You can't have your low calorie and eat it too.

Okay, well maybe you can. It would have been a bit more correct had I said, "You can't have your low calorie, low fat and low carb, and eat them all too."

That much is certain. In these pishy United States, we hear people preaching at us about how we should be eating better. Nevermind that if I were to preach to them that they need to save their souls by accepting Jesus Christ, they would sat it was offensive, despite it being a fact. They're pishers, all of them.

Now all that said, I personally want to eat better, but not because the pishers say I should. It's only because I want to.

I decided to do a bit of research and found myself chuckling. Even the pishers can't make up their minds on what is best. No, really. What is sad is that you can't have low calorie and low fat while keeping flavor. You can't have low carb and low fat while keeping flavor. It makes you want to just throw in the towel. You can pick one of the three and get flavor, but no mixing and matching.

Advocates of diets (the pishers) will tell you that you can, and sure, if you have a lot of money perhaps. However if you're on a budget, forget it. Is it any wonder that poor folks are often the heaviest? They're stuck eating things with rice and potatoes (because of cost) instead of salmon. Duh. What cracks me up is that liberals are constantly preaching to them about how they need to cut the fat, but have no affordable working plan to help them do so and still keep flavor in the food.

All that said, I began trying to find a way. Perhaps there really is a way to eat cheap healthy and good meals. My quest led me immediately to the appropriately named Cheap Healthy Good blog. Okay, the humor over there is cute (reminds me of my own) but I have a number of problems with the blog itself. A lot of the recipes are actually not all that healthy in my opinion. Also, the author despises cream soups, which kind of defeats the purpose of some posts. Yes, cream soups can be fattening and caloric, but there are low fat cream soups just as there are low cal soups which are obviously more healthy alternatives. The bias of the author's dislike severely limits the possibilities.

Let me explain. Consider the 65 Cheap, Healthy, One-Dish Meals with Good Leftover Potential post. Sounds fantastic right? Wrong! While the comments reflect glowing reviews, I was gravely disappointed in the post. She has included recipes that have, for example, Stovetop Stuffing in them but not any with cream soup. She actually says, "No Cream of Mushroom, Chicken, or Whatever soups allowed. Because I hate them." Nice. Her readers don't hate them. Sure, some do, but clearly not all. Stovetop Stuffing is just as unhealthy as the 98% fat free cream of chicken soup. While the lower fat and calories are perhaps in the stuffing's favor, the lower carbs are in the soup's favor. See what I mean? You can't have both AND she's limiting possibilities.

Personally, both probably need to go, but that's not my point. My point is that if you blog about cheap, healthy and good you need to provide all information and not just the stuff you like. Otherwise it's really a more personal blog, like my own.

Moving along here, I tried Googling "low fat low calorie low carb tasty meals" and no surprise, there weren't any. Oh sure, there are sites that have recipes for each choice, but none that have all choices.

Eating Well seemed like a decent site, but the navigation is a pain (an example, try reading that article; or another, try getting the full month's plan) and I hate it. I always end up going elsewhere.

Most sites are not really all that helpful. They give you lists of menu plans and recipes, but most end up being quite pricey. So I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you just adapt your own favorite recipes to low fat, carb, calorie, etc. instead of looking for new ones?"

I began researching that and got a few good tips and some very bad ones. The funny part is that most of them tell you what any moron would have already figured out on their own. I love articles that are written by some stupid author who thinks that their readers are these absolute dimwits. Take this as an example, and Google it yourself just to see how often it shows up in similar non-helpful articles, "[To decrease your fat intake] purchase lean cuts of meat."

Wow! What a concept! I never ever would have thought of that part! Puh-leez. Again though, we're talking cost. It's not that people don't know this, it's that people cannot afford this. Some authors are just so stupid.

Then you have some that totally contradict one another. Some folks say - when baking - use applesauce in place of oil. Some say use 1/2 oil and 1/2 applesauce. Some say applesauce is a really bad alternative because it changes the texture and to go ahead and use the oil. It leaves one wondering, why bother?