Healthy eating on a budget

“Healthy food costs so much.” “I can’t afford to buy healthier food.” I hear those words spoken as if they are facts. You might assume eating a healthy diet will cost more. It doesn’t have to. It all depends on where you shop and what you buy. Although some nourishing and natural foods will cost more, if you make the right choices, you can buy a lot of great food for your money.

Do you follow a paleo diet, practically paleo, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, or also called SCD, something similar? Think eating a protein and produce rich diet will break your budget? Think again. There are bloggers who have taken on the challenge of eating low-carb on in a limited budget and come up with some amazing meals and menus for the week that blow away the idea that healthy eating is only for the elite.Even if you don't follow one of these foodways, you can still benefit from the tips I've listed below.

Want help cutting your food costs?
Lowcarbohydrate.net
lowcarbdiets.about.com
bellaonline.com

Know what you’re looking for
Convenience and snack foods from natural foods stores usually do cost more than similar products from the supermarket. In fact, snack bars and protein bars cost a lot no matter where you buy them. That’s why you want to skip over those foods altogether. There are so many less processed, more healthful, and  economical foods you can purchase.

Try this Pork & Tomato Stew below.

They key is to minimize packaged products and go for the unpackaged or minimally packaged foods with the simplest and fewest ingredients in a state as close to the way God and Mother Nature made them. Replace industrialized foods with more traditional, primitive, pre-agricultural, whole foods and you can save money and have a healthier diet. It doesn’t have to be an either or proposition. I’ll show you how.

Real foods
Think whole eggs, fish, poultry (and not just the breast meat), and red meat, fresh vegetables and fruits, healthy fats and oils (coconut, olive, avocado, and palm oils, real butter or ghee), avocado, coconut milk raw nuts and seeds, roasted nut butters, herbs and spices, and vinegar and unrefined, mineral rich sea salt, if you want to add them as flavorings. These foods provide every nutrient your body needs to maintain health. You don’t need grains, beans, protein powders, or powdered vegetable or fruit concentrates.

Become a more selective shopper
You’ll want to shop the periphery of the supermarket and select freezer sections for these items. From here you are limited only by your lack of imagination. You can build an amazingly varied and satisfying array of meals and snacks using these foods. For this you’ll need to build your recipe repertoire so you don’t get stuck making the same five to ten recipes over and over. Try a few new recipes each week. Take note of what you like  most and want to repeat. Experiment with simple or multifaceted variations on the dishes you already know and love. Keep adding to your collection.

Here’s the first in a series of saving strategies I’ll share with you.

 For the cost of one steak...
…you can buy two, three, or four times as much roast. A local market near me called Sprouts runs weekly meat specials. They often sell pork and beef roasts for $1.99 a pound.

You can make some amazingly economical dinners with roasts. I encourage you to use recipes. You can learn a lot by following other people's recipes. You can make modifications, just write down what you do before you start cooking and again as you cook so you can repeat the great recipes and know how to modify the ones that don't come out as good as you would like.

Sure, steaks are easy to cook, but roasts really aren’t difficult, they just require a little more advance planning. You need to start them them cooking before you’re hungry.

You don’t have to cook the roasts the same way every time. You can try different recipes every time or two. Try different roast cuts from different parts of the same animal, even the ones with some fat on the outside, which can make for satisfying meals. You can cut them into pieces and stew them with vegetables and spices or slow roast them. Cook them on the weekend for the first few days of the week or after work, making them ready for the next three day’s lunches or dinner.

What about organic, grassfed, and local food?
Sure, the ideal is to buy 100% grassfed or pasture-raised meats and locally grown, mostly organic or chemical-free produce, but if you’re feeling financiall strapped and you need to make your money go farther, I think it makes more sense to eat a wide variety and abundant quantity of fresh vegetables and fruits, even if their not organic, and to eat ample animal protein and fat, even if it’s not grassfed, pasture-raised, or organic. That way you’re still eating a species appropriate diet (produce and protein-rich diet), controlling blood sugar and insulin levels, and avoiding the problems associated with high carb, starch and grain-based diets. Incidentally, some supermarkets have signs telling you which vegetables are locally grown, so you can still support some local farmers even in financially challenging times.

Check back
I’ll post more money saving tips and recipes, so if you haven’t already subscribed to this blog, I encourage you to do so now, so you receive updates when I make new posts.

Pork & Tomato Stew 

Prep: 30 minutes or less    Cooking time: 2 hours     Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Eating well doesn’t have to cost a lot. Roasts are some of the most economical cuts of meat you can buy. They’re easy to cook and yield delicious leftovers for the refrigerator or the freezer. Don Matesz, one my best friends, a fellow blogger, and my co-author in writing The Garden of Eating, created this delicious and economical recipe. For a simple meal, serve this stew with cooked leafy green or mixed vegetables or a colorful green salad with vinaigrette or lemonette dressing with fresh raw or lightly cooked fruit for dessert.

Note: Don’t trim the fat from the roast. You'll need it to flavor and enrich the stew.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon beef tallow, lard, coconut oil, or non-hydrogenated palm shortening
1 onion, cut into roughly 1/4 to 1/2-inch dice
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger (double if desired)
2 pounds pork shoulder or butt roast, cut in 1-inch pieces
2 cups canned whole tomatoes with juices, coarsely chopped or mashed
1 teaspoon unrefined mineral rich sea salt or to taste
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon wheat free tamari soy sauce (I use Eden or SanJ)
1 tablespoon honey (preferably raw and locally produced)

1/2 cup finely chopped green onions/scallions, white part and about half of the green part

1. In a heavy 4-quart pot, sauté onion in 1 teaspoon of beef tallow, coconut oil, or palm shortening over medium heat. When translucent, add garlic and ginger. Stir, then add tomato and tomato juices, sea salt, pepper, cumin, bay leaves, tamari, and honey. 
2.  Stir and bring to a boil. Add chopped pork. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring periodically.
3. Finely slice or chop green onions for garnish. Cover and refrigerate in a jar.
4. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed before serving. Ladle into bowls, garnish with scallions and serve.
5. Refrigerate leftovers and once chilled to refrigerator temperature, freeze or use within 3 days. Reheat gently in a saucepan on the stovetop or in a heatproof dish in a toaster oven.

Comments

[mikle]

Hi everone! I am so excited about this site. There are so many resources. I used to be overweight and unhealthy until I decided to take charge of my life and my health. Since then I have lost 60lbs and I’m well on my way to my goal.I have so much more energy and wish I would have had the motivation sooner.My trainer stuck with me through it and she was absolutely amazing. Now I just use her for tune ups here and there when I need it. I am heading to the doctor today to see if I can stop my diabetes meds. I am hoping for the best. Looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Thanks
Tammy

[Valerie the Rada Knife Lady]

Thank you for the tip about the roasts! That's something I hadn't thought of. Steak has become so expensive, and my husband loves it.