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Eating Healthfully on the Cheap

January 16th, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments
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When it comes to eating healthfully, there are two complaints that come up most often:

1. The nutritional value of a food is inverse proportion to how good it tastes.

2. Nutritious food is too expensive.

These 2 claims are both false, of course. And to help refute statement (2), ShopSmart Magazine, a part of the Consumer Reports family, has announced that its March edition will include 25 ideas for cheap AND healthy food.

“It’s true—you can eat healthy and save money!,” said Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief of ShopSmart. “And you don’t necessarily have to completely overhaul your fridge and pantry. Sometimes all it takes is a few tweaks to your shopping list.”

Here are some examples from the upcoming issue:

ANTIOXIDANTS:  Cabbage (16 cents per serving; $2.50 for one medium head):  Cabbage is loaded with Vitamins A and C.
CALCIUM:  Plain yogurt (70 cents per serving; $8.39 per case of 12): It’s a quick and handy way to get calcium, and is also brimming with protein and good bacteria that aid digestion. Add your own flavoring / sweetener.

FIBER: Popcorn (12 cents per serving; $1.89 per 28-ounce bag): Popcorn eaters get about 22 percent more fiber than non-popcorn eaters. Don’t pile on calories with butter, though.

PROTEIN: Dried black beans (24 cents per serving; $1.45 for 16-ounce bag): All beans are stellar sources of protein, fiber, and blood-pressure-friendly potassium, but dark beans pack more nutrients.

OMEGA-3S: Frozen shrimp ($1.36; $14.99 per 2-pound bag): Frozen shrimp is a low-calorie and relatively cheap source of omega-3s.

Did you notice that none of these products is prepared (aside from yogurt)? You need to cook, saute, bake, or otherwise prepare them. That’s where most of us have a problem, that leads to statement number (1).

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  • Charlotte

    Great way to add flavouring to your yoghurt, is to use baby food. I kid you not. I mash up 1/2 banana and add 1/2 tub of peach or mango flavoured baby food, and voila! Tasty yoghurt! My 19 month old eats the other half of the portion. ;) Also, I buy 4-serving tubs for about $1.90, which works out a bit cheaper.

    On the popcorn: Get some paper bags, and your own popping popcorn, plop it in the microwave and you have SUPER cheap popcorn. Plus, you skip all the added carp of the ready to use microwavable popcorn.

  • http://www.foodieformerlyfat.com Foodie, Formerly Fat

    These are complaints that I hear all the time, until someone eats one of my recipes and realizes that for the most part they are very inexpensive and they are delicious. My broccoli soup costs so little to make and it’s super nutritious, best of all it tastes so good my six year old and 3 year old love to eat it!

    The real obstacle here is getting people to cook at home. Unfortunately, there is no public educational forum for teaching the basic cooking skills. If you don’t learn them at home from family you don’t learn it in school and your only choice is cooking programs on TV that strive for niche cooking and elaborate processes instead of simple basic rules of cooking. We don’t all have to be Martha Stewart in the kitchen to be able to provide our families with delicious and nutritious food.

    This is my mission with my blog; to show people that it’s not difficult or expensive to provide wholesome good tasting food to our families.

  • Dawn

    When I eat cereal in the morning I put plain yogurt on it instead of milk and mix it together. I’ll also usually toss some almonds and fruit like blueberries in the mix as well. It was a little weird at first but I got used to it after a couple days and really like it now. If you think about it, it’s like adding regular milk, just a whole lot thicker. Also it takes much longer for the cereal to get soggy.

    I started doing this because I wanted to add more yogurt to my diet, but I didn’t want to add all the sugar from sweetened yogurt, and I didn’t like the plain yogurt by itself.

  • http://www.cathyjune.com Cathy June

    Yams are jam-packed with good stuff. They provide potassium, fiber, B1, B6, C and carbs. I bake or boil them in batches and have them on hand to add to meals or for snacks. They’re good for breakfast, too!

  • Mayan Orgel

    I guess it depends on what you consider healthy.

    Yogurt (and other dairy) is not as healthy as it claims. You mentioned calcium. Although yogurt does contain calcium, it is not absorbed by the body. Most dairy products (except for some cheeses) are made from pasteurized milk. The pasteurization process causes phosphates to bind to the calcium, making it unavailable for absorption. Even worse, it actually depletes the body of calcium. There are other problems with dairy such and hormones and antibiotics as well as casein, but I won’t go into that here.

    Corn – most corn in the US is GMO unless it’s organic (more expensive). Even then, many people have sensitivities to corn (even if they don’t know it).

    Shrimp (and other seafood), although healthy, also contain mercury, Polychlorinated biphenyl and other toxins, so these should be eating moderately. Wild seafood has less risk of these toxins, but America capitalizes on that too and prices are higher.

    The only way I know of to eat healthy and cheap is to grow your own food.

  • carol

    Good points. Shrimp probably is not a good example for omega-3, though. A fish/seafood needs to be fatty to have significant omega-3, by definition. Shrimp is very low in fat (and therefore omega-3). All it takes is a small piece of salmon or other fatty fish — so even if it’s expensive by the pound, you only need 2-3 oz per person (put it on top of a salad, in soup, or in a rice/grain dish, etc.).

  • Carrie

    You know what’s funny is that stuff is mostly what I eat shrimp and it’s a huge staple of my diet and it’s good organic and local aren’t expensive really? Even If they are, think of the farmer and the ingredients they hard making it

  • Carrie

    Work hard*

  • Bill M

    Looking at a list of omega-3 content in seafood, shrimp isn’t half bad. Although shrimp isn’t nearly as good as the fattier fish (mackeral, herring, salmon and tuna) it is equal to or better than the majority. The main point is that for the price, it is a great source.