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How to Create Cheap & Healthy Meals
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We all need to eat. However, food prices seem to continue to rise. You don’t want to eat out, since that can get expensive. Additionally, you probably don’t want to buy a bunch of pre-packaged meals (even though they are cheap), since they are often high in sodium and high fructose corn syrup. The key is to create inexpensive meals that are also healthy.
Here are some tips for creating meals that cost less than $3 a serving:
Grow Your Own Food
Really, one of the best ways to have the ingredients on hand for healthy meal creating is to start a garden. We grow some of our own vegetables, and we grow herbs as well. We love the herb gardening because herbs are expensive to buy. Growing our own means that we have inexpensive (non-sodium) seasonings to flavor our food. Plus, we dry the herbs ourselves so they are available all year. You can freeze or dry many fruits and vegetables so that you have a cheap source of healthy ingredients all year.
Buy in Bulk
You can also buy in bulk. When certain food items are on sale, buy more of them. This is especially helpful when it comes to staples. Make sure you build up your pantry so that you have ingredients on hand. When you are prepared ahead of time, you don’t have to resort to buying take out, or running to the store to purchase items that’s aren’t on sale. Keep track of the ingredients you commonly use, and buy them for cheap when they are on sale.
Plan Your Meals
Meal planning is one of the best ways to ensure that you save money on your meals, as well as eat healthy. When you don’t have a meal plan, you are more likely to spend money by eating out in a pinch. Indeed, one of the issues my husband and I faced for a long time was the “What should we eat?” issue. Without a plan, we were always scrambling, and, more often than not, heading out to a restaurant. Look ahead, and plan your meals. You can make sure you have the right items on hand, and you will know exactly what you are making. Make an effort to engage in meal planning, and you will be more likely to save money, and eat healthier.
Look for Recipes
One of the best things you can do is to look for healthy recipes. There are a number of easy recipes for a variety of foods. It’s worth it to invest in a healthy recipe book, including those that have meals that take 30 minutes or less to cook. You can also look online for great recipes. Some good places to look for health recipes include:
- Heart-Healthy Living offers 20 Cheap Heart-Healthy Dinner Ideas Under $3
- Family.com offers 20 Budget-Friendly Organic Meals
- Delish.com provides A Dozen Healthy Dinners for $3 a Serving
- EatingWell gives you some Cheap Healthy Lunch Ideas for Work (just in case you need food on the go)
- iVillage has a collection of 75 Fast, Health Meal Ideas
(Photo: DanieleCivello)
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I don’t cook and I don’t want to. That represents and extra challenge in addition to avoiding sodium. I find having thing on hand that I can combine into a meal is critical for me. I work at finding those things on sale though.
These are great tips. I’d add one more – don’t go grocery shopping while hungry! It never fails that if I go to the grocery store before lunch or dinner I end up buying a bunch of things that I don’t need and that are terrible for my health. But if I eat and then go, I always stick to my list. Better for my health and my budget!
Making your own food is definitely the way to go for cost and health, to not get all the sodium and additives is great as well.
Just got my garden done. One of my favorite meals is to bake my oatmeal with apple slices and raisins or blueberries. Takes 25 minutes in my toaster oven. Filling and except for the fruit inexpensive. Trying to get away from the sodium and additives is hard but it can be done with planning.
Wilma,
There’s got to be more to it than that. Can you fill in the blanks?
This is a good recipe for baked oatmeal with apple slices.
http://cooktolove.com/2012/02/25/apple-crumb-baked-oatmeal/
It’s cheaper when preparing your own fried rice at home. At least, you will know what’s in it and don’t have to second guess.
I find that one of the easiest, healthiest and least expensive meals here is “Grandma’s Homemade Soup”. The ingredients are whatever happens to be in the refrigerator (clean up those leftovers) added to diced canned or home-grown frozen tomatoes and any kind of broth. Season liberally with onion and garlic powders (not salts) and add a pasta or rice.
The teens around here love it and often ask for it.
Thank you for the tips and recipes. Extra groceries can help those less fortunate.
Its always a good idea to go grocery shopping with a list and stick to it. If not, then you have the urge to just throw random unhealthy items in your basket.
Buying in bulk also includes meats that are discounted by buying in Family Packs which would be too much for one meal. Break them down and freeze the extra portions in sizes that you will use. Remember to always label the package… once frozen, chicken livers might look like stew meat!
Healthy meal plans for weight loss is only one of your options in losing extra weight. You actually do not need to lift heavy weights all the time just to lose weight. A careful planning of your meal will also improve your goal to lose weight faster.