- Let's react to TLC's show "Extreme Cheapskates."
I don't really like the title,
and some of these are actually quite unhealthy,
but some actually make some sense.
Huge thanks to Butcher Box for sponsoring this video.
Let's get started.
Beewoop.
- I'm gonna be making a lasagna.
By any chance if you have any other ground beef
that's already leftover.
- It's all sold.
We sell it on a daily basis fresh all the time.
- Okay, so there's nothing that would expire?
- Oh no, ma'am, we don't-
- Or about to expire.
- No, ma'am, we don't sell expired product here.
- You don't wanna sell expired beef
'cause expired beef will literally have listeria,
E. coli, all sorts of bacterias in it
that can cause a really serious colitis
requiring IV antibiotics,
requiring a hospital stay, possibly a surgery, colectomy,
where you're cutting out pieces of your intestine.
You don't want that.
- How much would two pounds of the beef fat be?
- $2.53, ma'am.
- I will take the beef fat.
- So instead of using protein,
she's just using the beef fat?
- [Narrator] By supplementing the meat
with the beef fat, Stephanie saved 75%
on the ingredients for her lasagna.
- But then you're changing the nutritional make up
of the food completely.
When you go to a store
and you buy 80% ground beef,
that means it's 80% lean,
and 20% fat.
Here, now you've changed the proportions
to be the other way,
20% protein and 80% fat,
that's terribly unhealthy,
probably the unhealthiest thing you can do
to the food.
Red meat on its own already has some troubles
when you overeat it,
and then you create heart disease.
This is like quadrupling that problem.
- Now to save money I multitask
with washing dishes and cooking meals
with my dishwasher.
- Oh no.
- I just gotta make sure I wrap it really well,
or else the food will get wet.
- [Narrator] With the dishwasher reaching
a temperature of 170 degrees,
the lasagna will be fully cooked in one and a half hours.
- No, because you don't know
if the temperature is like that all across,
unlike an oven where it's controlled.
The pennies that you're saving here
will pale in comparison to the one time that you get sick,
and your hospital bills are out of control.
Here's what I'm trying to say,
that it's not that I'm judging this process,
it's just not a practical process,
not a healthy process.
Ideally this should be changed.
- [Stephanie] It's good right?
- Be cooked in a dishwasher?
The lasagna tastes like water.
- Yeah, and the kid rightfully said no.
If I had a patient that was doing that,
I would seriously discuss whether or not
we could change that,
and if the patient was not receptive to it,
there may be a conversation
about getting some people involved
to go check on the welfare of those children.
- I go dumpster diving in the trash
of upscale grocery stores in New York.
These stores often throw away
a lot of very high quality foods.
- Yeah, I've heard that.
- Including organic foods,
and really nice prepared foods.
- And there's a lot of these stores in New York
that have relationships with food banks
so that they don't make waste of this food,
and they can feed our homeless population in New York.
What they don't wanna have happen
is constantly people just waiting outside
of their restaurants because then it creates a pattern
where then it might demotivate some individuals
from actually going to a shelter,
seeking refuge,
getting the proper help they might need, et. cetera.
- I'm guessing these tomatoes got thrown out probably
because they were among a bunch that had
maybe one or two that were spoiled.
So often the store would just throw the whole batch out.
- It's not like bread,
when there's a piece of mold
in any part of the bread
you gotta throw the whole thing out.
With tomatoes or berries you can get rid of the ones
that have mold on them.
- There is a chicken asparagus with two sides here.
My friends might like this even though I don't like chicken.
This is dated today.
- What is it?
- These are some,
a bunch of vegetables with turkey
and chicken, mashed potatoes.
And this is a chicken fried rice.
- So everything's in the same pot?
- Yeah, this is a medley.
- I actually like eating foods in a medley,
and my friends make fun of me.
They're like "Mike, you're eating out of a horse trough."
But I like it that way,
that's why I get Chipotle burrito bowls.
(dramatic music)
They didn't seem to fond of it,
but has nothing to do with her saving money,
she's just not a good cook.
If my friends came over,
and asked me to cook for them,
they'd probably make the same face.
While pulling expired sandwiches
out of a grocery store garbage bag might be affordable,
I don't think you should ever cut corners
when it comes to eating a healthy
and safe diet,
which is why for the last year I've made sure
to get so many of my ingredients from Butcher Box.
They deliver fresh, certified organic chicken,
wild caught seafood,
and grass-fed beef right to my front door.
This saves me so much time,
and gives me peace of mind every month
knowing that I'm getting the highest quality meats.
I don't have to get in my car, drive to the grocery store,
park, push around a shopping cart,
and then lug everything back home.
Having the food brought right to my doorstep
just means I get to eat sooner
and easier.
Recently I've been enjoying their wild caught
Alaskan sockeye salmon,
which is not only delicious,
but packed full of nutrients.
It's seriously so good.
Butcher Box practices thoughtful sourcing
when it comes to selecting their products too,
which means that I can trust their high quality food
is better for me, the farmers,
the animal's welfare,
and our planet.
