• Log in with Facebook Log in with Twitter Log In with Google      Sign In    
  • Create Account
  LongeCity
              Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans

Photo
- - - - -

How to Eat Healthy on a Low Budget


  • Please log in to reply
42 replies to this topic

#31 the big b

  • Guest
  • 146 posts
  • 7
  • Location:North Eastern US

Posted 06 June 2006 - 06:39 PM

You know, I've never even seen Quinoa, but having just looked it up on Wikipedia, it looks like quite a nice addition to most peoples diets. I don't eat fish, never really been a fan of the flavor, but the prices around here are murder anyhow, not to mention the mercury (of which I have deathly afraid of).

Though I must say, when I had my gallbladder removed last month, I had to go on a much softer diet, and in order to get my protein I ate Lentils like a beast. With a little MSG-free boullion and some peas, it was a very cheap source of protein. And it wasn't really all that bad, just took some time to acquire a taste for it.

#32 tedsez

  • Guest
  • 74 posts
  • 1

Posted 06 June 2006 - 10:06 PM

Healthful food is never too expensive if you shop smart:

-- Most supermarkets have a few items of fresh seasonal produce on "special sale" at any given time. For instance, a 16-ounce container of fresh strawberries that was $3 at Ralphs last week is $1 now.

-- You can supplement these with whatever brand of frozen veggies is on sale. I wouldn't eat them exclusively, but frozen produce has been shown to be just as nutritious as fresh.

-- Sunday newspaper coupons really work. My favorite supermarket offers double coupons and usually puts the items on sale the day the paper comes out, which means you often pay less than half the original price. (Unfortunately, the majority of coupons are for highly processed convenience foods, but there's good stuff in there too.)

-- If you have a Trader Joe's in your area, they carry organic packaged products, low-fat meat and dairy, pre-made salads and green or white tea for prices that are well below those of supermarkets or health-food stores.

-- Many cities now have services that deliver weekly shipments of freshly picked organic produce to your door. It costs as much as at a farmer's market, but you don't have to take the time for an extra shopping trip.

-- Buy bulk spices at Costco or a gourmet kitchen-supply store. They're at least as good as what you'll find in a supermarket but at a much lower price.

#33 Athanasios

  • Guest
  • 2,616 posts
  • 163
  • Location:Texas

Posted 06 June 2006 - 11:21 PM

Healthful food is never too expensive if you shop smart:


Try it here.

Strawberries are on sale here too, only $5 instead of $7.

sponsored ad

  • Advert

#34 xanadu

  • Guest
  • 1,917 posts
  • 8

Posted 06 June 2006 - 11:47 PM

I've never seen strawberries $1 for 16oz. $3 for that would be the sale price. Coupons are only for crap food from what I've seen, by and large. Try bulk food stores or discounters like walmart. They are good for certain items but their quality overall is not as high as some others. Think about organising a group of people to go in on a bulk purchace or all go together in someone's car to buy from a farm or farmer's market. If you have a freezer, you can store a lot of stuff. Frozen veggies are just as good as fresh and sometimes better.

#35 Michael

  • Advisor, Moderator
  • 1,293 posts
  • 1,792
  • Location:Location Location

Posted 30 June 2006 - 02:11 PM

All:

First, a lot of folks are claiming that fruit & veg are expensive by citing expensive fruit & veg ;). Strawberries are expensive, and they're also loaded with fungicides; red peppers, likewise, are pricey, and are among the 12 Most Pesticide-Contaminated crops. (Note that citrus fruits should also be on this list, and were only not included on the assumption that you would discard the peel -- which you may not want to do (see below)). By contrast, broccoli, cauliflower, oranges (again, see below), onions, and apples tend to be inexpensive (tho' not dirt cheap like grains, etc) and are extremely healthy.

While whole grains are cheap Calorie sources and are not junk food, their nutrient density per Calorie is really dramatically lower than veg, and they contain nearly no important phytochemicals. They're also high-glycemic compared to veg, and have some actual antinutritional properties. They're OK if yoiu're eating ad lib, but if you're on CR you really don't have the space in your diet to waste on them.

