01/03/2023
People often use the excuse that eating good is too expensive as to why they don’t take care of their health or it’s just an issue of lack of proper education.
Im going to go over some tips to minimize your food budget and still take care of your health!
First and foremost, manage your caloric intake. Easiest way to do this is using a simple app like myfitnesspal and get a $10 food scale off Amazon and track your intake. There’s a good article on my website (link in my bio) going over the basics of structuring your nutrition.
The next step is to cut out your unnecessary spending. Buying over priced highly processed foods, and eating out.
Now for the shopping.
Buy your grains in bulk. My go-to’s are white rice, oats (whole or quick) and all varieties of potatoes. Extremely cheap and you can get these anywhere. If you can afford a Costco or Sam’s membership it will pay off over the year! Beans are also a great cheap option for carbs and protein.
Vegetables and fruit don’t have to be expensive, bulk frozen vegetables (again, sams or Costco but cheap at Walmart too), onion, lettuces, celery, bagged spinach, carrots, bananas are super cheap. You can grab fresh produce when it’s on sale and then freeze it so it doesn’t spoil.
Protein, frozen chicken is usually a good price, boneless skinless chicken thighs as well! But for meats go to the store and buy what’s on sale. If there’s a good sale stock up and freeze everything you’re not going to use right away. There’s always meats on sale stock up and base your meals around what is on sale. Ground beef/Turkey, chicken breast/tenders/thighs, pork chops, beef roasts, fish, etc but what’s on sale. Also canned tuna is usually very cheap and eggs should be a staple.
Fats, buy in bulk. If you have a Costco or Sam’s club this really pays off here. Store brand extra virgin olive oil for cold or low heat use. A tub of avocado oil for high heat cooking and coconut oil. All great prices at Costco/Sams.
Ground beef/chicken thighs/canned tuna in olive oil/whole eggs with rice or potatoes and frozen vegetables is a super easy staple balanced meal. Eating better doesn’t have to be crazy complicated meals. Keep it simple!
Here’s a super simple example for a week of eating at my local Walmart prices not shopping any meat sales.
Walmart great value haul:
2 dozen eggs - $8
5lbs rice - $3
32oz broccoli florets x2 - $4.50
Chicken breast 6lb x2 - $30
Bananas 3lb - $1.80
That’s roughly 16,000 calories, 1,500g protein, 2,150g carbs and 243g fats. Add in some higher fat meat that’s on sale or extra virgin olive oil you buy in bulk to your rice to get enough quality fats in and your pretty much set for a week for under $50. And you can see most of that cost is in the meat, if you shop sales for meat you can drastically lower that.
