11 Tips for Eating Healthy on a Budget

[Anonymous]

1. Stop Going To Fast Food Restaurants

You can't find anything healthy and fresh in a fast food restaurant. The foods are made to look good and taste good at the expense of health. The restaurant environment may not be totally hygienic. And the price of the meals may be too expensive. Pizza restaurants usually have items on the menu that are priced at $10 or up. Hamburger restaurants usually have full meal items (hamburger, fries, and soda) that are priced between $5-10. You can order things on the cheaper Dollar Menu, but one item may not be filling, and the high salt content likely is going to make you very thirsty afterwards.

2. Stop Buying Ready-Made Meals at Supermarkets and Grocery Stores

Ready-made meals at supermarkets and grocery stores are not healthy, because they usually contain a lot of artificial ingredients and are not fresh. Deli sandwiches may be priced anywhere from $5 to $10, more or less. You may be better off with buying a bundle of cucumbers, tomatoes, and spinach, and making your own home-made salad for lunch for a couple of days, whereas the sandwich can only last you one day, let alone two.

3. Stop Buying Processed Foods In General

I'm talking about the highly processed, refined, energy-dense type of processed food. These processed foods usually have little nutritional value in them, but they do have a lot of calories and/or artificial ingredients. You shouldn't even allow them cross your mind.

Sometimes, you want to buy bread to add more calories in your otherwise calorie-deficient diet of fruits and vegetables. In that case, buying enriched white bread, which is usually cheaper than whole wheat bread due to lower grade quality, is okay. Enriched white bread is made from refined flour, so it has a longer shelf life and is more digestable, so that means you can give yourself smaller rations per day than the amount you would eat for whole-wheat bread. Enriched white bread contains nutrients that are later added/enriched into the flour. Although you do not get many nutrients from the bread alone, you can get a lot of nutrients from eating raw fruits and vegetables that complement the bread slices. Buying a sack of rice can last you for months, and rice has a long shelf life. Baked potatoes are very starchy, so they can be a form of staple food. Staple food is merely food that comprises most of your daily calories and helps you fight off hunger and starvation.

4. The Fresh Produce Section Is Your Best Friend

Fresh fruits and vegetables are at the center of hearty, healthy eating. You should eat a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, getting all the colors of the rainbow. They provide water, dietary fiber, sugars, proteins, lipids (avocados, tofu, tempeh, legumes), vitamins, and minerals. Eat fruits and vegetables raw and cooked to maximize the nutritional benefits. If you have never been a picky eater, then eating fruits and vegetables will be a breeze for you. However, if you are the type who picks out the "nasty-tasting" vegetables or fruits, then you may build up tolerance by allowing yourself to familiarize with the flavor or texture one bite at a time.

5. Look For Good Deals In The Brochure Provided At The Entrance Or In The Mail Box

If you have a relative or friend who is accustomed to finding cheap, healthy shopping deals, then you may learn from that relative or friend. However, if you are living by yourself and no one really has taught you this life skill, then you may learn this important life skill the hard way. You should pick up the brochure that is provided at the front entrance of the grocery store or supermarket, and you should look inside your mailbox for advertisements from the said grocery store or supermarket. You should remember the average prices for most of the fresh produce at the supermarket or grocery store, so that you will know whether a good deal is being advertised on the brochure or ad.

6. Compare Prices From Different Grocery Stores or Supermarkets

You should have a collection of grocery stores and supermarkets to turn to. Different stores will promote different products at different times of the year. To take advantage of this fact, you should keep a mental note of the average prices of the products at all the stores. It's like playing The Price Is Right in real life. That way, when you do your grocery shopping once or twice a week after work, you can hit the stores successively on your work-to-home route and get good deals on the food.

7. Acknowledge Personal or Religious Dietary Restrictions

You may have a religion that prohibits you from eating certain food products deemed "unclean" for consumption. You may have strict dietary restrictions due to a metabolic disorder. You may have ethical dietary restrictions on certain food products derived from cruel/inhumane sources. And you may simply have no palate for certain food products (i.e. no sweets for you if you don't have a sweet tooth). Those dietary restrictions are most important and will shape your personal shopping preferences.

