Food cost food cost food cost. That’s the mantra of the fear mongering these days.

When you go to school to learn the business of food, recipe costing and scaling is absolutely basic to the idea of how to generate profit. That concept applies to the home as well. If you know the cost of your recipe, then you know its monetary value. That then can be balanced against its nutritional value. Secondary considerations can be made then regarding convenience and availability of finished product.

I had to apply this mental exercise recently. With my diagnosis of diabetes, I knew I had to make changes. The quick answer was to find a breakfast meal that would provide enough caloric intake to last 6 hours, was easy to acquire and consume, and also minimize the sugar spike that I had come to rely on.

I stumbled upon Jimmy Deans Egg’wich products. On the surface it looks like it checked all the boxes. No refined starches, protein, veg content. Easy nuke and eat on the go type of food.

After a couple of weeks, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do better than this. The cholesterol is high, the sodium is approaching low orbit, and there was minimal plant goodiness.

The egg pod was invented! Initially, I went for the cupcake approach for portion control, but as Wendy so calmly pointed out, I was being an idiot. Just bake the whole thing in a 9×13 and cut it into squares. Derp.

I tweaked the recipe and came up with Egg Pod v2.

Less cholesterol, less sodium, a touch less in protein, and an acceptable amount of carbs.

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FOOD COSTS!”

Yeah. Ok. The jimmy deans stuff is about $8 for 4. That’s $2 per serving and comes in under the “not enough”. I found myself feeling pretty damn hungry in a less than 4 hours.

I found a cool AF spreadsheet that isn’t fancy but gets right to the cost aspect of this.

Check out

I put in all my values and the result is… $1.42 per serving! Less bad fat, less cholesterol, less sodium, more veggie, better flavor, more balanced macro nutrients. WINNING!