kick, but some whip kick)
• 350 yds pull
• 250 yds free (a length or two of breast mixed in here)

It was pretty fair considering I am only swimming about once a week, down from the 2-3 times I used to swim.

Saturday I took it easy and just went for a walk with the SO of about 25 minutes before the pub night fundraiser - I had more confirmation that I am not young any more, and after that little excursion, I think it is just as well!

On Sunday the dogs and I took our kids and our friends kids (who slept over) sledding at the park. Here's a shot of our very own future skeleton racer, daughter #2, literally "heading down" the hill.

Later on that afternoon I cut my rest between lifting workouts from 7 to 6 days and did my LHT/SS (Lift Heavy Things/Super Slow) workout, with a couple of twists. Instead of only doing the "Big 5" a la Body By Science, I added 2 more exercises to make it a "Big 7".

Here's the LHT/SS deal:

• bent over row - TUL 1:06, 13 reps, 70 lb barbell
• standing overhead press - TUL 56 s, 7.5 reps, 70 lb barbell
• dead lift - TUL 2:00, 12 reps, 70 lb barbell
• bench press - TUL 1:26, 12 reps, 70 lb barbell
• squats - TUL 1:35, 14 reps, 70 lb barbell
• curls - (a) TUL 27 s, 2.5 reps, 70 lb barbell (b) TUL 1:43, 12.5 reps, 2 X 20 lb dumbbells
• pull ups - TUL ~ 20 s, 2.5 reps

I need to keep my form, but did a better job at it this time. I also need to start my watch before the barbell is on my shoulders for squats! For this workout I defined "failure" as when my form seriously broke down. This may not be "true" failure, but I think I will still get benefits while keeping myself safe and injury free by maintaining good form. Tomorrow, maybe I'll do some yoga in the morning.

Here's a couple of shots of my tasty brunch; a red onion, blue cheese and Hungarian salami omelette. This with a French press of my Greg Danks Burundi coffee and 18% cream was just about as close as you could get to a perfect brunch meal.

Oh, and here's a shot of Finlay watching the Canada-USA Olympic hockey game. His interest reflects the way the game went for Team Canada.

Family Day and Valentine's Day Long Weekend

After I walked the kids (and dogs) to school in the morning, I managed to get some work done on a manuscript and then make it to the pool at the University on Friday for a steady 1,000 yard (20 minute) swim before an afternoon meeting. A good start to the day all around.

I started yesterday off great, receiving the new Blue Rodeo Double CD, The Things We Left Behind, and a large, dark chocolate heart from the local Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory from the SO - thanks honey! I reciprocated with the strawberries from the same local shop pictured here.

For lunch I fried up some French fries (done in bacon grease - no photo, I ate them too quickly!) and with half of an avocado and some fresh cut pineapple for dessert. After lunch the dogs and I went for a nice 40 minute (plus?) walk on a breeze, brisk day, before the SO and I went out for a fancy Valentine's Day dinner at a local restaurant. (I may blog about this experience later.)

We had a great time and lots of laughs. I think she is a closet food critic. My meal was 98% Primal, with only a small stick of phyllo pastry invading my yam and potato soup. My main course was bison rib eye (rare) served over tasty mashed potatoes, asparagus, yellow beet, bok choy, with a fruit compote and mustard sauce. More about the meal in a later post. The day ended with the normal "all business" dog stroll before bed.

The dogs and I went for a brisk 25 minute walk in the bright sunshine this afternoon. When I returned, I made this lunch that I dreamed up (and drooled about) on the walk; Smoked oysters on radishes or cucumber with old cheddar cheese, and avocado, polished off with a couple of squares of dark, 85% Lindt chocolate. Yummy!

End of the week, start of the weekend!

Wednesday was a great, relaxing day (on the exercise front anyway) with a nearly 60 minute walk in the morning with the dogs (the duration extended in part due to 2 dropped dog boots and associated back-tracking) followed by a great Ashtanga yoga practice at noon. My feeling of "Zen" didn't last as long as I might have liked, but it's a process, right?

Yesterday I just tooled around the nearby "home" blocks in the morning and at night with the dogs for some fresh air and for them to make a few "deposits" and send their, as someone on the MEC site once commented, to send their "p-mail". I'll have to take them for a longer walk today, but limited my activity to those short walks made it restful in spite of working and then delivering a lecture.

