How to afford to eat right….

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-5-2007

Health OK foods like beef fed only grass; organic nonfat & 1 % lowfat milk; & pasture raised poultry are a good bit more expensive than the grain fed and now more common varieties.

1. But some of the foods that are the best for you are LESS expensive than the really bad foods.

By making those foods your staples, you can either eat right for very little or include some of the more expensive health OK foods without spending more.

2. Another key is to stop buying the worst foods. Why pay more for foods & drinks that will make you sick if you eat or drink them at all often?

1. Here are some of the best for you foods that are inexpensive.

a) Unless you are allergic to them, beans & lentils are very good for you AND very cheap.

This is particularly true if you buy them dry in packages or in bulk & cook them yourself.

My wife & I cook up a batch every weekend that’s just enough to eat for a week. Then we put them in smaller containers to cool in the refrigerator which helps them say good & cool more quickly. That way they are virtually instant food the rest of the week.

They are high in protein. They are high in soluble fiber. And, I just found out recently, they are high in antioxidants. By eating them as staple foods you can eat well on very little.

You can flavor them with onions which are good for you and also inexpensive.

And, since you will do better with some health OK oils, you can flavor them with a small amount of extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil does cost more than beans and lentils; but it usually costs less than butter or meat or cheese. And, it is MUCH better for you.

Lastly, beans & lentils are much better for you than fatty and grain-fed meats. And, they cost far less. If you eat eggs, nonfat & 1% lowfat milk, wild caught fish, nuts, and other more health OK protein foods along with them, beans & lentils can do a great job supplying your protein needs.

I usually eat mine with extra virgin olive oil & tomato sauce flavored with garlic. It tastes good & both the tomato sauce & the garlic are good for you.

b). Wild caught canned salmon is surprisingly inexpensive. It’s high in the omega 3 oils that promote good health and that grain feed meats tend to be very short in. And, it has very little of the excessive omega 6 oils that grain fed meats are high in.

Wild caught canned salmon does have some salt. But if you eat very few other salted foods & unless you are salt sensitive and fighting high blood pressure; & if you don’t over do the amount of salmon you eat, you can balance the salt with the next really inexpensive kind of food. That kind of food is very high in potassium which tends to lower blood pressure & counterbalance the salt.

c) Frozen green and nonstarchy vegetables are quite inexpensive; convenient; & extremely good for you.

Broccoli has many, many health benefits. So I cook up a batch of frozen broccoli every two weeks and have a serving almost every day for dinner.

I expected that adding this to my dinner most days would help me lose 10 pounds. I did. Then I lost 20 pounds more. To be fair, I was also exercising regularly & also cut back a bit on beer and wine. But the very low caloric density of any green nonstarchy vegetable is so low & the filling fiber is so high, any of them is a superb choice to help you get & stay trim.

Frozen green peas, green beans, chopped spinach, brussels spouts, & cauliflower all work as well for this.

d) Oatmeal; eggs; and nonfat and 1% lowfat milk are a bit less good for you than the first three kinds of foods. But they are more health OK than most foods and only moderate in price.

2. The other key is to stop buying the worst foods. Why pay more for foods & drinks that will make you sick if you eat or drink them at all often?

I’ve seen other shoppers in grocery stores where 90 percent of the foods in their basket are these kinds of foods. That’s a LOT of wasted money.

a) These snack foods, packaged foods, & refined grain baked goods are low in nutrition and fiber so they don’t make you feel full or feed you well.

And, to make them taste good, they tend to have ingredients like excessive sugar, high fructose corn syrup, excessive salt, and often today are made with transfat loaded partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

If you eat them more than about once a month, you’ll make yourself fat & sick. Why pay money to do that?

NOT buying them frees up money to spend on good quality health OK foods.

b) This is gradually changing, and there are some exceptions, but fast food tends to be similar with similar ingredients. French fries are one of the worst foods of all for your health.

For many people, the bad for you fast foods are half their food intake each week. Ouch.

You can do better.

Either bring your food from home; get health OK foods at the fast food places; or eat at a restaurant that serves health OK foods.

You can save your money by NOT buying the bad for you fast foods.

c) Research has found that both regular & diet soft drinks are even worse for you. They tend to cause disease and both help make people fat. And, many young people and less well to do people drink LOTS of them.

The good news is that most fast food places do offer plain water also.

And, at home, green tea & black tea & sparkling waters are usually good choices besides plain water.

Coffee without creamer & black or with 1% lowfat milk or even a very small amount of half and half is even MUCH better for you than caffeinated soft drinks.

Adding spices, more expensive health OK foods and more variety can help you enjoy eating healthy besides taking these two steps.

But these two steps can save you more than enough to pay for those foods. And, in a pinch, eating this way plus taking vitamins can keep you healthy on very little money.