Healthy eating on very small budget?

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/

If you're unable to afford "better" foods, you can still control your portion sizes and monitor your calorie intake. Just try to be at or below the amount of calories MFP recommended for you, and you should lose weight.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10565773/tight-budget-grocery-list#latest

I'm in the UK so I use the Aldi super six vegetable offers. We eat what ever is on offer.
Provides variety at a great price.

I lost 60 pounds years ago on a very limited budget. The key is having a plan and shopping with a list that covers all of your meals until your next paycheck. I would cook two main courses in bulk over the weekend (beef stroganoff, chicken spaghetti, ckicken & rice, beans & rice, chicken & dumplings, etc.) and then divide into separate meal-size containers and freeze. I took those to work for lunch and heated them in the microwave. Breakfast was oatmeal and fruit, Dinner was usually quick, a bowl of cereal or a bagel and yogurt or and I would take an apple to work for my afternoon snack. Fresh vegetables are expensive, so I bought frozen mostly or canned and the crockpot was my best friend because they turn inexpensive cuts of meat into delicious soups and stews.

Cheap food isn't inherently unhealthy - and healthy food isn't inherently expensive.

(though if you decide you MUST do it through paleo or something, I suppose it can be). In fact, any "Diet" that's sold you in a book or via a formal plan is likely to be more expensive, because their meal plans don't take leftovers and using up ingredients into account. Plus all the foods you're supposed to eat because every "diet" has some kind of "superfood" that you have to eat even if its out of season.

For most people, inexpensive carbs can be healthy. They've gotten a bad rap, overall. Brown rice, lentils, split peas, beans -- are all perfectly "healthy" unless you buy into the demonization of all grains. Which I don't. Potatoes aren't the antichrist either. Bake them whole, eat the skin, and they can be a reasonable, inexpensive part of a larger meal.

Whole grains, beans, legumes are all inexpensive and satisfying.
Eggs are cheap protein for a reasonable calorie count.

Inexpensive cuts of meat can be mixed with whole grains and lots of veggies to produce filling meals with decent amounts of protein.



To eat as well as you can on as little money as you can, planning is key. You need to sit down and make a list, shope for that list of meals, and then cook and eat those meals. I do it weekly, and I use my grocery store's online list-building service to see how much my meal plan will cost.

Veggies tend to be cheaper than fruits. Out of season fruits and highly perishable ones are especially expensive. We don't do a lot of fruit. Cabbage family veggies are nutritious and more filling than softer greens.

Frozen produce is your friend - its just as nutritious, easy to prepare, and often cheaper - plus it minimizes waste because it stays ready until you need it. Frozen brocolli, caulflower, and sweet potatoes are staples of my shopping list.

Meals in my regular rotation:

Tacos - I cook a pound of beans, and a pound of taco meat (Seprately). It's enough for my family of four (two teens) plus leftovers. Beans stretch the meat and add fiber. I add lettuce or baby spinach or wahtever greens I have on hand.

Fried rice: Leftover cooked rice, scraps of meat from previous meals, a bag of frozen peas and carrots, and eggs.

Cart chicken - Look it up on Serious Eats: Marinated chicken thighs cooked, chopped up, and then warmed up on a garlic-oregano sauce, service with rice, lettuce, and yogurt sauce.

African Chicken-Peanut stew - look it up on Eating Well: Chicken thighs, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peanut butter, and spices. Served with rice.

Huevos rancheros: Leftover beans (see tacos above) spread on tortillas, topped with scrambled eggs, salsa, cheese, whatever.

LEntil soup: Lentils (I like red), an onion, some garlic, some carrots (a couple of fresh or a bag of frozen), water or broth. You can add brown rice while it cooks to make a complete protein. You can also throw some whole eggs (in the shell) into the pot to hard-boil while the soup cooks. Pull them out, run under cold water to chill, peel, chop, and add to your soup bowl.

This is a good web site for cheap meal ideas: www.budgetbytes.com

I spent about £100 per month on all groceries, and I could cut that easily by at least £20 if I cut snacking. I buy most food from Aldi and Lidl. Most my meals consist of something like rice, pasta, couscous, potatoe or sweet potato, a big pile of seasonal veggies, and a smaller amount of protein in good quality. I usually buy the wholegrain cheap bread from Lidl, and get an artisan bread every weekend. I guess the secret to a low budget is to be willing to experiement and to try out things, and to not buy convenice food but fresh ingredients. Well, in the UK anyway. I don't know the prices in the US. I hardly ever cook with more than 2 pots, and most dishes, including preparing take no more than 30 minutes, usually much less time.

& make price matching your friend.
Since it looks like you're Canadian... keep an eye on a website like this (before you head out shopping): https://www.flyertown.ca/#!/flyers/homedepotcanada-weekly?flyer_run_id=220022
use the search box in the upper left corner of that website to search for what you want to shop for, and just by typing in something I wind up buying each week "cucumbers"-- I can see that the price varies from $0.78 all the way up to $1.50
& I can either plan my shopping trip according to who is generally the cheapest, bring a flyer with me to price match in the store (if the store allows it!)... OR if you're an app fan, there are apps like Checkout51 or Flipp that sort of serve the same purpose.

Another Canadian here! Bulk Barn is great for inexpensive bulk items like beans, lentils (which are shockingly filling), oats, etc. Do you have a slow cooker? Some of my most inexpensive meals are made by throwing things in the slow cooker, leaving all day, and coming back to a delicious dinner and freezing the remainder. You can also easily reconstitute black beans and chickpeas in there, and make your own refried beans. I'm also going to be trying buying awhole chicken and cooking it in my slow cooker later this week, then divvying up the meat to add to other things.

BudgetBytes is agreat website for getting inspiration for inexpensive recipes. It's American so the prices won't always be accurate for us, but its focus on 'good eating on a shoestring' and using up leftover ingredients is great for saving.

I'm happy to chat about this more via PM as well!

Chili and stew recipes can be great for a small budget. They make several servings and the ingredients are usually really cheap. You can eat for 2-3 days off a a crockpot of chili. If you wanted to go meatless on some days, the beans in the chili are a good source for meatless protein. Also, most of the ingredients in these will be non perishables so that is also budget friendly.
Oatmeal is also healthy and cheap. No need to by organic or steal cut. Stick with the biggest and cheapest canister of 1-minute oats you can find. Melt in a few slices of the cheapest American cheese the store has (I know it sounds weird but tastes great) will help up the protein and add flavor and still come in under 300 calories.
Frozen vegetables are often cheaper than fresh veggies and keep a lot longer.