One thing that is on everyone's mind is of course money, and well, ya gotta eat right? Well, what food do you buy to stretch out the budget?
Well, let's see... Some inexpensive foods, which are healthy and won't drain the bank.
1. Chocolate Milk - You can actually drink a full glass of chocolate milk for breakfast and it will provide most of the nutrients and vitamins you need for breakfast (I know, but in a pinch, it'll do)
2. Chef Boyardee - Yes, the food in the cans. Why is this supposedly healthy? Well, it doesn't contain any preservatives, and has a decent amount of nutritional value. More so than some other canned "spaghetti O's" (do they even still make those?)
3. Day old Bread - Ok, so some bakeries sell day old products for a fraction of the original price as they want to at least break even on their costs of making the product. I used to buy day old donuts all the time $1 for a dozen. Just because it is a day old, doesn't mean it's bad. Stale? Well, depending on the bread it isn't going to get too too stale in just one day!
There are lots of things you can do to stretch out food. A can of Tuna and some rice and a can of peas and carrots can feed a family of four or more (and sometimes have leftovers).
What do you all do to stretch the budget when it comes to food?
One thing that is on everyone's mind is of course money, and well, ya gotta eat right? Well, what food do you buy to stretch out the budget?
Well, let's see... Some inexpensive foods, which are healthy and won't drain the bank.
1. Chocolate Milk - You can actually drink a full glass of chocolate milk for breakfast and it will provide most of the nutrients and vitamins you need for breakfast (I know, but in a pinch, it'll do)
2. Chef Boyardee - Yes, the food in the cans. Why is this supposedly healthy? Well, it doesn't contain any preservatives, and has a decent amount of nutritional value. More so than some other canned "spaghetti O's" (do they even still make those?)
3. Day old Bread - Ok, so some bakeries sell day old products for a fraction of the original price as they want to at least break even on their costs of making the product. I used to buy day old donuts all the time $1 for a dozen. Just because it is a day old, doesn't mean it's bad. Stale? Well, depending on the bread it isn't going to get too too stale in just one day!
There are lots of things you can do to stretch out food. A can of Tuna and some rice and a can of peas and carrots can feed a family of four or more (and sometimes have leftovers).
What do you all do to stretch the budget when it comes to food?
That is poor quality food at best.
Veggies (even organic) are reasonably cheap to buy, and even less if you can grow your own.
You can save money on meat as well by buying a large roast for example and cutting it up into portions. This is much cheaper than buying little packages that are treated with nitrates, and if all possible, buy from a farmers market. They usually have large chickens, etc., that don't have black bones from lack of magnesium/calcium, etc. like the supermarket chickens..
And if you are going to consume grains, which I don't recommend, then at least buy in bulk from a reliable business, so you aren't buying some GMO product that is contaminated with fungi.
Not sure I agree with the recommendations of the OP....but it is a valid question. I know many, many people over here in England are struggling to make ends meet. I know it's the same in America too.
Some cheap but nutritious foods?
Oats - the ideal breakfast food, in combination with soya milk (Assuming it's the GM-free soya milk like we have in England) or almond milk or rice milk. Delicious, filling, sustaining and cheap.
Rice and beans - in combination makes complete protein (ditto wholemeal bread and beans). Both things much underrated, yet both are powerhouses of good nutrition. And both are very inexpensive.
The only downside to beans is the sauce which can be loaded with sugar. You can get sugar-free beans, for a sky high price, but they're not worth it. Beans are beans, budget/supermarket 'own brand' beans, are no different than big brand name beans.
What I do is sieve the beans and wash off the sauce. Much healthier.
You can add tomato passata if you want to jazz things up again.
Which leads us onto tinned chopped tomatoes, another cheap item in the supermarkets. A great source of lycopene amongst other things.
And of course supermarkets and farmer's markets have 'reduced' offers late in the afternoon, so you can get some good deals on fruit and veg if you time it right.
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Not sure I agree with the recommendations of the OP....but it is a valid question. I know many, many people over here in England are struggling to make ends meet. I know it's the same in America too.
Some cheap but nutritious foods?
Oats - the ideal breakfast food, in combination with soya milk (Assuming it's the GM-free soya milk like we have in England) or almond milk or rice milk. Delicious, filling, sustaining and cheap.
