One of the things my family loves is breakfast sandwiches. My daughter loves them, my husband loves them, and I'll be honest: I love them too! But can you TRULY afford to eat them regularly, both health-wise and financially? Today I'm going to break down for you the TRUE cost of grabbing one of those drive-thru breakfast sandwiches versus making your own at home.
So first let me go over how I make my breakfast sandwiches. I use 12 eggs and about 18 egg whites, scrambled together and seasoned with some cracked pepper and sea salt. For the sausage, I either buy Jimmy Dean's Turnkey sausage patties, or else I buy fresh ground turkey sausage and make my own patties. For this recipe, the nutritional values are based on the Jimmy Dean patties, because I think it makes it super easy for parents out there to throw these together realistically. For the muffin, these are made with Orowheat Multi-grain sandwich thins. I have also used whole grain english muffins-- its really up to you. But substituting these simple small changes makes a big difference in your family's overall nutrition without hearing a bunch of complaining about "healthy" food.
The breakdown of nutrition really speaks for itself. As you can see in the above image, the homemade version by far exceeds the store-bought one, saving you 52 calories per sandwich and giving you 4 more grams of protein. Also its important to point out that you are getting a higher quality of protein, in that it is LEAN instead of fatty. This is evident in the fat difference- the homemade version has less than 1/2 the fat of the original!
The cost per sandwich breakdown is pretty crazy, and I want you to know that I estimated HIGH on the homemade version- and it still comes out to $2.70 less per sandwich! You could save even more by breaking your own egg whites (I bought a carton of liquid egg whites for convenience, which is more expensive than regular eggs). If you purchase your sandwich thins at costco, you save even more, or if you get your eggs on sale. So, estimating high, you save any way you slice it.
Here's what I like to do: make a bunch at once, and wrap them in foil. I write on them a letter (C for cheddar, PJ for Pepperjack, 0 for plain) so I can tell which kind is which. My daughter likes plain ones, my husband likes the extra kick of the pepperjack, and I choose to forgo the cheese and save my healthy fats for somewhere else in my day, like nuts or avocado. Either way, you can store a variety of them in the freezer (I put them in a ziplock to prevent freezer burn), and all they take is a quick minute in the microwave before my husband jets out the door to work. Perfect and portable!
So what's the overall benefit? If you replaced just ONE breakfast sandwich a week-- JUST ONE-- with the homemade version for just ONE PERSON- You would save $140.40 in a year! If you did this once a week for a family of four, you would save $561.60!!! Not to mention 832 grams of fat less consumed by EACH PERSON. This is insane. A total of almost 8,000 calories. Its really a no-brainer. Not to mention, like all my recipes, they are family friendly, in that everyone loves to eat them and everyone helps make them. Olivia (4) and I put them together TOGETHER. Its fun for her to help, easy to assemble them with me after I have made up the plate of eggs, and she's eggcited (yes, I said that!) to eat one of her creations. I hope this is helpful for you- if you know someone who could benefit from reading this blog or would find it interesting, please share!
As always, live healthy, live happy. Love, Amanda
Star Diamond Coach Amanda Noddings
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