Years ago I began to cease eating pork because I came to despise it, but at the time, I didn't really know why that was the case.

This is my 7th post in this series, showing people how much real food actually costs, as opposed to the myths continually spread by folks who make so many false claims about real food being “so much more expensive” than junk and/or processed food. Here is the archive for this series.

This is my 6th post in this series, showing people how much real food actually costs, as opposed to the myths continually spread by folks who make so many false claims about real food being “so much more expensive” than junk and/or processed food. Here is the archive for this series.

This is a great example of a very filling meal for a very low cost. I made this at the end of the night (10:00pm-ish) and I didn’t eat again until about sixteen hours later. It is a very simple meal – two free-range eggs from Melo Farms (look at the integrity of these eggs), and I cooked them very, very slowly, for about twenty minutes on very low heat. I made up some melted butter using raw butter, crushed garlic from a jar, and herbs de provence. I steamed some broccoli and poured the butter on the eggs and broccoli.

This is my 5th post in this series, showing people how much real food actually costs, as opposed to the myths continually spread by folks who make so many blanket statements and false claims about real food being “so much more expensive” than junk and/or processed food. Here is the archive for this series.

This meal was another “gotta hurry, gotta leave” meal — and trust me, I have plenty of those days. So this is hardly one of my more sophisticated meals in this series. I had a pound of pastured lamb that was thawed, so I made up some meatballs. I mixed the meat in with feta cheese crumbles, thyme, and herbs de provence. I was out of fresh mint, so I used a dash of pure mint extract. I then formed some balls and I browned them on the stove in coconut oil. I then put them into a cast iron dutch oven and stuck them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes at about 375 degrees.

The salad was a mix of mixed greens and some escarole lettuce I had lying around. I added one hard-boiled egg (I always keep a supply of those in the fridge), and then I made a light dressing from extra virgin olive oil, minced garlic, and herbs. I opened a jar of my homemade, canned spicy ketchup and covered one meatball with the sauce. Then I quickly sautéed some fennel and put that on the meatballs, and a small amount in the salad. Costs are as follows:

This is my 4th post in this series, showing people how much real food actually costs, as opposed to the myths continually spread by pessimistic people who have never even tried the lifestyle of eating real food. Here is the archive for this series.

This is a really interesting meal because of the price. I was at a traditional grocery store — and that doesn’t happen real often — picking up some beef for the doggies. This market, called Value Center, always has a large meat stash at very discounted prices because the expiration date of those meats is usually that day or the next day. I found a 1-lb. pork loin that would usually run about $5, which is a decent price for a nice cut of industrial pork. This was on sale for .99. I haven’t had store-bought pork in quite some time because I buy hogs, but I bought this so I could cook and share in my “Myth” archive.

This is my 3rd post in this series, showing people how much real food actually costs, as opposed to the myths continually spread by pessimistic people who have never even tried the lifestyle of …eating.real.food. Here is the archive for this series.

For this meal, I was in between runs — coming home from day job (10-hour day) and preparing to run back out for a meeting related to my 2nd job. So, I used the following quickie ingredients.

In a continuing series, I will keep posting these items about the real costs of real food, throughout 2012, to build a portfolio that will serve to combat the myths spread by folks who pull food cost information from their hind end in order to justify their own poor eating habits, as well as the habits of others. People who are uneducated about food seem to feel quite comfortable spreading myths about the cost and preparation time of real food, and these myths grow and grow as they are spread from person to person, or by the media. You can find all of these posts in this archive.

Some people are just uninformed, and they need — and want — to understand the truths, because they are told so many competing stories and intentional lies. Ultimately, this is the audience that I am aiming to capture. Also, believe it or not, many libertarians hate the fact that I have a passion for this and that I am persistent about turning the food cost and food preparation myths upside down. They continually berate me, and they continue to embarrass themselves by attempting to rationalize food costs and preparation time in incredibly erroneous ways. These posts also make good fodder for those folks.

In a continuing series, I will keep posting these items about the real costs of real food, throughout 2012, to build a portfolio that will serve to combat the myths spread by folks who pull food cost information from their hind end in order to justify their own poor eating habits, as well as the habits of others. People who are uneducated about food seem to feel quite comfortable spreading myths about the cost and preparation time of real food, and these myths grow and grow as they are spread from person to person, or by the media. You can find all of these posts in this archive.

This was my kitchen creation, today, made for the purpose of using up some left over items in the fridge.

I slowly cooked some onions and fennel chunks in raw butter, then set half of that aside. In the same pan, I melted some beef tallow. I added two free-range, whipped eggs to the pan, like I would for an omelette, and I slow-cooked this on low. I sprinkled some Celtic sea salt and pepper on the eggs. Meanwhile, I warmed up beef and fat scraps from a previous day when I made beef broth in the slow cooker. The (very tender) meat scraps came from soup bones and beef shanks.

If you never watch People & Power on Al Jazeera, here is a very interesting edition of the show from 2010 on "Drug Money." This is a very good film that exposes the lies and fraud of Big Pharma and the medical establishment (one and the same), though the film leaves out investigation of the enabler of this powerful oligarchy, which is government.

Turn to the 7:00 mark and note the interview with the whistleblower from Pfizer who was trained to lie, and when he asked too many questions about Bextra and its off-label marketing he was put on administrative leave. When he and four other whistleblowers were awarded $7.4 million from Pfizer in a legal settlement, the company "accepted full responsibility for improper past promotional practices" for Bextra, yet it denied the allegations made by those five individuals. The Bextra case is one of the largest drug settlements ever.

In July 2009, the New York Times published a piece about urban bicycling in Detroit titled, "Bike among the Ruins." The gist of the piece was that Detroit, the city where I was born and lived for a decade, is an undiscovered gem in urban cycling.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I did a magnificent bicycle ride after work as I often do during the warm months. Occasionally I'll start from my employer’s parking garage in the heart of downtown Detroit, but that evening I scooted on over to Belle Isle, Detroit’s island park, for my starting point. The island was unexpectedly quiescent, even at 6:30 pm. I rode the outside loop, explored some of the inner veins of the island, headed off down Grand Boulevard for a spell, then back around to Jefferson Avenue and down to the Riverwalk. The air was warm-turning-to-chill, and the shadows were very Oktoberfest-y (oh so sexy). The traffic was barely noticeable, and I only passed a few other cyclists and the occasional runner.