Well there is frozen veggies on there. Less veggies than Pop-Tarts though.

GROSS!

Does she even stop and think while she's dumping the cups of sugar in with the one KoolAid packet? About what that's doing to her children's health?

And there are more "dessert" items on here than anything else - Snickers ice cream bars? Keebler cookies?

Whaddya want to bet that if her children aren't obese now they will be in a matter of a year or two? All in the name of coupon competition.

I have to tell you, Amy-- I am a diehard dietary skeptic about this Taubes thing. I remain to be convinced that the entire medical establishment is wrong and he is right.

However...

I am a small female with genetic hypercholesterolemia. At my penultimate checkup with my GP, the cholesterol was 243. At my last checkup, after I had been trying to exercise more and eat a healthier diet, it had shot up to 278. "Screw this," I thought, and reverted to living the way I felt like, which incidentally included eating small portions of red meat and a lot of oil-soaked veggies, and not so darned much exercise.

I donated blood over Labor Day weekend, and they emailed me my serum cholesterol results: 202. Hoooooleeeeeey cow.

I am now rethinking the Taubes evidence. :)

I coupon like crazy too. WHile I am fine with my kids eating poptarts sometimes (they're skinny and active and need them) I also use my coupons for sausage, and yes veggies, and fruit, and lunchmeat, and oh, pretty much everything I buy. I typically save 30% of my total. A necessity with 4 kids.

I recently paid $.99 (stamp included) for 20 buy one case/get one case free of diapers. That was $255 worth of free diapers. I buy my coupons on Ebay in bulk.

Well, let's be a bit more generous. I know Amy is on the anti-carb kick, but she's a minority there. Here is perhaps a more generally acceptable commentary:

Healthy stuff

• Quaker Oats. Fine stuff, depending on what she makes out of it.
  
• Turkey Hill Iced Tea. I'm putting it up here, hoping that this is one of the brands with little or no sugar. Nothing wrong with Iced Tea.
  
• Dannon Coolision yogurt. Decent brand, nothing unhealthy about most yogurts.
  
• Progressor soup. Actually, making good soup is a lot of work. Decent brand, reasonably healthy stuff.
  
• Frozen biscuits. Nothing wrong with biscuits either.
  
• Green Giant frozen veggies. Good stuff. Flash frozen veggies are often even healthier than fresh ones, because they are frozen as they are being harvested.
  
• Old El Paso tortillas. Like the biscuits, fine stuff if you aren't an anti-carb person.
  
• Old El Paso taco seasoning. It's easier to do your own (chili powder, garlic, salt, other stuff to taste). But if you gotta buy it, why not?
  
• Old El Paso taco kit. It's hard to make your own taco shells. Dunno why she needs the seasoning separate, since it's also in the kit.
  
• Ground beef. Meat, read meat, yum.
  

Junk food

• Pop-Tarts. Junk food of the worst kind. How about toast or healthy cereal?
  
• Keebler cookies. Junk food.
  
• Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookie dough. Junk, and pre-prepped cookie dough tastes awful anyway. What's so hard about baking your own cookies anyway?
  
• Snickers ice cream bars. More junk.
  
• Saghettios. I have my childhood memories too, but really - cheap pasta in crappy sauce. Buy some spaghetti, boil it, toss on some chopped tomatoes, salt and spices.
  
• Tuna Helper. Overpriced, oversalted junk. What's hard about tuna?
  
• Kool-Aid Fun Fizz. Unless she bought sugar-free stuff, this is sugar water.
  
• Good Nites sleep pants. I sure wouldn't want to eat these. Would you?
  

I remain to be convinced that the entire medical establishment is wrong and he is right.

Yea, cause the govermnet paid scientist were the best in their class, and thats why they turned down working for real money and got a job wth an outfit that put horse trainers in charge of emergency reponse.

By the way are eggs healthy for you this year or unhealthy - they cant ever seem to make up their mind on that one

Its cheaper to but veggies at a farmers market - and with todays commerce system you'll usually have a better selection then at a supermarkets frozen ilse.

Also given the number of sugar laden things she bout I doubt the oats are goig to go into anything other than cookies

Also given the number of sugar laden things she bout I doubt the oats are goig to go into anything other than cookies.

No, she doesn't seem the type to make the cookies herself. Thus the Keeblers.