No one has mentioned buying frozen veggies, which are often cheaper than fresh, are very convenient, and don't lead to wastage thru' spoilage. It's widely believed that frozen veg are nutritionally inferior to fresh, but this really isn't true: the comparisons contrast veg taken essentially fresh off of the fields to frozen, but in the real world nutrients are lost in the long chain from field to warehouse to supermarket to your plate. Unless you're buying straight from the field, the difference is negligible -- esp if your alternative is buying (ugh) grains instead.

Another really important suggestion that no one has mentioned is shopping at Asian grocery stores. You'll see a lot of exotic veggies, some of them extremely healthful, for cheap. Notably, look for amaranth greens (sold as "Yin choy," "Een choy," or "Red sen/shen choy"), yu choy/choy sum, a variety of turnip greens, napa cabbage, and dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms. But heck, if you're eating ad lib, and if you're otherwise not going to eat veg, just pick anything cheap and vegetable-ish. (It is somewhat sensible to be a bit more concerned about pesticides when buying Asian produce, but (a) increasingly the stuff in mainstream grocery stores comes from "riskier" countries anyway due to globalization, (b) FDA/CFSAN, USDA, and buyer pressure is rapidly improving this problem, © you can lower your risk by rinsing them off in very dilute, chemically 'clean' dishwashing liquid, such as Nature Clean or Seventh Generation followed by a pure water rinse, and above all (d) again, it is much more important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables than to worry about pesticides! (That is: organic is generally to be preferred, but with the possible exception of the "dirty dozen" op cit, conventional veggies are much, much healthier than eating something else -- organic grain and grain products, eg.

Also, many people unthinkingly throw out a lot of valuable plant food, senselessly decreasing the amount of valuable food per dollar expended (and wasting resources and filling up landfill). Eg, they buy salad greens, use the leaves for salad and then trim out and discard the stems. Instead, these can be cut up and used in stirfries, or microwave-steamed (save the water!) with a little lemon or lime juice and olive oil -- lovely! Another example: orange, lemon, and lime peels deliver a delicious, intense citrus flavor if eaten with the fruit (ie, chop the whole orange in quarters or sixths, and pop a slice in your mouth), and they are packed with the phytochemical limonene -- which has great epidemiological and animal evidence as an anticancer agent, and would've been in OrthoCore except the company couldn't get a stable powder form thereof. However, these must be bought organic, as you're otherwise going to get a relatively high pesticide burden.

Better-quality salsas (low- to no added sugar -- not Tostito's or other crap mostly for nacho chips) should be counted as a vegetable (heck, their lycopene is more bioavailable than fresh tomatoes, and the epidemiology on cooked tomato products is stronger), and are a low-Calorie, nutrient-packed way to make salads more interesting. Safeway/Genuardi's sells big (1.89 L IIRC) bottles of pretty good stuff for $5, and have more exotic salsas (chipotle and cilantro, eg) in smaller (500 mL) bottles that often go on sale for ~$2.

Finally: shop at Trader Joe's! They have a lot of very cheap produce (fresh and frozen), much of it organic, as well as nuts, eggwhites (an extremely high-quality, versatile, zero-saturated-fat, zero-cholesterol prrotein source), organic milk, etc. Bulk stores (Costco, BJs, and even (ugh) Wal-Mart are also good sources for many cheap, common, conventional veggies and fruits.

-Michael

Edited by Michael, 30 June 2006 - 02:21 PM.


#36 ajnast4r

  • Guest, F@H
  • 3,925 posts
  • 147
  • Location:USA
  • NO

Posted 30 June 2006 - 02:32 PM

michael, great post...

although i dont agree about grains. oats, quinoa, millet are a valuable, nutritionally dense foods. complex carbohydrates are necesary imo, and glycemic index only counts if eaten alone on an empty stomach...+ they are super cheap... i got a basketball sized bag of bulk organic oats from whole foods the other day for like 2$.