They're super flexible
with what you can get in your box too,
and it you're looking for a more affordable option
their cheapest box actually has enough food
for 24 meals,
meaning you and your family
can have a home cooked meal five nights a week
for an entire month and then some.
You can choose your delivery frequency too,
so you get exactly the foods
you and your family love
all in an eco friendly 100% recyclable box.
Not to mention shipping is always free.
I think that's a pretty good deal.
Click the link below to claim this month's
exclusive limited time offer for Butcher Box
plus free shipping when you use my link.
All right, let's get back to the show.
- [Narrator] In the past six years,
Mark has volunteered in more than 100 medical studies.
And the riskier the trial,
the better it pays.
- Well actually I'm not gonna even say
that this is a bad thing 'cause we need more volunteers
for our research.
- A few studies that I'm waiting on that I have not
been in yet is a flat line study.
This is a really good one.
What they do is they stop your heart for one minute,
but you still breathe,
stay there 14 days, it pays $25,000.
But the FDA kind of stepped in
and stopped that.
- Whoa, you flat line for a minute,
and they keep you breathing,
and then bring back your pulse through epinephrine?
My God, I can't even imagine.
- The second one that I'm really anxious
and really excited and waiting to do,
what you do is you go in,
and you donate one of your testicles,
they replace it with an artificial one,
and when you check out after 14 days
you get a check for $35,000.
- That's an expensive testicle.
$35,000 per testicle?
I never knew that there was a study that did that.
Not all studies are this dramatic,
a lot of them are more for medications that are well known,
well tolerated,
just kind of comparing different patient populations,
that's why I recommend everyone visit
clinicaltrials.gov to learn more.
- [Narrator] Mark participates in so many clinical trials
that he gets free checkups every month
to see if he's a good candidate for each study.
- So a checkup that's seeing if you're a good candidate
doesn't always mean that you're getting a good checkup,
a good preventive visit.
During a visit you don't just get a checkup,
you also get active risk assessment,
and then advice on those risks.
So this isn't a replacement for a checkup.
- So what I'd like for you to do is take off your shirt,
and I'll come back in,
and we'll do a brief exam.
- Okay.
- And also I gotta check out your gems.
- Okay. (laughing)
- So we'll take a look at that too.
- See, I like that the doctor is laying out
exactly what's gonna happen during the visit
before doing it,
'cause I see a lot of young doctors,
and older doctors alike
rushing through these procedures,
not giving the patient enough time
to mentally prepare, to physically prepare
for what's gonna happen, whatever the exam might be.
- Being a lab rat you have to be very healthy.
Your labs have to be in certain ranges and levels,
and a healthy level to be a healthy control.
- When he says a healthy control,
that means he's probably in the group
that's being held at a constant,
and not be given the experimental treatment.
The thing is with randomized controlled studies,
which is the gold standard
of scientific evidence,
you wanna be blinding not just the researchers,
but also the patients,
meaning not knowing who's getting the true treatment,
and who's betting the control arm.
So in a double blind study
he wouldn't know if he's in the control group or not.
- Your heart sounds regular,
and I don't hear any extra beats.
- So what we're listening when we listen
with a stethoscope to the heart
you wanna make sure that the rate is consistent,
not too fast, not too slow,
has to be a regular rate, not irregular.
That could be a sign of an arrhythmia
like afib is a common one,
atrial flutter is another.
But then you're also listening for the flow of blood,
that's when we can detect something known as a murmur,
which is how blood flows through the different chambers
of the heart or different arteries.
And when we hear certain sounds, that murmur,
depending on which location we hear it,
where it's most intense,
we can then decide the area that we're most concerned about.
It's like all these things
need to be taken into consideration,
and then we can offer further testing
like an echocardiogram
which is ultrasound of the heart
to visualize exactly what we're going on.
And usually if you're really good with the stethoscope,
you can predict what you're gonna see on an EKG
or an echocardiogram because it's a great tool.
- Drop your drawers.
- Okay.
- And we just kind of examine both testicles,
we rub 'em between two fingers.
- You wanna use more medical terminology
rather than lay person terminology
because that can make people feel uncomfortable.
When you're doing it you also wanna visualize the area.
So a lot of the times I see on these shows
they're doing stuff like this,
they're almost looking up,
and not looking at the region
that they're making contact with.
Then you could miss all sorts of rashes,
hair conditions, masses that you might see
with your vision not with your touch.
Overall it's an incomplete physical exam in my eyes.
- [Narrator] Low testosterone levels
effect roughly 39% of men.
A low test result for Mark
would take him out of the running
for the testicular study.
- [Doctor] The risk to you is pretty significant,
I'm not endorsing the surgery.
- [Narrator] Mark's test results are well below
the acceptable range set for the clinical trial.
- When you're seeing a primary care doctor like myself,
and you're going in for a preoperative clearance,
we're not deciding if the surgery is right for you,
we're deciding your risk for the procedure,
and if there's any way we can optimize your medical state
or your health in order for you to have decreased
likelihood of adverse effect from the surgery.
- Maybe going on testosterone replacement
would be a great thing for you.
- Okay.
- Have you ever thought about doing that?
- Well how about asking him if he has issues
that could show that his low testosterone
is clinically significant
as opposed to just an symptomatic lab finding.
