Healthy food in your budget
Posted in Food & Drinks and tagged with budget, cheap, Foods, healthy diet, nutrition on 12/11/2009 12:30 am by admin
Recession period affects all the budget of your spending. Whatever you can save is your plus point in survival. This depression period taught us many lesson of life style improvement. From the all waste of U.S kitchen, we can feed many small & hungry countries. Also, the wastage of resource will impact on global warming and climate change. One research says 14-15 per cent of US edible food is untouched or unopened, $43 billion worth wastage and £10.2 billion wastage in U.K. It is not just wastage of food only, it is wastage of all natural resources used to produce that food. You can get all the nutrition within half of your grocery budget if you can think about it. Here are some tips to manage your food budget.
Purchase what you want Not what they(store) wants
Mall and supermarket have changed the pattern of sales and expense. Whenever you go for grocery, write a list about your requirements. Purchase from only within your list, Don’t attract you free and discount offers. Many stores and company create attractive offers to sell their products. They also place exciting offers near cash counter, so customer can pick that things at time of billing. Don’t purchase what is worthless for you. If you search in your refrigerator, you will get lots of products with expiry date and not even used once. Think about hungry child at other parts of the world when you throw such food in garbage. Use your Owen mind, All the advertisement don’t sell foods but sells imaginary taste in your mind.
Compare brands and their prices
Most of the peoples don’t read any label or nutrition information of any food pack. If you compare your regular food, you will sure get cheap and healthier options of your daily needs. There are also different prices and discount at different store. Find out your nearest and most affordable store.
Get alternative nutrition
You can get protein from meat/poultry or legumes/nuts, Think about what is cheaper in your location. Coastal area may have cheaper seafood than nuts. Also think about unwanted fat comes with your protein source. Multi nutrition food will always cheaper in another calculation. For example Avocado will provide more vitamins than combination of other vaggie. Purchasing fresh fruits and vegetable from farmer’s market will save more bucks from your budget. Season’s fruits are cheaper than off season. If you want any offseason fruit, you can go for canned fruit.
Purchase in Bulk
Individual pack of any food is costlier than Bulk pack. But wait, also think about expiry of that food. You shouldn’t purchase all apples together of your monthly requirements, but it works for oatmeal or dry fruits. Whole foods are also cheaper than processed. Ready to serve salad will cost you more than the entire ingredient in it.
Cook at home what you can
Fast and urban life makes us more away from original foods. Restaurant and fast food stores are selling more and more foods every year. If you think about your food budget, fast food and restaurant meal can cost you more than you earn in time of your cooking. It also includes time in going and returning and fuel expense.
Get maximum discount
There are lots of grocery coupons and discount offers available on internet. You can use it to maximize your saving on food. Some stores also offers you reward coupon on your purchase, always remember to use those for your next grocery purchase. Some crazy shopping season offers more discount on all the items, you can take full benefit of it with planning.
List of Cheap, Healthy and easy available
Beans : -Source of protein and minerals.
Egg :- Very Cheap protein and can be used with any other foods or recipe.
Banana :- Good source of calorie, fibers and vitamins.
Carrot :- Cheap vegetable with beta carotene.
Popcorn :- Less processed and low cost with lots of flavor alternative.
Walnuts :- Heart friendly nut with lots of saving.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
How to cook on a budget? I believe you can save more money if you plan your weekly groceries and menus. You can search online on substitutions on expensive ingredients to less expensive and yet healthy.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:45 am
These foods allow you to thaw out only the amount you need. Also, low-fat frozen meals and prepackaged single-serving foods, such as ready-to-eat, low-fat, reduced-sodium canned soups are tasty as well as budget friendly.