Rice and beans - in combination makes complete protein (ditto wholemeal bread and beans). Both things much underrated, yet both are powerhouses of good nutrition. And both are very inexpensive.
The only downside to beans is the sauce which can be loaded with sugar. You can get sugar-free beans, for a sky high price, but they're not worth it. Beans are beans, budget/supermarket 'own brand' beans, are no different than big brand name beans.
What I do is sieve the beans and wash off the sauce. Much healthier.
You can add tomato passata if you want to jazz things up again.
Which leads us onto tinned chopped tomatoes, another cheap item in the supermarkets. A great source of lycopene amongst other things.
And of course supermarkets and farmer's markets have 'reduced' offers late in the afternoon, so you can get some good deals on fruit and veg if you time it right.
I agree with what you are saying.. But if a box of "instant rice" works out to be like $10 it isn't so cheap.. And all the supposed "unhealthy" food is so cheap in comparison to everything else.. .If you slap the "organic" label on something you immediately tack on like 30 to 50% to the list price of an item..
It wouldn't be so bad if organic items were cheaper, but that is complete and utter fantasy.. Organic and "Health" food items are often one and a half times to double the price of the not so healthy counterparts...
So... WHAT do you buy then? Chef Boyardee is some of the MOST NUTRITIOUS "unhealthy" food you can buy
Oats, I guess so, but even Quaker doesn't sell really cheap these days...
The healthiest food in the world is some of the cheapest; buy organic sprouting seeds in bulk and your food costs for a day will be almost nothing, less then $5/day easy. Some days I only drink weed juice and all of my meals are free.
Quote:
Chef Boyardee is some of the MOST NUTRITIOUS "unhealthy" food you can buy
...I'm not even going to comment on that...
On second thought, Chef Boyardee and nearly all other processed foods are loaded with harmful chemicals, GMOs, and other nasties. Let's take a look at a post I made here on just one of the dozens or hundreds of man-made chemicals in these foods:
He also wrote a brilliant book called "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills" on the subject.
A small sampling of the damage caused by MSG:
* it damages the immune system for the lifetime of a person (nothing can repair the damage done to the parts effected), so it makes them more prone to cancer and other immune diseases.
* MSG is a powerful free radical generator.
* MSG also impairs glucose entry into the brain (the brain is almost entirely dependent on glucose), so the brain can�t run properly because it doesn't get the fuel. When the brain is starved of the fuel it needs it becomes 100 times more prone to the effects of MSG. WOW!!!
* MSG will permanently damage the brain connections.
* MSG also causes massive hormone problems, so infertility is highly possible. Even if a baby's mother ate MSG , their child can have trouble having babies when they grow up.
* MSG can also bring on puberty early. (And according to the China study, early puberty is a big factor in developing breast cancer)
* MSG can also cause lack of growth hormone, so people can be short.
* Unborn babies are four times more sensitive to MSG
* MSG can also cause diabetes and cardiovascular damage
* MSG's effects aren't often noticed straight away, it is the effects 40 years later that really do the damage, like heart attacks at 40 or severe mental problems
* MSG can make people have severe learning problems so they find it hard to learn things
MSG effects on animals:
* If you give MSG to animals it will suppress the immune system for life.
*Very very small organ weights
*Obesity and difficult to control�even exercise won�t help lose the weight in most cases because it alters part of the brain which helps stop obesity.
*Abnormal reproductive ability (small litters and infertility)
*Unprovoked rage and aggression and anti social behavior.
*Impaired cardivascular responsiveness (eg, when you run your heart speeds up too much)
* High cholesterol and triglycarides�so increased chance of heart attack or stroke
* MSG will suppress an animal's immune system for the rest of their life
You want to eat that? Also listen to these link on GMOs:
^ And that applies to the other "healthy" foods you listed in the original post, too. Carcinogens and excitotoxins up the wazoo. A brilliant way to commit slow suicide, however.
Instant rice is trash food and should be thrown out.
there is a good chance that your canned tomatoes may be GMO. I didn't know this until recently.
I purchased 25 pound bag of oats that came to be about 50cents a pound as compared to the $1.00 to $1.50 a pound for Quaker and others
At the whole foods market in the USA organic produce is not too much more than standard produce.. sometimes cheaper when in season.
