Friday was the 6 month anniversary of our ladies' HOPE meetings. HOPE stands for Helping Others by Providing Encouragement. The ladies have been working very hard and have a combined loss of 115 pounds for the first 6 months! WOW! I had a good weight loss week as well - since May with birthday, vacation, birthday, and anniversary, I have been working to get the creeping 5 pounds off and this week the results finally happened. HOORAY!
So what about TVP! I can't even believe that I know what this is. It is textured vegetable protein. (I feel like a true Seattle-ite now). It all started with a 2 boxes of taco filling mix and 1 box of chili mix at the discount grocery store for 49 cents each. It is hard to find taco seasoning for that price not to mention the whole meal. It turns out, that the mix was made of vegetable protein and was pretty good. Shortly after that, I looked at a cookbook for reduced cost meals and the Vegetarian section was full of recipes with TVP. So the deal is that you have to rehydrate the TVP (1 oz = 3 oz of meat). The proteins take the flavor of whatever they are rehydrated in or the seasoning that you cook with (or you can buy beef, sausage, chicken, bacon flavored TVP at a slightly greater cost) and can be substituted for any meat (particularly in flavorful dishes such as chili, sloppy joes, tacos). It is not greasy and has about 400 calories per pound (about 100 calories per serving) and ZERO fat. It is also high in protein and iron and Magnesium. It is really trumpeted for being so much cheaper than meat. Many sources have said that they can get it for about 50 cents a pound. I found it at our local Ingles for 1.32 per pound, but am still looking for a better deal. To calculate your savings. Calculate the cost of one pound of TVP and then divide by 3. Hubby is on board with experimenting as long as he only sees it once a week ... so ... let's try some new recipes!
Have you used TVP before? If so, in what? Where do you find the best deals on TVP?
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