One of the major challenges people face when trying to improve their eating habits is cost. What they don’t know is that healthy eating doesn’t need to be expensive – it can actually be cost effective!
The following tips can help improve your eating habits without putting a dent in your wallet.
The first thing you want to consider is outlining your meals for the week. Have a rough idea of what you’re going to eat throughout the week, and only buy what you have a plan for. A little bit of prep (like pre-cutting fresh vegetables so they can easily be thrown into a stir-fry) means food is less likely to go bad. Know which days you have time to cook and plan leftovers accordingly. Include healthy snacks to have on hand, such as fruit, and easy meals planned that you can throw together in less than 15 minutes, like a veggie omelet. It’s important to keep in mind that not only will your diet benefit from this practice, but having a plan and items on hand can help prevent you from resorting to an expensive take out meal!
On that note, cook most of your meals at home. As mentioned above, eating out can be expensive, and can cost significantly more than if you were to make the meal at home. Not only that, homemade meals tend to contain much less sugar, salt and fat than restaurant meals. Online resources such as Good and Cheap and Budgetbytes.com can provide some varied budget friendly meals that are tasty and simple to try at home.
When planning meals, the next tip is to base recipe choices on seasons and sales. Fruits and vegetables are often cheaper when they are purchased in season. With summer coming up, most fruits and vegetables are coming into season, so not only will they taste better, but you should be able to find some decent deals. By basing your meals around sales, you can significantly cut down on your grocery bill. Peruse the flyers or check out an app like Flipp to help you find deals. Don’t forget that some stores offer price matching.
Another tip is supplementing meat with other, cheaper forms of protein such as beans, lentils, tofu, nuts or eggs. Often, meat is the most expensive part of the meal. Beans and lentils are not only dirt cheap but also an excellent source of protein and fibre! Aim for a meatless meal a couple times per week, or replace half the meat in your recipe with a cheaper alternative, and you’ll start to see your grocery bill shrink!
Thinking along those lines, balance more expensive ingredients with less expensive ingredients. Rice, beans, potatoes, whole grain bread, pasta and rolled oats are all very economical and can help stretch your food budget. These foods are often demonized for their starch content, but when eaten as part of a balanced meal, they help promote fullness and provide important nutrients. Vegetables such as carrots, turnip, and cabbage tend to be very low cost, and will last a long time without going bad. Make these veggies a staple part of your food repertoire. If you haven’t tried roasted turnip fries, I suggest you give it a try!
When browsing those flyers and sales, skip those specialty diet food items. Many specialty diet food items (such as Weight Watchers bread, sugar free candy or 100 calorie snack packages) are promoted as an essential part of a healthy diet but they are unnecessary, expensive, and end up being heavily processed. Not to mention they can certainly break your food budget.
You’re better off putting the money you would have spent on these items towards fruit, vegetables, whole grains or healthy proteins.
Last but not least, cut back on the portion size. If you eat half the portion, your meal will go twice as far!
Remember, leftovers can be fit into your meal planning and make one evening’s dinner that much easier.
Following these tips, you can hope to balance both your diet and your bank account!
For more information about any of the free services offered by the Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team, visit the website at www.mmfht.ca or call the Drayton office at 519-638-2110 or Clifford office at 519-327-4777. Like the team on Facebook (Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team) and follow them on Twitter (@MintoMapleton) for tips and information on programs and events in the area.
Maggie Armstrong is a registered dietician with the East Wellington Family Health Team.