That is the most disgusting grocery list I've ever seen. Poor kids are going to be out of their minds, always hungry, and FAT - and then their kids will be the same, on it goes. Goodness, my daughter has so much to thank me for already (a loving mommy and daddy, healthy yummy food, roof over her head, books, no worries yet, life is good;)

I'm seriously hoping she's stockpiling this stuff because it won't go bad and they eat it from time to time. None of this is awful if done occasionally.

I agree with bradley13. There's a middle ground between letting your kids eat crap all day and putting them on a lowcarb, highfat diet. Neither approach is good for developing children. I am a little shocked not to see bread, milk, eggs, cheese, PB, lunchmeat, fruit, cereal, etc on this list-all relatively cheap and healthy staples that you'd think that kids would be eating on a regular basis regardless of what's on sale. On the other hand, maybe that's a seperate grocery trip and right now she really is just stocking up on sale items-esp with 5 kids! Ultimately it doesn't really matter what's in her shopping cart or pantry as much as what her kids are eating on a day-to-day basis.

If that grocery list reflects what she buys on a weekly basis it's a wonder her kids can sit still in school. I am going to disagree with Bradley 13 on the yogurt thing. Most yogurt made for children contains about 15 grams of sugar. You are basically feeding them a sloppy candy bar. I buy the lowest sugar yogurt that I can. Right now we are eating Activia... Only 8 grams of sugar.

I don't do the coupon thing either. Not bc we have money to burn, but bc I don't want to store a years worth of paper towels, toothpaste, and deodorant in my house. I shop on a weekly basis and get fresh foods and only what we consume. We waste very little in terms of food. I have a plan and we stick to it. That more than anything else will keep your costs down. I don't spend 45 dollars a week on junk food just bc I have a coupon for it. That is not saving.

For myself only, I typically spend $80 a month on ALL food. That's about $55 for healthful food and $25 for junk food. ("Junk food" includes anything fatty, like butter, nuts, or even baking chocolate, since that will go into a dessert anyway.)

And I don't use coupons.

I almost never see a real coupon bargain in the Sunday inserts, as opposed to the sales listed in supermarket fliers.

A few rules: 1. Don't let anything go to waste if you can help it. 2. Don't buy junk food on sale - you'll only eat it, so if you only buy expensive junk food, you may make yourself buy less and spend less in the long run.

And, if you care primarily about the money spent, get your protein from sources other than meat, regularly. (Use meat as a condiment, not the main ingredient.)

There's a lot more in the book "The Complete Tightwad Gazette."

You know, different studies come to different conclusions. Some studies point to diets high in meat and animal proteins. Some studies point to whole grains, fruits and veggies...

... but...

I know of NO studies that point to Pop Tarts and frozen Snickers bars!!!

These sorts of OMG COUPONS! articles drive me bonkers. Not only is it most of it, objectively, crap, she STILL could've fed her family that crap for less by buying something without the pretty label. If she wanted oatmeal, she could've bought Albertson's brand or Great Value for roughly one-third less than Quaker and it is EXACTLY the same. Oats are oats. I highly doubt that the coupon made the Quaker cheaper than the storebrand, and next time when she goes shopping and doesn't have a coupon for Quaker, she'll probably still automatically reach for it.

Seriously, I want to shake some people who don't get that coupons on food and (in many cases) stores like Sam's and Costco don't save you a gosh darn dime. You're not getting one over on the food companies who print out the silly coupons, Ms. Coupon Ninja. All that's happening is that Quaker is selling you an image of yourself, as a super-saver-bargain-queen and you're buying it.

The GoodNights are the exception, though; the generic ones don't work. I do keep my eye out for UnderJams or GoodNights coupons because they do work...but GoodNights come with a coupon in every package now, so I figure that it's not so much a savings as the $1.50 is a tax on those who don't remember to save the coupon. And there are a handful of things, lunchmeats and the like, where the storebrand sucks and it's nice to have a coupon for the namebrand.

And, ick. I spend $150 a week on food for myself and four kids (husband works out of town so he's only home for a few meals a week) and get a whole hell of a lot more and better than that...the only thing sillier than her paying $45 and being proud is that she thinks that that pile which looks like breakfast, snacks, desserts and beverages for maybe 2 weeks, depending on how old her kids are, and two dinners is actually worth $99. Ridiculous.

Also, the healthy food list should not include any yogurt aimed at children. Most yogurt is fine, but Danimals, Coolision, Crush Cups, Go-Gurts, etc. are all just sugar and colors with a side of yogurt. I was shocked when I checked the labels recently. It's like frozen yogurt...a little less fat than ice cream, but still junk.