Organic rice costs almost double of regular rice.. If you purchase non organic brown rice you will be doing better than instant rice. Although it is not organic its nutrient base is better than white rice, or processed white rice, such as Uncle Ben's
Learn to grow some of your own food. We have a garden and eat only salads all summer. I have put up my own squash, spinach, beets, cabbage, broccoli, lambs quarters, corn, all organic. that will get us through most of the winter. The garden makes things very affordable. I also sell extra stuff at the farmer's market.
My husband is a big bread eater. I bake my own and now I am experimenting with unusual flour.. like oat flour. 25% oat flour makes a better quality bread...
If you have no room for a garden seek out or create a community garden.
Soy products are not good for your health. they have too many estrogens and if eaten on a regular basis they can mess you up. Most soy is GMO also, so you must seek soy products that are labled non gmo. Most non gmo soy producers are proud of the fact and will lable it as such.
I cook my own beans from scratch... purchasing bulk containers of beans. I make up a big batch and either can them or freeze them for instant use. A pressure cooker makes the chore go much faster. Bulk beans are about half price of canned beans.
I dont sugar my beans. I generally make chili or other bean dishes that do not call for sugar. Those barbecue bean recipies are a sugar disaster.
I dont know how money strapped you are but in the old days there use to be quite a bit of supermarket dumpster raiding going on. They throw away perfectly good produce all the time. Where I live now all the throw away supermarket produce gets funneled to people who raise cattle.
Also never microwave anything, microwaved food is extremely toxic.
I know of no substantial evidence of that. No more that cooking with open flame, electric, or even light which I use. Microwave is non-ionized radiation. It can superheat food, which can be harmful by any other form of non-ionzed radiation, including BBQ. Microwave merely causes moisture molecules to move rapidly, causing heat due to friction. Any form of heat (radiation) will cause some nutrition loss. That is normal and expected.
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- Jim
"We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own." - Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Knightofalbion had a good tip with the beans and rice. You can buy dry beans when on sale and get a real bargain, you can make a couple of pounds at a time and freeze portions for leftover meals. The rice should be wild if possible, anything but white. Lentils are also excellent, cheap and nutritious. https://www.natmedtalk.com/showthread.php?t=4715
Saute down some peppers, onions, garlic, eggplant, etc. in olive oil...cook down until super soft, and serve over whole wheat spagetti, much better than the canned garbage. You can saute onion, garlic and italian seasonings, then add a can of tomato sauce, and simmer, for a spagetti sauce too. Of course, buy organic if possible. I get oganic tomato sauce and org. whole wheat spagetti, at Costco for a good price.
Supermarket own brand products are a lot cheaper than the big name brands. Usually, it's the big name brands that make the supermarket own brand products, under license, but using a slightly different formula!
A good meal is vegetable soup and wholemeal bread - with a twist. Sieve a tin of beans, wash off that sugary sauce and add the beans to the soup.
It's cheap, simple, quick and surprisingly filling considering it isn't a heavy meal by any means.
The beans and bread combine to make a complete protein. Vegetables for carbohydrates. A good, nutritious meal.
You won't feel like it in the summer, but piping hot when it's cold outside....very satisfying.
A good meal is vegetable soup and wholemeal bread - with a twist. Sieve a tin of beans, wash off that sugary sauce and add the beans to the soup.
It's cheap, simple, quick and surprisingly filling considering it isn't a heavy meal by any means.
The beans and bread combine to make a complete protein. Vegetables for carbohydrates. A good, nutritious meal.
You won't feel like it in the summer, but piping hot when it's cold outside....very satisfying.
This is a good idea.. You know I was even thinking V8 Juice was cheap and good.. But it's loaded with Sodium! I mean in one can is almost 20% of your daily intake of sodium... So.. That would mean you could actually become dehydrated if you drank too much of it...
I read recently that the best fruit for a person on a budget with bang for your book is a banana. At least here you can get a banana for about 20 cents or less. On the list the best bang for your buck for veggies was broccoli.
I don't think many things get cheaper than this for the health benefits they provide. I personally eat both every day. Banana with my shake in the morning and I eat brocoli every day for dinner
Low cost Foods which Are full of Energy:
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