An asymptomatic lab finding
is not always necessary to be treated,
especially men of an older age.
This is where you gotta be really careful
with these hormone replacement clinics,
and I'm not saying anything specifically about this one
because this might not be showing the whole visit,
but just in general to keep in the back of your mind.
- [Narrator] While it doesn't pay as much
as the testicular removal study,
Mark does manager to land a spot in a trial
testing testosterone replacement.
- Each one of these pills represents to me
a car insurance payment.
$75 every Monday, cash,
$50 every Tuesday, $125 a week times four,
$500 a month equals my rent and my car payment.
- Your rent and your car payment is $500?
That's very reasonable.
- One of the main things that I look for
when I go dumpster diving now
are medications, especially prenatal vitamins.
- Okay, very dangerous,
specifically when it comes to medications,
because a lot of times medications
are not in correct pill bottles,
and may not be labeled correctly,
and therefore you may not know
their expiration date or their dosage,
and that presents a whole host of problems.
- I think expiration dates in general are kind of mm.
- I'm not sure when she means by mm,
but there is some truth to the fact
that a good amount of the medications,
if stored properly,
if stored properly, if stored properly,
could be good past their expiration date
for a short period of time.
And the reason I say that is because
there was actually a study done by the government
to see that the medications that were stored
in the military bases,
they were stored in the correction locations,
with the correct conditions,
five years after some of them were still effective.
And the ones that were expired past that time
were just less effective,
they kind of lost their efficacy.
And you have to think as a doctor when is that dangerous?
That's dangerous if you're thinking about taking
expired emergency medications like epinephrine, insulin,
these are medications that if they're not effective
you're in danger.
Taking an expired Tylenol,
the real risk of it is that it might not work.
But taking expired epinephrine
when you're having an anaphylactic attack
means that you can die,
you see how there's a difference there?
- A lot of times they put expiration dates on things
way earlier than they need to
just to sell more products.
- That's not the case, it's done in a way
that you need to understand common use.
And when you think of common use,
most people do not properly store their medications,
they frequently store them in the bathroom,
which is a high humidity environment,
which is not good for any medication.
Medications that are in gels
and in liquid form tend to be
even shorter expiration dates,
meaning they're good for a shorter period of time
'cause they're more likely to go bad.
- Bingo.
It's folic acid which is good for pregnancy.
- I mean folic acid is important for pregnancy.
It's advised by the AFP
and the CDC that individuals who are considering
getting pregnant
or are pregnant take 0.4 milligrams to 0.8 milligrams,
which is 400 micrograms to 800 micrograms
of folic acid as a way to decrease the likelihood
of neurologic defects occurring during pregnancy.
- Every dollar we spend on anything
other than food is a waste.
- Wow.
- I don't see the need to spend money on furniture.
I'm a floor guy, I sit on the floor,
and it's very comfortable.
- I mean to each their own.
This isn't a medical issue here.
- What I did was I found some two by fours,
and these are styrofoam peanuts.
So I just take all the peanuts, throw them in there,
and then I cover it up with bubble wrap,
and then this is a table cloth,
and it makes a perfect bed.
- I mean I just don't know if I would go to say perfect bed.
I could see a lot of those foam peanuts move around,
and then as a result you're lying on the hard floor,
and putting pressure on your shoulder
that you could wake up with quite the painful rotator cuff
or labrum.
- To find good roadkill on the road,
and if it's fresh, fresh, fresh and good,
I'm a butcher, I have no problem whatsoever
eating something that's fresh and good.
- I mean this person's a butcher,
so at least they have some experience
on whether or not certain foods are safe to eat.
It doesn't seem ideal given that it's not controlled
how these things died.
Did a car run over it?
Did it eat some poison then die,
then a car ran over it,
you know what I'm saying?
- Tonight we're serving barbecued rabbit,
and a tosses salad made with flowers that we've gathered.
- I mean you could just grow vegetables.
You can go to an apple tree orchid,
and pull an apple off of it
and eat it,
and know that it's an apple,
versus I can't even begin to guess
the nutritional facts on a dandelion.
- It was weeds, all weeds.
Dandelions, flowers, clovers,
things that you just don't normally eat.
- Again, I don't know the nutrition facts for those things,
but it doesn't seem safe,
or necessary, that's the goal here.
- One thing thing,
a little discovery that I've made,
way to save on coffee, I enjoy my coffee in the morning.
- Me too.
- I have made my own little coffee device
out of an old sock.
- You couldn't use a shirt, you went for the sock?
They definitely asked for this on the show.
I hear the producers already,
he's like I use a piece of cloth,
they're like "Can you use a sock?"
- I developed a method with rubber bands
to keep my soap levitated off of that water,
lets it dry, it prevents mildew,
and my soap lasts double the amount of time
it would normally last.
- I'm with it.
Another one that I'm with.
- I'm probably saving between $80
and $100 a year just on soap alone.
- I love it.
You know, I think green tea is a really good drink.
Click here to learn all about the potential benefits
of green tea.
And, again, huge thank you to Butcher Box
for sponsoring this video.
As always, stay happy and healthy.
(gentle music)