You're listening to life kit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle Seguera.
Take a moment and think about the last thing you cooked.
How much do you think the carrot in that recipe cost?
What about the three cups of vegetable broth?
Beth Monsell could actually answer that question.
She's the founder of Budgetbites.com, a recipe website for folks with small budgets.
She studied nutritional science in college, and she learned this costing method in her classes.
So it's a technique that you will find a lot in food service operations like restaurants and cafeterias, she says.
You figure out the price of that carrot, add it to the cost of all the other ingredients in the recipe, and then divide it by the number.
Of servings so you know how much each of your meals is costing.
Beth says when you do this, you start to notice patterns.
For instance, her recipe for lentil bolognese costs $1.40 per serving.
It's hard to get a meal that cheap at a restaurant, but some of the components are way cheaper than others, like one carrot, fifteen cents.
One cup of red lentils, sixty seven cents.
Half a cup of walnuts $1.07.
I suggest everyone try costing at least once because it's so eye opening.
It really does make you rethink the way you look at all of the ingredients that you're buying.
On this episode of Life Kit, Beth and I are gonna talk about what.
To do with the things you learn.