8. Fat Is Not Bad

Animal fat from fatty meats can be used as cooking oil and flavoring. Animal fat can also be used to fatten the meal. Soy products, like tofu and tempeh, when stir-fried, will contain higher fat composition, increasing the amount of calories in the dish. So, if you are short on your calories, then you may add some meat and tofu to the otherwise all-vegetable stir-fry.

The following is a study about stir-frying fermented soybean (tempeh). Minerals decrease, and fat composition increases. But then, if you get your minerals from vegetables and you need more calories, then adding tofu and tempeh into the stir-fry is the way to go.

Setiawan, Budhi, et al. "The Influence Of Traditional Stir-Frying With Oil On Acceptability, Antioxidant Activities, Nutrients, And The Phytic Acid Content Of Fermented Soybean (Tempeh)." Nutrition & Food Science 46.2 (2016): 259-271. Academic Search Premier. Web. 9 Aug. 2016.

9. Minimize Food Wastage

Food wastage can be minimized in the food preparation and consumption process. In the food preparation process, you may use all the edible parts of the fruit or vegetable. After eating watermelon bowls for dessert one evening, you may scrape out the remaining pink flesh and peel off the outer skin. What you are left with is the watermelon rind, and you may stir-fry the watermelon rind to make a vegetable dish. For a whole chicken or turkey, you may find offal meat stuffed in the body cavity. Instead of discarding the offal, you may cook the offal in soups. When eating a baked chicken drumstick, you may pull all the meat off with your teeth and nibble on the bone like a dog, squeezing the bone marrow juices out.

10. Just Drink Water

Buying soda pop from a vending machine costs anywhere from $1.00 to $2.00. Walmart may have a soda can priced at $0.50 at its vending machine. Soda pop has no nutritional value, has too much sugar, may contain caffeine (which acts like a diuretic), is gassy and acidic, and costs about a dollar for a can. A healthier and more economic option would be drinking water. Obtaining drinking water is easy. You just need to fill up a kettle with municipal tap water, put it on the stove, and turn off the stove when the kettle is whistling. At the time when the water is still boiling hot, you may slide in a tea bag and make tea without any added sugars or artificial sweeteners. But you still have to buy tea, making water the best option for you. Water is available at many public places, so you can always fill up with a mouthful of free clean water anywhere you go.

11. Eat Weeds

Weeds, such as dandelions or green nira or green scallions, are extremely easy to grow. You may buy green onions at the grocery store one day and consume all but the root part. If you keep the root and put the root in a shallow container filled with water, then the green onion will grow, and you will have more green onions to eat and spice up your cooking. Green nira, originated in Asia, is an extremely aggressive invasive species in North America. You may plant some in an old shoe filled with dirt. A handful of green nira can make a vegetable dish. Dandelion greens may be purchased at the grocery store, or you may forage for them at the local park (especially if the local park looks big enough and the grass looks sort of untreated/unmaintained) in the wee hours of the morning. The yellow flowers of dandelions can be used to make tea. The green, luscious leaves can be used to make a vegetable dish. If the leaves are not so bright and green, then they would taste extremely bitter.

[Anonymous]

