Healthy eating for $50/week (article)

cat_lady77

A friend posted this on Facebook & I figured it could be useful to some starting out with healthier diets, or who want to save money & still eat well. I realize this only includes vegetarian/vegan diets (I'm neither) but it's a good place to start. Anyone have any other tips they'd like to add to healthy shopping? I've never tried hemp seeds for protein lol.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/whole-foods-plant-based-fifty-dollars-a-week/

tephanies1234

Hemp seeds have minimal protein for the amount of calories. I really only add them to shakes and mostly for the other nutrient benefits they have.

jgnatca

If I were to take it out of the "whole food" organic vegetarian slant, just looking at a balanced menu on a budget, my choices might look more like this:

Fresh produce - pick what's in season and on sale. Onion, garlic, potatoes. Pick darker colored green and orange vegetables.
Bulk Section - oats, beans, nuts, quinoa, lentils, flax seeds, powdered milk, chickpeas and rice
Aisle - olive oil, flour, tuna
Frozen fruits and vegetables
Dairy - milk, eggs, butter, cheese
Meats - chicken thighs and whole chicken, lean hamburger, lean ground turkey

Missing from their list are the fats and eggs. Powdered milk worked so well in a pinch when I was low-budget, and it can be added to so many meals for added protein. I can't imagine getting through a week without fats or eggs. A lot of their aisle choices are also available, and more cheaply, in the bulk section. This includes chickpeas and lentils.

mistikal13

I feel like there's a lot missing from this list.

Tried30UserNames

I'm not vegan and I didn't read the article, but here're my tips for eating healthfully on a budget

1. Use the dirty dozen/clean 15 lists to buy produce with the least pesticide residue.
2. Visit the farmer's market just before closing to get bargains. If your market is open on both a weekend and a weekday, the weekday is usually quite a bit cheaper. Buy in season. Buy seconds.
3. Buy more inexpensive protein. Eggs are cheap. Liver and other organ meats are full of nutrients, but more inexpensive. Canned wild caught salmon is the best protein bargain at the store.
4. Visit the bulk section of your store to compare prices with prepackaged items. It is almost always cheaper. In my area, Whole Foods consistently has the cheapest bulk food of any store.
5. Visit local ethnic grocery stores. They often have fantastic prices especially on spices and grains.
6. Learn to cook. Learn to make things (example: a half gallon of milk is about $3.50. A pint of yogurt is about $3.50. Learn to make yogurt from the milk and save money).
7. Read your grocery store ads, know what a good price is, plan meals around what is really on sale that week, stock up when you see a great price. You may need to go to 2-3 stores each week to get the best prices.