The question I'm asking is why this lady feels like she should get all this attention for doing what most of us do every day...spend money responsibly. Some coupon clip, some comparison shop. So you saved yourself some cash on junk food, and you want all of us in cyberspace to oooooh and ahhhhh? Whatever.

And as the mother to two boys, I'd like to add that I consider that grocery list to be junk food heavy. I belong to the "all things in moderation" school of eating. We keep cherry tomatos, bananas, cheese sticks, and blueberries around for snacks. But I'll own up to throwing Chey Boyardee at them on those odd nights when I'm wasted. When their usual dinner consists of grilled chicken or pork, steamed veggies, and homemade bread, I just don't believe that the occasional Happy Meal is gonna cut their little lives short.

Having said that...a box of PopTarts a day? Really? Ick.

And it's true about yoghurt, a lot of it contains a ton of added sugar. It's best to buy plain yoghurt, and if you want to turn it into a dessert you can...

... add fruit (best choice)
... add fruit and a little honey (next best choice)
... add fruit and a little sugar
... add jam (worst choice on the list, but still likely to contain less sugar than the presweetened stuff)

Frozen biscuits. Nothing wrong with biscuits either.

Bradley, bread is not healthy, tortillas are not healthy, Dannon yogurt is not healthy, potatoes in that Progresso soup are not healthy. I'm talking about solid scientific evidence for health and it just isn't there for eating carbohydrates like these.

Oh, and your notion that oatmeal is healthy? Based on your years of reading studies as a cardiologist and knowing how to interpret them? Here's cardiologist William Davis:

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/carbohydrate-ldl-double-whammy.html

Once glycated, small LDL is especially resistant to being taken up by the liver. Like annoying in-laws, they hang around and hang around and . . . The longer they hang around, they more opportunity they have to contribute to plaque formation.

So, carbohydrates trigger formation of small LDL particles. Once formed, small LDL particles are glycated when blood sugar increases. While LDL can be glycated even when blood sugars are in the normal range (90 mg/dl or less), glycation goes berserk when blood sugars go higher, such as a blood sugar of 155 mg/dl after a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal.

Here's a summary from Davis on carbohydrates on why they're "a ... nightmare":

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/glucophobia-novel.html

Carbohydrates increase small LDL particles Or, in the cholesterol-speak most people understand, "carbohydrates increase cholesterol." It's counterintuitive, but carbohydrates increase LDL substantially, far more than any fat.

Carbohydrates increase blood sugar
Eggs don't increase blood sugar, nor do chicken, raw almonds, onions or green peppers. But a bowl of oatmeal will send your blood sugar skywards.

Carbohydrates make you fat
Carbohydrates, whether in the form of wheat flour in your whole wheat bread, sucrose in your ice cream, fructose in your "organic Agave nectar," or high-fructose corn syrup in your dill pickles. They all provoke de novo lipogenesis, or fat formation. They also stimulate insulin, the hormone of fat storage.

Carbohydrates cause glycation
High blood sugar, like the kind that develops after a bowl of oatmeal, triggers glycation, or modification of proteins by glucose (blood sugar). This is how cataracts, kidney disease, and atherosclerotic plaque develop. Small LDL is 8-fold more glycation prone than large LDL, providing a carbohydrate double-whammy.

Bananas? More from Davis:

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/you-just-think-youre-low-carb.html

Fruits like apples and bananas increase blood sugar to 130 mg/dl or higher.

Amy I appreciate what you're doing. I can't even have discussions about this with my family anymore because they are so stuck in: low-fat this, whole grains are good, and fruit is good. Blows my mind. Mom has been overweight (not disgustingly but she can lose a few, and believe me she's tried for years and years). I bought Taubes' book, but I haven't really pushed it too much and she hasn't looked at it on her own. We'll have to have a chat about it, I'm just kind of tired of fighting about it.

I eat a lot of fat, a lot of meat, and a lot of veggies. I love my diet and I am super healthy, I look great, and I have good energy. Who doesn't want that? And there's proof!

Even the pro-carb nutritionists aren't going to be happy about the biscuits, which are super processed and made with white flour. Pro-carb campers encourage whole grains, not white bread.

And canned soup is very high in sodium as well as carbs.

