Healthy Eating = Robbing a Bank?

erinsueburns

This can be very difficult. Done of my savings tips. Peanut butter is your friend. Bake your own bread, super cheap and much healthier. When we had a family living with us I would buy the ingredients at a bulk food store and a loaf of bread was like 0.25 a piece.(it is kind of scary buying that first 25 lbs bag of flour but you really do go through it quickly.) Instead of buying nuts from the snack food aisle buy from the baking aisle, not only are they cheaper but they are also not loaded with other things. Get them cheap enough and if you have a blender food processor or coffee grinder and you can make your own nut butters. Make your own vinaigrette out of olive oil, vinegar and seasonings you probably already have on your shelf. Great on salads as well as meat marinades. Buy ground meat in bulk and make up pound packages and patties for freezing. I agree a deep freezer is wonderful for things like this, and if you have one, then if there is a cattle ranch near you, you can buy a whole or part of a cow, (if you throw in with another person to split one it is even cheaper). The price power pound is usually cheaper that way and there is the benefit of getting different cuts of meat you might not be able to afford other wise. Also you can talk to the local ame warden and see if they have any programs. I know down here if someone his a deeet they give it away. Creepy I know, but venison is healthy and for a butcher processing fee you can usually get well over 100 lbs of meat.

And finally, don't ever let anything go to waste, if produce has reached the point where it is a bit wilted and you wouldn't want to eat it alone, grind it up and put it in meatloaf, make soups and stews, or breads (strawberry, zuchinni, squash, and carrot bread are all things I have done) because I know for us that was the first thing, it seemed like we were wasting as much as we were eating.

Good luck.

Lolamako

See if there is a wholesale produce supplier in your area. Often they will let the public buy from them at wholesale prices. My local one also lets me order large bags of grains and flours. I can get a 25lb bag of brown rice for around $17. Organic strawberries were $12 a FLAT. It would be worth it to drive to one, the prices are so much better. Sometimes they fluctuate depending on what's going on with different farms/climates/demands.

Buy a lot and then freeze. Get seasonal produce when you can, and feeze it for later.

I also grow a HUGE percentage of our own produce, and to reply to someone who said earlier that organic should be cheaper, because it has less stuff put on it(or something to that effect) I see your logic, but organic is much more labor intensive than conventional. So many things about organic farming are harder and I'm actually too lazy to type them out, but trust me when I say thet their prices are that high for a reason.