1- Whole grains keep you full longer. They absolutely taste better. Whole grain or plain white rice are basically the same price. So go for brown rice instead of white.
2- In a medical textbook it said that rice provides you both with all the proteins that your body needs that it can't make on its own, & all the amino acids it requires to make the proteins that it is able to make on its own. So if you are trapped on a desert island with just rice & water, you will not suffer protein deficiency.
3- It's called bran. It's the skin peeled off of different grains. It's a dollar a pound, but because it's light, one pound can give you a huge bag. Add it to your cooking instead of flour. It's much more delicious & nutritious, it's loaded with B vitamins. & the best part is that it acts like whole grains & keeps you full longer. I add it to eggs to make pancakes. It's my favorite dish, & with two eggs, it keeps me full a whole day. My friend adds it to the bread she bakes. Healthy bread, cheaper, delicious, & keeps you full longer.
4- Buy milk & make your own yoghurt. It's easy, & gives you twice as much yoghurt that you can buy in a store. Yoghurt has lots of calcium, & calcium curbs hunger, not to mention eating yoghurt every day will visibly strengthen your nails (& bones but of course not visibly) in just a week.
All you have to do is heat the milk in a pot until it threatens to boil over. Turn off the stove quickly at this point. Wash your hands. Then let the milk cool until when you put a finger in it, it feels neither hot nor cold. Add 4 tablespoons of last time's yoghurt to it, wrap it in a blanket, & let it stay in a warm or not cold corner for about 12 hours. DO NOT TOUCH, STIR, OR UNCOVER IT DURING THIS TIME. Voila! You have yourself a big pot of yoghurt. If you have a sweet tooth, add some sugar, or jam/jelly, or honey to it and you are all set.
5- Some international markets have really awesome low prices for their fruits & vegetables. If you live in southern California, look up "North Park Produce" or "Balboa International Market" or "International Market".
6- Drink: buy sugar, a bottle of lemon juice (or better squeeze your own) & make lemonade. Chia seeds are cheap & nutritious. Add a teaspoon or two to it, bottle it.
7- Make your own jam/jelly with brown sugar. It's cheaper than white & healthier. Buy fruit in bulk. Very ripe, close to rotting fruit is best, both for taste & price. Most houses with big groves will give you for free. Lemons too.

[myTake Owner]

1. I think my most important point is the one on "Dietary Restrictions". Obviously, people can't eat foods that are considered "unclean". They also can't eat foods that are known to cause unpleasant side effects. Eating potato chips gives me canker sores; canker sores are completely benign, but they hurt. I also can't drink too much milk without an upset stomach afterwards. And I can just get a lot of calcium from raw and cooked fruits and vegetables. I once made home-made cheese before; it's a tricky process that I am not willing to go through again. So, I avoid dairy products.

2. Taste is subjective. I tried whole wheat bread and white bread. They tasted the same. I tried brown rice and white rice. They still tasted the same. Brown rice may be a good staple food, because it is energy-dense and nutritious, and you can buy by a huge sack, which can last for months. Meanwhile, a loaf of bread only lasts a week or so.

3. Bran. Interesting.

[myTake Owner]

4. I believe that added sugar by any name is dangerous. This includes artificial sweeteners and natural sugars. I try not to add any sugar in my food. I am aware of the amount of sugar and the kind of sugar in processed food, so I try to avoid those things too.

[Opinion Owner]

I completely agree with you on sugar. It also causes a roller coaster effect with your blood sugar and insulin levels which in turn leaves you craving more food and carbs. Google it.

I know! Cheese is terribly difficult to make. I don't even go near it. And I definitely don't recommend it. It's also very time consuming and I'm guessing a pretty expensive process.
But yoghurt is very very easy. It basically takes care of itself. I strongly recommend trying it.

[myTake Owner]

Making Indian paneer cheese is not expensive. You just need whole milk and lemon. Making mozzarella cheese adds salt and rennet to the process. That's the only difference between Indian paneer and mozzarella. But cheese is still difficult to make, because you can't tell when the milk is starting to boil, and when it boils, the milk will rise tremendously. It's like blowing bubbles in the milk carton. The bubbles foam, and you have a really tall bubble structure of milk.

[MrShinyPants]

Difficult to buy produce when you can only afford $250 for three people a month for foods, with high taxes, i think its stupid they make the healthier stuff more expensive then the starchy and sugary crap, can only afford to eat on average once a day for the first two weeks then once every other day, makes it even harder when some of that food money has to go towards buses and cabs to get there

[myTake Owner]

Food deserts are notorious for having energy-dense junk food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, convenience stores at gas stations are a common place. I went to a United Dairy Farmer store, and the only things I found that were not sugary or fatty or highly processed were a package of carrots and a package of fruits, out of the entire store. A personal car comes in handy. :D

[myTake Owner]

I don't know where you live, but $250 for three people a month for fresh produce is a bit on the high end where I live.