She's really getting slammed in the comments section. And then there are all the "don't be so judgmental, you judgmental judgers" who fail to notice that she invited the world to look at her shopping list.

None of this stuff is of the devil if eaten occasionally. An overly rigid approach to food is a recipe for eating disorders, not to mention a soulless approach to something that should be a fun way to connect with people and tradition.

I eat biscuits from time to time. Even ones made from all-purpose flour. I'm a normal weight and perfectly healthy. I could be thinner if I cut them out entirely, but biscuits are tasty. I just don't pound them like Jell-O shots at a frat party.

Going to play devils advocate here and praise pop-tarts for a second. They are one of the most practical hiking/camping foods. Where you need a ton of calories, easily packaged, small light, non-messy, takes a lot to go stale/bad , doesn't need refrigeration or cooking.
Not that in my wildest dreams do I believe her kids hike/cmp.

In MY day, they were coupon queens, not ninjas, and I wanted to be one. Unfortunately, I hardly ever find coupons on anything I actually eat or use, so it petered out pretty fast. It's actually a lot of work, and I hate shopping anyway.

I read the article, and this woman is apparently one of the really serious coupon users. I have a feeling they have a lot of storage space.

I just hope she's not so busy bargain hunting that she doesn't have time to feed her family food that you rarely, if ever, find coupons for.

Which for some reason reminds me of the movie Mermaids, where all the meals were made up of little party foods and appetizers, and everything was cut into cute little shapes with cookie cutters and stacked with toothpicks.

That article lost me as soon as she said that her kids (unknown number) go through a whole box (unspecified size) of Pop-Tarts when they eat them for breakfast.

Okay, I like my Pop-Tarts. But are we talking about 4 kids each eating one package (two pop-tarts per package)? Or are we talking two kids eating a big box with 6 packages (12 pop-tarts)?

Because I'd be concerned about kids (especially if we're talking young kids) even eating two pop-tarts at one sitting - I'd consider a pop-tart a treat to be occasionally eaten along with a breakfast protein.

And, of course, as soon as I post that, I see the "5 kids" comment I've somehow managed to skim past at least 3 times....

If there's 5 kids, there's still the question of whether we're talking small boxes with 4 packages each or the bigger ones with 6 packages each.

I guess my basic point is that it sounds as though, when pop-tarts are eaten, they are the entire breakfast, not the sugary/carby part of an otherwise rounded breakfast.

Ha! White trash food! That's the way my mom used to feed us, too... But anyway...

I sometimes use coupons, but I don't let them determine what I buy. (Well, if I have a good coupon for Pampers, I'll buy them, even though I prefer Huggies, but I mean food coupons.) They're usually for pantry-type foods that we don't eat, anyway. I probably wouldn't even take pop-tarts or fruit roll-ups or frozen biscuts even if they were free. Not that we're the healthiest family in the world, but I don't like that stuff, and it reminds me of being poor.

Most food made specifically for kids seems to be sugary, carby, preservative-laden crap. I have a 10-month-old, and I've noticed that most of those jarred baby "meals" are basically blended spaghetti-ohs. A lot of them also have fruit juice added. I make my own baby food by just tossing whatever we're having in the blender, as long as it's not spicy. Baby A's favorite food right now is avacado; we share one for lunch on a regular basis.

The only 2 things on the list that would make into my house is the beef and oats.

Have the folks who are so obsessed with coupons/bargains ever heard of the concept of growing one's own food?

Anyone who is interested in Gary Taubes' work but not interested in a diet like the one that works for Amy, I found this book review of Good Calories Bad Calories earlier this week:

http://summertomato.com/book-review-good-calories-bad-calories/

The blog writer (I love her blog) is a scientist who's impressed with the book and largely agrees with Taubes, but the dietary conclusions she's drawn from his book are more palatable for me, a veggie lover who is not crazy about most meat.

In our household they are referred to as "carb-pons."

For the dietary flat-earth folks out there, screw the studies. They are mostly crap anyway. But can you explain what recent change has occurred in the human organism so that a food group (carbs in the form of grains) only available in the last 1% of hominid evolution is suddenly more healthy than the food groups (sat fat/protein) that resulted in the creation of our large brain/small gut species?

The answer is that no such change has occurred meaning that our traditional diet is still more healthy than the very recent (40 years) low-fat/high-carb fad diet.