Today I have an early morning talk (9:00 am) to attend, will flounder around the pool for a few lengths (update to follow), meet up with some colleagues at the University and then take Libby for her shots at the vet with the kids and the SO. And then there's also the ongoing reading, reviewing and editing that I need to continue to make headway on.

Here are a couple of "creations". One is a nice mix of quinoa, halibut and hot sauce with a large salad with Red Swiss Chard; the other is a "tropical" snack that I made the kids the other night (that I helped to eat, of course!).

Custard!

Not bad for my first time. A Better Homes and Gardens modification to make it sort of Primal like at Mark's Daily Apple.

• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup milk (could have used almond milk but I had none on hand - had to go with skim)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon
• beat eggs, combine with milk and vanilla, top with nutmeg and cinnamon
• cook at 325 for 45 minutes in the oven in a water bath (baking dishes filled with 1 inch of boiling water before placing into preheated oven) until a knife comes out clean

Et voila! Yummy!

Rest day

From exercise, at least, it was a restful day. (Unfortunately the same can not be said for work etc. but that's life and the weekend is almost here!) The dogs and I went for a slow walk after dropping the kids at school, about 45 minutes of so in a crisp -20 C (with the newly exchanged down jacket that performed perfectly, I might add!). Then I did some work, went to the University, did some more work, taught a lecture, came home...and cooked this dish that started as left over roast beef and veggies and ended up as a curry.

Follow up: After a 20 minute putz around the block so the dogs could do their thing, and thinking about some of the great points in this post by Leo at Zen Habits (that I was pointed to from Fitness Spotlight that I also read) I thought I should add this as we all can use some more Zen in our lives. Namaste.

Finn yoga and buttercup squash soup

Had a relaxing day starting with a steaming pot of El Salvador Pacamara coffee and my "Daily dose of Bliss" 40 minute yoga practice with Eion Finn'sDVD.

Later on I made some crazy good Buttercup (not butternut) squash soup. I overcooked (read: dried out) some squash yesterday, so I made it into soup today. It wasvery easy and wicked tasty. I checked out some recipes online and just took the bits I needed, keeping it very simple with only

Here's how:

1. in a large pot, sautee 3 cloves of garlic and about 1/3 of a diced onion in 2 tablespoons of butter (cultured, non-salted); add some ground sea salt and ground pepper
2. add cooked and hand-mashed squash to pot
3. wisk in 4 cups chicken stock and about 1 cup of 18% cream
4. bring up to heat; add some ground sea salt and ground pepper to taste
5. puree for about 1 minute in blender and eat

Here's what it looked like.

After all that cooking, we were invited to our friends' house for dinner! We had a good time and some laughs (and a good dinner); the soup will have to wait until tomorrow night with our roast beef dinner...

The dogs and I went for a saunter around home this afternoon and will go for another short one tonight before bed. We all seem to settle in for a sleep better by taking a slow walk right before bed. I need the rest, as I have a LHT workout tomorrow morning, and I am attempting to do a super slow set keeping track of Time Under Load (TUL). Gulp!

Sprinting into the weekend

I had a reasonably busy Friday of seeing the SO off early, dropping one kid at a track try out, walking the other kid to the school, getting some work done, running errands, booking some flights for a conference and a trip to Costco for some essentials (like 3 dozen Omega 3 eggs, for instance). I also worked in sprint workout at the University's indoor track.

Here's the deal:

• 5 min jog warm up
• stretching
• 6 X ~ 20 s sprints @ ~ 60-70% on 60 s gos (6 minutes total)
• 6 X ~ 20 s sprints @ ~ 85%+ with ~ 60-90 s rest (~ 13 minutes total)
• 5 minute cool down, run/walk/run/walk/run alternate laps
• stretching

The whole thing was all done in less than 30 minutes. I definitely got a great workout. The only lasting effects one day later are some slightly tender Achilles tendons, but otherwise, pretty fine for an old guy.

The dogs and I and then the SO and I went for a short (~ 20-25 minute) walk last night and today, and I think I'll go for one tonight, too. Nutritionally today was great for a recovery day: bacon, eggs and a banana for breakfast with a French press of Dark French; chicken wings and a huge spinach salad for lunch; baked chicken breasts with some buttercup squash and steamed broccoli for dinner washed down with some yogurt and 90% dark chocolate. Yum and yum!

