{"id":17317,"date":"2014-08-23T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=17317"},"modified":"2014-08-22T13:16:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T17:16:10","slug":"free-cookbook-makes-inexpensive-eating-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2014\/08\/23\/free-cookbook-makes-inexpensive-eating-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Free cookbook makes inexpensive eating fun"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Click<\/a>

Click for a free .pdf version<\/a> of this cookbook<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a “feel-good” story that isn’t especially new, but deserves more attention. Specifically, a free cookbook designed to help anyone living on a tight budget enjoy food that’s healthful, delicious and very economical.<\/p>\n

The item did appear on NCPR’s regional news page in early August, sort of buried away as something from NPR with a Canada tag. Having just stumbled across that, I want to call it out as\u00a0a great story, produced by Molly Roberts<\/a>, an intern at NPR’s Washington bureau.<\/p>\n

Here’s the article:\u00a0“Cheap Eats: Cookbook Shows How to Eat Well on a Food Stamp Budget”<\/a>. (Yes, please go the original coverage.)<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Leanne Brown<\/a>\u00a0moved to New York from Canada to earn a master’s in food studies at New York University, she couldn’t help noticing that Americans on a tight budget were eating a lot of processed foods heavy in carbs.<\/p>\n

“It really bothered me,” she says. “The 47 million people on food stamps \u2014 and that’s a big chunk of the population \u2014 don’t have the same choices everyone else does.”<\/p>\n

Brown guessed that she could help people in\u00a0SNAP<\/a>, the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, find ways to cook filling, nourishing and flavorful meals. So she set out to write a cookbook full of recipes anyone could make on a budget of just $4 a day.<\/p>\n

The result is\u00a0Good and Cheap<\/a>, which is free online and has been downloaded over 200,000 times since she posted it on her website in early June. A July\u00a0Kickstarter<\/a>\u00a0campaign also helped Brown raise $145,000 to print copies for people without computer access.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Download the book by clicking on the link in the paragraph quoted above. The Kickstarter page<\/a> has more info too.<\/p>\n

All sorts of people are interested in eating well on a budget, as explored by\u00a0former NCPR interns Kelly Bartlett and Natalie Dignam in a “dorm chef” post<\/a> from earlier this summer.<\/p>\n

Even high-end foodies are told time and time again by gurus like Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan that the the first thing everyone<\/em> should do more is cook real food at home<\/a>. As Pollan told Bittman,<\/p>\n

\u201cCooking is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your diet. What matters most is not any particular nutrient, or even any particular food: it\u2019s the act of cooking itself. People who cook eat a healthier diet without giving it a thought. It\u2019s the collapse of home cooking that led directly to the obesity epidemic.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good and Cheap author Leanne Brown<\/a>\u00a0shares that view:<\/p>\n

I think everyone should eat great food every day. Eating well means learning to cook. It means banishing the mindset that preparing daily meals is a huge chore or takes tremendous skill.<\/p>\n

Cooking is easy \u2014 you just have to practice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kickstarter campaign produced 6,000 free physical copies of the book, but that supply has been exhausted. Brown says non-profits can order copies at $4 each through this link<\/a> during the month of August. She is also working on a a Spanish edition<\/a> and would welcome volunteer help making that happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a “feel-good” story that isn’t especially new, but deserves more attention. Specifically, a free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,9839,36,4803,15157,15158,6924,12105],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17317"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17334,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17317\/revisions\/17334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}