#37 Matt

  • Guest
  • 2,862 posts
  • 149
  • Location:United Kingdom
  • NO

Posted 30 June 2006 - 02:51 PM

I don't find eating healthy all that expensive... even without a job at the moment I can manage. See how many foods I have a day here: Matts food list

I do Calorie restriction but just can't give up my morning porridge (oats), not yet anyway... I just enjoy my breakfast so much ! :D

Although I have smaller portions of energy dense foods so they dont take up too much of my total calories I set for each day. Breakfast is less than 500k/cal

#38 ajnast4r

  • Guest, F@H
  • 3,925 posts
  • 147
  • Location:USA
  • NO

Posted 30 June 2006 - 03:30 PM

i also dont find it that expensive... i do spent excess because i have it, but if i didnt i would still be able to eat quite well.

i guess this also has alot to do with WHERE i live...


nice website matt ;)

#39 glexia

  • Guest
  • 106 posts
  • 2
  • Location:Alicante (Spain)

Posted 07 July 2006 - 08:10 PM

I live alone too, and eating organic foods here in spain is many expensive! [ang] So i decided to bye only a few thing organic and eat more variety of normal food.

This is my usually foods :

Breakfast:

-1 spoon of whey protein
- water or organic rice milk
- 1 Spoon organic cacao
- Sometimes a little cinnamon

Mix all and add:

- 3/4 of oats
- 1/4 of organic raisins

-one piece of fruit

Snack

-Apple, kiwi, dried fruits (Almonds,nuts..)
-integral bread with extra virgin olive oil , natural tomato and tuna (one or twice a week..ummm) [lol]
-white or green tea

Dinner : These are the more i use, but I try to change vegetables and to buy different whenever I go to the supermarket

- Mushrooms, eggs, chiken, veal(once a week), potatoes, brown rice(organic), zucchini, aubergine, garlic, spices (oregano, parsley, black pepper),organic pasta (quinoa,spirulina) , lentils, chick-peas, espinacas, red string beans

- salad(Carrots, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, cabbage, onion, broccoli with apple vinegar)

Evening

-Activia danon (natural and skin)
-green or white tea
-apple
- When i feel hungry bread with some fresh cheese and turkey

Dinner

-Salad
-Chiken or eggs (sometimes whey if i go to gym)
-Rooibos tea

I have noticed more the expense on having added supplements that on having changed my nutrition.

#40 Brian

  • Guest
  • 29 posts
  • 1
  • Location:Earth

Posted 09 July 2006 - 08:37 PM

I suggest this service called thegrocerygame.com

It costs a small amount of money, but easily makes up for it by cutting your bill in around half if you shop using their method (use the coupons they tell you to, when they tell you to, and stock up). You can use this to track multiple stores in your area and only hit them when they have cheap items, and it cuts down on your shopping time because you can use the list to get in there and get exactly the items on sale and then get out.

You could definitely save some money on veggies with this, but can save even more on your non-veggie purchases where coupons come into play more. Sometimes you can even score free items.

#41 xanadu

  • Guest
  • 1,917 posts
  • 8

Posted 09 July 2006 - 08:54 PM

I have yet to see a coupon for veggies in the paper. They are usually for junk food or processed foods. It is good to shop around and shop at a store that refunds the purchase price if you are overcharged at the register.

#42 marigold01

  • Guest
  • 1 posts
  • 0

Posted 15 April 2007 - 03:44 PM

Hi All,

I am brand new to this forum, and the topics look really interesting, especially this one. Need to spend some time browsing before I decide to post. In the meanwhile, I have a query. Has anyone come across Danon Activa probiotic yogurt in Mississauga (Ontario), if so please let me know which stores stock them. Thanks.

#43 OutOfThyme

  • Guest
  • 156 posts
  • 0

Posted 15 April 2007 - 09:49 PM

Hi All,

I am brand new to this forum, and the topics look really interesting, especially this one.  Need to spend some time browsing before I decide to post.  In the meanwhile, I have a query.  Has anyone come across Danon Activa probiotic yogurt in Mississauga (Ontario), if so please let me know which stores stock them.  Thanks.

Welcome to the forum Marigold! Sorry I can't help you with your question. I assume you checked their website. Often, manufacturer websites list vendors via customer zipcode.

Look forward to seeing you post in the near future. Take your time browsing. We have all the time in the world here. :) [lol]




2 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 2 guests, 0 anonymous users