Tomorrow: Yoga for the impending, and increasing, leg stiffness, and coffee (lots) for grant reviewing, manuscript revising and whatever else needs doing.

Thursday night hockey

Not for me, but as per usual there was a game going at the neighborhood outdoor rink so I snapped a pick on my nightly stroll with my furry buds (about 33 minutes in the perfect -2 C weather).

Other than the walking I took it easy on the fitness front with just a short nearly 30 minute Rodney Yee yoga practice (for flexibility, nominally) done this morning after the SO left for work and before the kids were awake. I got them off to school and took a bit of a walk (30-40 minutes) and upon returning home I taught the remainder of the Indonesian Parcamara who was boss (delicious) whist completing some work at "Campus St. Albert" as I like to call our house. I went into the office following this for more work, teaching, meeting etc. When I returned home I cooked a great coho salmon steak (baked with butter, garlic and dill) and ate it with a large mixed green salad with olive oil and balsamic. No pics this time, I was too busy eating it!

Rise and shine and LHT

I was up early with the SO, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5:00 am, and saw her off to work. My arms were still dead from the swim sprints yesterday, but heck, you only live once. So at 6:00 am, with the dogs still sleeping soundly in our bed, I made my way to the basement to have my way with the weights (or the other way around, depending on your point of view). It was brief, pretty intense given the hour and yesterday's workout, and all in all, quite great.

Here's the deal:

• Bent over rows - 5 X 5 (70 lb barbell)
• Bench press - 5 X 5 (70 lb barbell - I know this is a bit weak)
• Pull ups - 5 X 5 (70 lb barbell - THIS was not weak and more than made up for the slack weight on bench)
• Squats - 5 X 5 (70 lb barbell - a little soft)

This did not take all that long (maybe 25 minutes). Some of the weights were a bit light, but given that my arms were a shade tender, not a bad call at all.

After walking the kids to school the dogs and I only braved the chill for about 15 minutes before calling it a morning. All this done before 9:30 am. Not bad. Oh yeah, then I got some work done at home, went to the University, delivered a lecture, etc. etc.

There were no photos of lunch or dinner but they were sweet Primal affairs: lunch of mixed greens, home made bacon bits from last night, half an avocado, pecans, cranberries with olive oil and balsamic vinegar - yum! Dinner was steamed broccoli and cauliflower (with real butter), some thick sliced fried ham (in its own fat) - yum yum!

Productive Monday

My SO got off to work, the kids got off to school, and then the dogs and I went for a nice 20 minute walk. We came back home, they went to sleep, and I got to work on a manuscript revision. I went to the University and had my first swim in a long time. I should have just done an easy 1000 m swim, but instead did sprints.

Here's the deal:

• 250 yd freestyle warmup (~ 4:43)
• 6 X 50 yd sprints (85-90% max) in about 40-48 s each (slower at the end) with about 60 s between each
• 250 yd freestyle cooldown (~ 5:00)

Total time about 22 minutes and nothing left in the tank.

Later on, after some more work at the University and child shuffling back home,

I made a sweet Primal dinner (ham and red onion hash with 2 eggs sunny side on top with a mixed greens, 6 year old cheddar, walnuts, cranberries, balsamic vinegar and olive oil salad) with similarly Primal dinner for the SO (ham and salad, no eggs). Yummy. Here's the evidence.

Then, on a roll, I rendered some bacon grease

from some smoked bacon purchased at the Grapevine Deli in St. Albert, a great local shop. It went well. I strained the grease through a coffee filter into a jar. Excellent, clear, yummy!

Just to round it all out, the dogs and I went for a 45 minute bedtime stroll.

Loving the new beans!

Greg Danks, my premium coffee supplier, recently dropped off a shipment a couple days ago. So far I have sampled the Indonesian Pacamara, Burundi and the Cuban Turquino (pictured below in all its glory). They are all excellent and all very unique. I also have Dark French to sample but given what these all taste like, I am expecting another winner!

Perhaps I will do a review of each one individually in a later post.

Here is a cool site that Garth sent me in this same vein.

I have a French press and I'm not afraid to use it!

This morning's brew is Grizzly Claw (dark) by Kicking Horse Coffee, made in the press, with 18% table cream. Time for another cup.