A hot dog on a bun instead of a steak?

One day, through no fault of your own, you find yourself on a low or fixed income. All of a sudden, you find yourself with less coming in and more going out! Suddenly, you've become a person on a budget with food topping the list of must have categories.

That has been my circumstance, for some time. And, when it comes to grocery shopping, I've become smarter than I used to be! I've given up high priced items such as steak for much less expensive hot dogs and such. In a recent post on Forsythbiz, I displayed the results of my often eaten foods in the form of a report. At a cost of a little over a twenty dollar bill, I got a lot of good stuff. Perhaps that's why that store is called Save A Lot (duh).

Area Save A Lot has much to offer!

Forsyth MO. -  One of the two main grocery stores, located at 142 Main St, in Forsyth, MO,has a lot to offer... in the way of savings! I decided to shop this store mainly due to the fact that I wasn't going to get a lot of angry stares from other customers as I choose to not wear a mask. To my great surprise, the cost of food I like to eat was much lower than the other store! Below is an example, of the cost of some goods on this date. I will definitely be shopping there more often!

 

 

Critique: A tale of two beef dogs!

In this post, I will be comparing two 'beef' hot dog wieners; one made by Oscar Meyer labeled as 'Premium beef' and another called 'Jumbo' by Fairgrounds, a product that is distributed expressly for the Save A Lot chain of grocery stores.

Before getting to any remarks about taste, I wanted to inspect the ingredient labels closely on both. Right from the get go, I saw that both had very similar lists of ingredients....

Fairgrounds Ingredients: Beef, water, dextrose, modified food starch, corn syrup, contain 2% or less of salt, sodium lactate, flavorings, sodium phosphates, sodium diacetate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrate. Additionally, each link weighed in at 50 grams and give up about 150 calories when consumed.

Oscar Meyer Ingredients: Beef, water, corn syrup, contains less than 2% salt, potassium lactate, dextrose, sodium phosphates, sodium diacetate, flavor, ascorbic acid (vitamin c), extracts of paprika, sodium nitrate. One link weighed in at 42 grams and had about 130 calories.

From a cost analysis standpoint;

Fairground $3.99 for 8 dogs 400 grams/pkg at about .26 cents per ounce cost

Oscar Meyer $4.99 for 10 dogs 420 grams/pkg at about .32 cents per ounce cost

Fairgrounds on the left

Based on the above, I wondered why anyone would buy the Oscar Meyer brand when the other guy gives you a bit more meat at a significantly cheaper cost? Let's move now to the all important appearance and taste tests....

Fairgrounds on left

OK, if you were wondering where that extra dollar went, then just get a gander at both dogs in a side by side comparison. To my way of thinking, the OM dog looked to be a bit darker and when you cut it to see the 'grain', it looked to be more meaty if that is even a term.

Rather surprisingly, both tasted about the same to me...

So, from an appearance perspective, I like the Oscar Meyer dogs and would buy them if serving something like wieners on a toothpick. But, for everyday, the Fairgrounds product would do nicely.

Fairground Hotdogs are horrific! Really!

Sure, I know that meat prices are soaring at this time. I also know that everyone is out to save a buck here or there. But, trying to save money by buying junk like the hotdogs under the brand name of Fairground (distributed by the Save A Lot food chain) is just plain ridiculous! We can do better than this America!

Everyone is aware that hotdogs, as a class of food, are not the best thing in the world to eat long term. But, if you’re going to insist on eating one ( I love personally love them), then at least make sure it’s an ‘all beef’ product.  I paid about a buck for the package pictured above that I wouldn’t feed to a starving dog! Eating one of these was an insult to my taste buds! They had a texture that actually felt slimy on my tongue (gag me). Nutritionally you’re getting hit with about a quarter of the recommended allowance for salt and 130 unneeded calories.  Contrast that to an all beef hotdog from producers like Oscar Meyer and you’ll see, smell, feel and taste the difference immediately. OK, that’s your choice... real beef or chicken and pork parts. Hmmm. That’s  a toughie.

Now, here's the real deal! Hotdogs may eventually kill you, but as they say, what a way to go! The difference in price was about three dollars more for something that's all beef and all American! I would be proud to serve these at a BBQ in the park or at home to hungry kids.

Update: In my 2016 review I changed my tune - the Fairground dogs had improved re-markedly!

Disclaimer: This post was not intended to be a plug for Oscar Meyer - there are many other quality franks out there for sale.

Critique: Del Pino’s Spaghetti and Meatballs

I love reading the ingredients on some of the canned products that appear on grocery shelves these days. Take a can of Spaghetti and meatballs I recently brought home, for instance. This product, made by a company called Del Pino’s, shows a picture on the can of five meatballs nestled in a bed of pasta and what appears to be some sort of tomato sauce. So let’s take a close look shall we?

Turns out the tomatoes actually consist of a mix of tomato puree and water. OOOK. The pasta is wheat gluten and the meatballs were made from a combination of beef, pork, water and crackermeal (whatever that is). The can cost .79 cents and for that amount of money you get a total of 418 grams or about 15 ounces of product. There is a best by stamp of January 24, 2013 on one end of the can so this stuff can hang out on a shelf for quite a while before you have to eat it. I’m guessing there are more preservatives than you’d really want to know about in each can. So, let’s see how the stuff tastes…

Since there are only 280 calories in the entire can, I elected to do just that. Eat the entire can. Part of the effect of doing so will insure a not so healthy does of salt to the tune of 1050 milligrams or about half the average daily adult allowance. Carbohydrates came in at 34 grams which is about a quarter of the daily allowance and it is relatively high in saturated fats at 5 grams. But, I digress. After nuking the contents for a couple of minutes in the microwave, I shot a picture of the meal which shows the meatballs covered with a thick sauce. Those meatballs tasted pretty good and what really makes this meal is the thick and savory sauce that was delicious. My overall opinion is that we have a winner here. I give this one a solid 8 on a scale of 10.

Del Pino’s is distributed by Save A Lot stores of Earth City Missouri.