Eating Healthily On The Cheap
Eating healthily has a lot going for it, which you all know, and I am not going to bore you with. Lots of us want to do it. But can we eat healthily on the cheap? Here are some tips.
Drink Water
Often, I’ll find myself buying food or drink because I feel a bit drained, only to find that, after the energy spike, I feel worse than ever. Drinking water is not only cheaper than buying sugary drinks, it’ll also help you feel healthy throughout the day. If you often get tired at a certain part of the day, bring green apples with you as they’ve been shown to be more effective than caffeine and are a lot cheaper.
Tap That
Drinking 8 glasses of water could be an expensive past time if you’re purchasing it all from a 7-11. Spend a minute in the morning filling up a water bottle to take with you. That way, you can never get caught in a thirst and without a cheap way of quenching it.
Tuna
Lots of people who are trying to eat healthily get stuck on protein. It’s good to not eat meat every night of the week and certainly is cheaper, so why not try and get your daily serves of protein from eggs or tuna? Nothing could be cheaper than a can of tuna from the supermarket, either as part of a meal or just as a boost throughout the day. Experts suggest you should include protein in every meal, and eggs are a great way to do it. Eggs with breakfast or on a sandwich will give you lots of energy, and don’t cost the earth.
Freeze
Buying frozen veggies for everyone, but it is a cost effective way to get all your nutritional needs without having to buy expensive items. The other option is to buy vegetables very fresh- say, from growers markets- and freeze it then. I wouldn’t recommend doing it should you be buying your veggies from Coles- they’ve probably already been frozen once, round two might not be quite so tasty- but if the vegetables are super fresh, cut them up, wrap them in gladwrap and store them until you need them.
Make It Yourself
Making food yourself may use a lot of time, but it will enable you to know exactly what goes into your food and shaves off the cost of buying it store bought. Choose your battles- lots of people love baking their own bread, and with new breadmakers, that’s become a whole lot easier. I find it too time-consuming and would prefer to just buy it store bought. Other things- like my own muesli- I prefer to make myself. As someone who works in hospitality, I know that seemingly healthy foods can often have hidden salt or oil to ‘improve’ their taste, so often I’d rather make it myself and save on the mark-up price.
Eat Breakfast
The amount of money you can save merely by eating a good breakfast is astounding. You’ll be more productive, meaning you make better use of your time. You’ll feel full for longer, so won’t buy expensive snacks throughout the day. Your metabolism will have been kicked off properly for the day and you’re less likely to eat junk food. Big savings, on sanity and your pocket.
Related Posts
2 Responses for Eating Healthily On The Cheap
Couldn’t agree more with your post! We’ve been trying to include a couple of vegetarian meals (dinners) each week and the savings have been really great.
Save money and time buy cutting up your veges and even fruit and freeze them. Make fresh pure fruit juices and put the in freezer icy cups. Nice treat frozen or defrosted. Saving time with veges when you want to cook things quick.. Yes it does take an afternoon to prepare the chopped veges but great for every other day. Prevents you being lazy, when you think you don’t want to cook but just the thought that all your veges are already prepared. Also do batch cooking, like making stews, soups, lasagne, pasta sauces, pies, and jut about everything else and freeze the left overs. Use an upright frost free freezer as the use less energy then a chest freezer.
Do make your own bread, as store bought bread contains approximately 60 tablespoon of salt and loads of sugar and other preservatives in each loaf that are causes of kids hyperactivity and people who have potassium/salt problems and some who are sensitive to salt. Plus if you are smart, you can buy big bags (16kgs or more) of bakers flour from Costco or other places and heck a lot cheaper in the long run. I do recommend Panasonic Breadmaker, as it’s been proven to be the best against other models shown in UK show Gadget Show.
Bulk buy onions and dirty potatoes. Dirty potatoes last a lot longer.
To live simply, cut out junk food out of your life. Just buy meats and fruit and vegetables and eggs and milk and plus they are GST free… You also will lose loads of weight. Any other vitals, try to buy it in large or bulk.
Buy meat in bulk and perhaps splitting it with friends or neighbours, is a good idea and cost a lot less.