[MrShinyPants]

Arizona, glendale taxes are about 10.05% some things are cheap but some can be pricey, meats are ridiculous and fish

[myTake Owner]

Wow. I feel sorry for you. I live in a Midwestern state, and the sales tax here is less than 6%. The Midwest also has a grocery food chain called Fresh Thyme popping up in suburbs and cities. It makes shopping very convenient. Fresh Thyme, Meijer, Kroger, Sam's Club, Walmart, and Aldi are the usual grocery food/supermarket chains here. Fresh Thyme is the cheaper alternative to Whole Foods Market.

Well, when you are short on veggies, you can always plant some weeds to eat. Weeds are extremely adaptable and can adjust to varying climates.

[Jager66]

look into frozen produce, it's healthier, cheaper and lasts longer.

[Queen_naki5]

The key to making healthy food taste good is seasoning and herbs. You can make veggies taste better than a burger with the proper seasoning. A lot of people don't believe that you can make something like kale taste great, but there are ways, you just have to be creative. I personally loathed healthy foods for years until I found a way to make them taste good. Sometimes salt and pepper just doesn't cut it. I had to add some paprika, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, garlic cloves, onion cloves, homegrown onions (omg) and cilantro. They do wonders.

[myTake Owner]

I have a bland palate. One reason why I reject many processed foods (after trying them once) is that they tend to have a strong flavor. That said, I don't like things with strong flavors, so I can eat a raw cucumber, because it tastes bland and thus matches my palate.

[Queen_naki5]

Everyone is different. I can't do bland. I grew up with a culture that has a thing for spicy foods, I NEED flavor lol.

[Anonymous]

I'm on a budget (an incredibly low one, meaning I have $0 and my mom has to use food stamps to feed everyone in the house while also working to pay rent, buy clothes, etc).. I've found that counting calories is helpful. Find foods that have a low calorie count but allows you to eat more so you don't feel as hungry, but also don't limit yourself to a tiny little amount of calories or you won't have much energy. I've been counting calories and drinking nothing but water for a couple of weeks and I've already lost 2 pounds without changing my exercise amount by a lot.

[Anonymous]

This is good advice. Water has helped me lose a lot of weight and stay in shape. I didn't know about the weeds thing until I read about it. I like how you included fats because people who go on a diet usually avoid fats when they shouldn't be.

[myTake Owner]

Fats and oils that go through a process called hydrogenation contain trans fats. Indeed, that is the type of fat you want to avoid, and you can easily do that by avoiding the consumption of highly processed, refined food.

If you have a salad, that salad dressing may contain hydrogenated oils/fats and sugars, turning the salad into an unhealthy platter instantly. It may be best to eat the salad without the dressing. Add an avocado, some nuts, tofu, or meat can fatten the meal.

[nalaa]

I didn't expect to learn anything, but you can stirfry watermelon peel? No way, tell me more

[myTake Owner]

Here is a step-by-step process on how to make a savory watermelon rind dish.

1. Scoop out the pink flesh of the watermelon.
2. Peel the dark green watermelon skin.
3. Slice the rind into tiny pieces. Be careful with the knife.
4. Stir-fry with a bit of oil and soy sauce.

You are not really eating the peel; you are eating the rind, which is the thing between the peel and flesh.

[MissFabulous]

Awesome take, I learned a lot, especially about how u can stirfry watermelon peels! Thanks! :)

[myTake Owner]

I think you mean watermelon rind. The peel is the outermost dark green layer that is probably too tough to eat. The rind is the light green flesh between the peel and the pink flesh. Eating the rind part is a money-saver. However, not all watermelons will come with thick rinds. If you meet a watermelon with a thin rind, then you can just pass that up for discard. It'll be too unsafe for you to process the watermelon rind.