Or go ask any anthropologist who can identify a human skeleton as being pre-agriculture or post-agriculture with a quick glance. The pre-agriculture humans are tall with strong thick bones and no dental decay. The post-agriculture humans are short with thin deformed bones and extreme dental decay.

If tortillas are wrong, I don't want to be right.

"Catalinas?" Is she buying swimsuits for the Miss America pageant?

If I had never gone on the low carb diet my mom and I would have never discovered we are allergic to gluten. Now we are the happiest/ healthiest we've ever been. Yay no gluten!

Pop Tarts can't be a part of any healthy breakfast...half a cow of protein couldn't undo the 17-20g of sugar and 180-260 mg of salt in each one. Here's a link to info on all of them. The list should be called something other than 'Nutritional Information' , I don't see any 'nutrition' in the equation :-D

http://www.coheso.com/nutridata/Kelloggs_Pop_Tarts/Pop_Tarts_Apple_Cinnamon/item_details.html

I don't know about the bags of biscuits, but the Pillbury baking powder biscuits in the can that you pop and bake have 590mg of sodium per biscuit. Making yourself isn't hard.

My parents use to pump me full of a lot of crap when I was kid, because they didn't know any better. Cocoa Puffs was my favorite breakfast food. It was a sad, sad day when I realized they were actually gross.

...or can one now trade in used Pontiacs for groceries?

"...using coupons, super double coupons, and catalinas, "

heh, my mom would have had this coupon ninja by her Shinobi Shozoku... and laughed all the way. Coupons? only if they are for basic ingredients, NOT LUXURY ITEMS. Even IF you are going with a high carb diet, cornflakes and milk for breakfast, apples are snacks, and you get a sandwich for lunch. meat and potatos for dinner. END. There is no desert, that is for SPECIAL OCCASIONS. Like when you get an "A" on a test.

AND? I started making my own breakfast at 6 while my mom was getting ready for work. Don't give me this creap where you are saving money on things you don't actually need.

Now, if we want to change the whole thing about high carbs, well that's a different argument. One that she'll prolly tune you out on. ONE step at a time. First begin with the need for processed food... because it's obvious that she can't live without that.

First there is the "Luxury Items are for RICH people." Yup, mom used that one all the time. The second one is: "you WILL eat what I put in front of you, or go hungry." That's how you get kids to eat what you want them to.

"Because spiking and dropping blood sugar is good for hiking and camping?"

Yes....and no. First: define 'hiking'. Carbs are long term energy foods. Not saying that they are great for you, but if you're working hard for an extended period of time then carbs are what you want in your body. Distance running, hiking when you're pushing over a few days - basically anything that is very physically rigorous for an extended period. Your body will use that energy in a useful manner.

Bottom line is that carbs are relatively useless if you are not burning them off fast. And that does not mean an hour of exercise a day, burning that kind of energy requires hard movement over a good period of time. Having worked myself to the point where I was burning through every bit of food I put in me, and then some, I have a little experience with this. Not an expert by far, just some anecdotal information. Couple that with what you see in the so called fitness experts - those that work the living shit out of their bodies - and you can see where carbs are not an issue if you're going to burn them.

Point being, one's diet should be tailored to one's physical requirements. No carb / low carb is fine for those that do not need that type of extended energy output. Some people do. Most of the time we recognize them as athletes, but other professions lend themselves to a similar requirement. My perspective is from the military where some jobs (and no, not all, not by a long shot) mean that you need the type of energy that carbs provide. Protein and fat are great (I am a big fan), but when you do not have the option of eating when you want to you need to have something in your body that will keep it going.

Just my two cents though.

Mr. Teflon, "Catalinas" are those coupons you get at the supermarkets when the checker hands you your receipt at the checkout stand.

http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums/other-coupons/18931-what-catalina-coupon-other-faqs.html

tuna helper? seriously?

If you "need a ton of calories, easily packaged, small light, non-messy, takes a lot to go stale/bad , doesn't need refrigeration or cooking", then take pemmican.

If carbs are so damn necessary for long-term energy, how the hell do these marathoners survive eating low-carb/paleo? How the hell do people run half marathons eating nothing but meat and water? Blank out!

Did she get any tuna to go with the tuna helper?

Thanks, Willa. Wise-assedness aside, I never heard "catalina" used in that sense, and could find no such definition on the 'net. Always a learning experience!

And best camp food ever? Freeze-dried ice cream ... starts like styrofaom in your mouth, turns into creamy goodness on your tongue. yum.