Whipped-cream trials & thinking outside the school-lunch box
Newsletter February 7, 2010
Should you whip cream at home or reach for the spray can? Find out below, just in time for Valentine's Day! Get the recipe for DIY whipped cream too. And learn about the new government push for healthier school lunches.
Whipped cream
Newsletter reader Anne Marie asked me "How does the cost of whipped cream from a can compare to homemade whipped cream made from heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla?" Now that's a question I am happy to investigate! The answer is, it depends on what you measure. The total costs for homemade was less expensive for both the green and the thrifty options:thrifty homemade, $1.79; thrifty spray, $1.99; green homemade, $2.40; green spray, $3.99. Homemade is a better buy per ounce, but spray whipped cream was cheaper per serving.
Why does homemade whipped cream cost a few pennies more per serving but only half as much per ounce? Spray whipped cream is very light and full of air bubbles. You can feel the bubbles pop in your mouth. There's simply a lot less cream, more air, and more other ingredients such as sorbitan monostearate and carrageenan. See price chart, features comparison, and the surprising way that organic and thrifty whipped cream cost exactly the same on the Whipped-Cream Trials page.
Cook for Good bottom line: whip your own cream to save money, get tastier and healthier results, and lessen your environmental footprint.
Recipe: Whipped Cream. What else? In less than three minutes, get top results to thrill your Valentine or yourself. Whipped cream holds its shape for about three days in the refrigerator.
Mark your calendars for a speech by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday that will require school vending machines to be "filled with nutritious offerings to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our nation's children." As the New York Times reports, the new rules will require schools to serve more nutritious food and increase spending on the meals program by a billion dollars. Seems like a lot, but as Chef Ann Cooper, the Renegade Lunch Lady, wrote in her newsletter this week, "This might seem like a win for our kids, but if you dig deeper, you'll discover what I did - $1 billion translates to mere pennies per lunch, and won't even cover the cost of a fresh apple. Right now, millions of kids every day eat lunch, and sometimes breakfast, at school. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) invests only $2.68 on average per day for each student's school lunch."
Here at Cook for Good, $2.68 seems like a LOT of money for lunch. Sure, the schools have to pay staff, provide and clean dishes, and have other expenses that we don't include in our $1.12 per average thrifty meal for last month. But individual families don't buy in enormous quantities like schools and federal government.
The government can also combine programs to teach agriculture while providing food at cost. For example, Cornell University Cooperative Extension works with Park West High School in Manhattan to teach aquaculture and hydroponics, with much of the fish and vegetables raised going to a high school culinary arts program. Here is food that's been used twice for educational purposes before being eaten. Now that's a good investment.
Thanks for being sweethearts to your loved ones and to the planet by cooking real food from scratch. Have a delicious day!
