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Stretching Your Food Dollars

A Sensible Approach to Meal Planning

Consumers need a plan in these times of shrinking dollars and rising energy costs. With food, your goal should be to produce meals with optimum nutrition and maximum satisfaction with minimal grocery trips. This plan will help you stretch your dollars and economize on energy in your car, in your home and in your life. Here are a few tips from Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef on how to develop your plan to reach that goal.

Plan your meals around comfort foods that are good for you. Many foods offer strong psychological and physiological benefits during times when you have to stretch your dollars. Ground beef and steaks are some of the best. They provide comfort and are packed with nutrition. Comfort foods help consumers “regain and retain” happy moods, according to Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University. Beef is one of the most nutritious comfort foods available to the diet, so include it in meals and snacks whenever possible.

Grocery shop for the long term. Reduce your number of grocery trips by buying smartly each visit. Plan your meals and create a shopping list. Your shopping list should help you identify specials and coupons that stretch your dollars. Look for great deals on beef this summer. You can really take advantage of bargains at the beef case by utilizing your freezer space. Steaks and roasts can be frozen for 6 to 12 months and ground beef for 3 to 4 months. So buy them in bulk when the price is right. Wrap beef in white freezer paper or freezer aluminum foil to protect against ice burn.

Cook outdoors. Don’t heat up your kitchen. Let your grill do all the work. Move the family and the fun outdoors. It’s a great way to get the whole family involved with meal preparation. 

Enjoy leftovers. Do what Nolan Ryan does when he cooks on the grill: Add a steak or two more than you need. That way, you have leftovers for meals later in the week. Planned leftovers can include thinly sliced steak to add to a salad for lunch or use for a quick steak sandwich. See more tips in “The Art of Leftovers.”

We hope these ideas help get you through these hot summer months with great nutrition and a few extra dollars in your pockets.

 

More to Stretch Your Food Dollars

The Art of Leftovers            

Whenever you prepare more Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef steaks or ground beef than what you need at one meal, don’t consider the surplus as leftovers. Consider them nutritional toolkits that help you build healthy summer meals and snacks your family and friends will love. Here are some ideas to get you started:      

Breakfast: Slice steaks in thin strips. Heat about 1 ounce of strips and place on a whole wheat tortilla and add salsa. Serve with a bowl of cereal topped with blueberries and low-fat milk. Voila! You’ve got a great nutritional breakfast. Don’t forget that by adding vitamin-C rich foods like sliced grapefruit or cantaloupe you can increase your body’s absorption of vital heme iron from the beef. 

Lunch: Warm up steak slices, add shredded cheese and veggies and drop into a pita pocket for a delicious, healthy meal. Another option? Bake a potato and top with steak slices, shredded cheese and veggies. 

Quick Snack: Leftover hamburger patties are great snack starters. Crumble beef and serve on tortilla chips with shredded cheese. Or pop in the microwave for a few seconds and enjoy with your favorite chips and salsa.

Dinner: Take sliced steak, shredded roast or crumbled ground beef and make a delicious taco salad. Season the meat in a skillet with a combination of chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Mix the combination with onions, black beans, oregano and cilantro. Then combine that blend into a bowl of lettuce and tomatoes. Or serve in a tostada cup or in taco shells.

If you see your kids eating too many high-cost and high–calorie chips and juice boxes this summer, make some of these nutritional ideas ahead of time. Extra work? Maybe. But the health and cost payoff is worth it.

Summer Grilling at its Best

Nolan's Balanced Meal from the Grill 
Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef … your favorite vegetables … mouth-watering fruits. Sounds like a good idea to us. And here are some suggestions on how to make a good idea even better.

Instead of opening a can of vegetables to go with your ribeye, try grilling fresh products along with your steak. The burst of flavor that comes from squash, broccoli or peppers cooked over a fire is unmatched only by the juiciness of one of our steaks. And don’t ignore fruits. Throw on a pineapple, mango, apple, peach or whatever your favorite fruit may be. You’ll find grilled fruit makes a fabulous side dish.

Here are some great recipe ideas to help you get started, including Grilled Steak Tacos with Poblano-Mango Salsa and Mojo Beef Kabobs.

Promoting Healthy Families

Nolan Ryan's Commitment to Health  
You won’t find a more ardent advocate of the benefits of physical exercise and nutrition than Nolan Ryan. He has lived that philosophy his entire life as an athlete, father and cattle producer. And he insists that Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef carry that message to others.

One way we do that is by working with groups like the Quickfoot Soccer Series. This summer Quickfoot is holding a series of tournaments including Dallas, June 28-29 and the championship in McKinney Aug. 9-10 which Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef is sponsoring. These events are targeted toward soccer families that lead active lifestyles. 

The approximately 1,000 players are of all ages, but about 65% of them are under 17. Another 3,000 family members attend to watch the games.

“Soccer is a good team sport that kids can get involved in,” Nolan says. “If they have an aptitude and interest in athletics, soccer allows them to learn what it takes to compete and how to address the physical aspect of it, which I think is important. That means showing kids how to take care of their bodies, conditioning and nutrition and everything else that goes along with being healthy.”

To get that message to Quickfoot Soccer kids and their families, Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef and the Texas Beef Council (TBC) worked the crowds at the matches. We passed out recipes, coupons and nutritional information as well as 1,500 cooked samples per day of our Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef Sliders, mini-burgers that kids love. 

Winning teams received a trophy and team photo, compliments of Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef and TBC. 

If you are interested in these events, visit www.quickfoot.com. And don’t forget to click on the TBC link on the Quickfoot home page for thousands of great beef recipes you can make with Nolan Ryan's All-Natural Beef.