[MissFabulous]

Oh okay then, my mistake :) Thank for telling me!

[FrankieG]

Its not just what u eat, its more what u eat at what time so that as the day goes by your body is purging fat without even working out.. Of cource if you workout its faster.. I was so fat that i had a double chin now i have double phone numbers for double girlfriends

[AriadneSky]

vegetates are most important but most expensive. i dont eat out or at sugar or processed foods., and its very costly

[Fathoms77]

One necessary point to take away from this:

The idea that you need money to eat well and lead a healthy lifestyle is BS. It has ALWAYS been BS. Anybody who believes it is lying to themselves so they can continue to be lazy slugs, and that's that.

[myTake Owner]

I think that fails to take into account of actual food deserts and people who rely on homeless shelters and food pantries for food.

[myTake Owner]

For those people, it's not a matter of choosing healthy food. It's a matter of finding them. Oftentimes, people who live in rural areas or inner-city areas can find stores stocked with high-calorie junk food and no fresh produce at all. I went to an United Dairy Farmers store before. Out of the entire store, I just found one cup of fruit and one bag of raw baby carrots.

[Fathoms77]

That's a very tiny percentage of people. The overwhelming majority can eat just fine, and be active, on just about any budget.

[myTake Owner]

I think you'll be surprised at the number of people - Americans - who rely on food pantries and food donations to provide for nutritional sustenance. Soup kitchens, food pantries, and food donation drives have to rely on canned food and boxed food, because they contain preservatives that can help the perishables stay on the shelf longer.

[Unit1]

Disagree.
I am poor atm and I cannot buy anything to eat, hence I am a skinny and underfed and lightweighted person.
Fruits and Vegetables and just any kind of food costs money.
(Yes, I am looking for a job - still)

[myTake Owner]

@Unit1 You live in Iceland. The myTake is biased towards an American viewpoint.

[Unit1]

No, I do not live in Iceland. It just say's so because I want to.

[myTake Owner]

@Unit1 OK. Where do you live then? Which country? City, suburb, or farm?

[Unit1]

I rather continue this via PM. The internet has not to know this.

[Flurr]

Things are prettt cheap where I live relative to income so it's not that big of an issue for me, but with that being said I eat like a horse and especially so at home.

[NatashaJ]

Or go to farm markets if you don't trust your market is selling fresh stuff without adding shit in it?

[HarvestMoon]

Yeah, except that Trader Joe's is expensive as hell.

[myTake Owner]

You should have a collection of grocery stores to choose from and always look for good deals on fresh produce. Sometimes, if you live near a rural area, you can find a farmer's market, where you can pick your own vegetables and buy them by weight.

[John_Doesnt]

I didn't realise I was going to the corporate Trader Joe's in Monrovia.

[Heera]

That's a nice, useful take! Good job :)

[YourFutureEx]

The only problem is taste :/

[myTake Owner]

Taste is subjective. It is one of those things where non-picky eaters have an advantage of. Beggars can't be choosers. :D

[YourFutureEx]

Tbh, I can live without fast food, but I need something sweet to drink, otherwise I feel sad :/

[myTake Owner]

A healthier sweet alternative is real coconut juice from a real coconut. You can also eat a variety of different fruits for your sweet tooth. A grapefruit may contain a lot of sugar, but it also contains fiber, which curbs the absorption of sugar.

[YourFutureEx]

LOL I eat fruits daily. I need something pure liquid. I used to have a ridiculous sweet tooth. I controlled myself, but I realised that totally eliminating sugars caused me mood swings.

[myTake Owner]

Maybe replacing foods with added sugar with very sweet fruits (like peaches and plums) can cure your mood swings? Then, you may try less sweeter fruits like cantaloupes or honeydews.

[YourFutureEx]

I'll try. Thanks :)

[Anonymous]

I agree, great myTake 👍