How to Eat Healthy on a Budget | Cost-Effective Eating!

it's no surprise that food today is getting more expensive at least here in the United States we're experiencing inflation and many of us are asking ourselves how do I eat healthy on a budget how do I continue to feed my body and fuel my body with great food and make sure my family's eating well without breaking the bank and that's exactly what I want to share with you in today's episode some of my thoughts and strategies on how to make nutrition incredibly affordable and exactly what to buy for breakfast lunch snack and dinner and that's how I want to approach things in this video we're going to go through some of my favorite foods for breakfast for lunch and throughout the rest of the day I'm going to tell you what I recommend you do buy different kinds of cuts of certain things and certainly what to avoid and I also before we kick into the specific Foods I want to talk a little bit about mindset when it comes to nutrition and cost I think many people can just look at the Box cost it's like how much does this box cost versus something else and I think that's one way to look at it we ultimately want a lower total number on the grocery bill but it's also important to think about things in terms of cost per nutrition so sure buying wild salmon might be like ten dollars a pound and you look at that and you bought two pounds that's twenty dollars and you compare that to maybe a box of some kind of crackers which is only five dollars the salmon seems more expensive but actually the crackers are not gonna fill you up whatsoever they're filled with lots of empty calories and the salmon actually has all these rich healthy fats vitamins and minerals so there's a mindset component here too we both want to decrease the total grocery bill but also look at how can we get the most nutrition for the least amount of dollar value and that's a mindset I think is going to serve you really well and one final thing to say on the note before we get into the specific Foods is the foods that have more nutrients will keep you full longer we've all probably had the experience of maybe like drinking a bunch of soda or eating a bunch of chips and we just got like a thousand calories but we're still hungry afterwards the reason this is the case is because foods that don't have the right kind of key nutrients we need aren't as satiating for a digestive tract on our brain so we want to have high satiety Foods mostly non processed and we want to do an affordable way so let's get into this let's talk about breakfast first whether or not you have breakfast you intermittent fast I think it's an important thing to have because even if you eat these Foods later in the day they're still super valuable when it comes to having like good breakfast I think one of the easiest things you can prioritize is getting good eggs eggs are absolutely a superfood in my opinion and I'm not saying you need like six or 12 eggs per day but a couple eggs per day absolutely has health benefits you get all that rich amino acid protein from the egg white but I also want you to get that good egg yolk which is filled with choline vitamin A d e k fat soluble vitamins so many good things it's a nutrition Powerhouse now the key to getting eggs is eggs can be fairly expensive based on the kind of quality that you buy if you're buying eggs that are like pasture-raised Humane cage-free like that these days can I think be like nine dollars for a dozen eggs but if you start to go to some of these bulk grocery stores you can buy whole eggs in like big like 24 36 cartons for a lot cheaper price or maybe even check locally but I firmly do believe that a couple eggs even if the cost is let's say it's around 25 to 50 cents an egg still can be a really good budget option if you have three eggs for a breakfast that's a dollar fifty it totally kicks the crap out of any pop tart or any kind of other pastry kind of thing that you might want to buy or some kind of breakfast bar you're getting so much nutrition that'll keep you full and if you do have the money to buy up for some quality to get a really good yolk that's a little more Orange versus yellow indicative of more vitamins it's even better for your health so I love the idea of eggs other things you can do for breakfast is maybe consider getting some Greek yogurt or something like that in bulk if in the morning I'm a big believer in getting a good amount of protein in the morning it's going to keep you full it supports a healthy metabolism we combine proteins with good fats in the morning and keep the carbs a little bit lower you're going to benefit from that so maybe you buy an apple or an organic apple you slice that up with some Greek yogurt and you have three hard-boiled eggs or maybe you use those eggs to make a little bit of an omelette and a scramble and you throw in a bulk bag of some baby spinach that you saute into a little bit of omelette and maybe you get some cheese you can sprinkle in I know you can get a breakfast that's certainly under three dollars that's very nutritious it feels great another concept that may work for you especially if you buy the ingredients in bulk is to do breakfast smoothies and shakes we're huge proponents of this and we recommend this a lot in our fit father and fit mother programs because what you can do imagine if you did get some kind of protein powder that you enjoy you put a scoop of protein 20 to 25 grams of protein you throw in some organic baby spinach you throw in some frozen blueberries and maybe throw in some hemp seeds and some chia seeds and you blend that up you're getting such good nutrition and I guarantee that's still going to be a lower price in terms of both total cost and cost per nutrition and you have something that's consistent you don't need to think about where people get into trouble is they're buying all this weird stuff stuff in specific boxes pastries this kind of bagel that kind of thing and a lot of that stuff just doesn't keep you full doesn't have the right kinds of calories and nutrients so for breakfast again eggs omelettes you can make some kind of smoothie kind of recipe also fruit oftentimes a good idea in the morning especially if you can buy some kinds of fruits you actually enjoy imagine having something like an organic Apple paired with some kind of like nut butter that could be a part of a good healthy breakfast now let's look at lunch what kind of things can you do for lunch and how can we actually make this practical well on a healthy basis some of the stuff that we recommend a lot in our meal plans is one you can always do the kind of like salad with protein on top concept so imagine if you did buy a bulk of some 50 50 spring mix baby spinach and you can buy that maybe even organic and I know if you go to like a discount store like Costco you can get like big bags of this stuff you have that in the fridge you throw that in there and it's like the base of your meal and now you can throw some protein on top certainly if you can go plant-based options if you like tofu tempeh or something like that that can work but you also you can use a tin of some wild pink salmon I think it can be like three dollars of tin and like you're getting a lot of good protein in there maybe you hard boiled a couple of those eggs and you slice those up and put that on the salad sprinkle in some hemp seeds or some chia seeds just the idea of protein in Greens drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil salt pepper some spices maybe some paprika Rosemary lemon absolutely delicious nutritious and you can get that salad to be under five dollars for sure per meal and that's way better than if you went and you bought lunch out at a place it's probably going to be at least ten dollars maybe up to 15. another thing you can do if you do tolerate bread and you can have some bread in your diet is to get a high quality organic sprouted bread and if you're gonna do bread I am a big believer of making sure that it is organic I believe that these inorganic grains that are sprayed oftentimes with glyphosate which is the pesticide in Roundup we know that the health effects are terrible from those things on your GI tract they can lead to autoimmune issues and if you get a grain that's actually sprouted and has gone through that process some of the anti-nutrients in the wheat actually go away and some of the vitamins become more bioavailable so some of the breads that we do recommend and like is something like Ezekiel Bread it's often found in the frozen section it is more expensive but again if you bought a five a six dollar thing of Ezekiel Bread has 12 slices like it's still 50 cents a slice so it still can be reasonable you're paying one dollar for like the sandwich slices and then you can throw some all sorts of things in there some kind of like sliced deli meat like turkey ham leftovers from the night before of some kind of protein Source maybe if you want to get fancy a little more expensive you can put a little avocado and then the condiments that are great for these kinds of things are mustards hot sauces low sugar barbecue sauce you can make a little sandwich that tastes totally delicious and is of good value so I think the bread concept is really good if you want to have like the most budget friendly thing and maybe for your kids you don't like to eat a lot of meat and you can get two high quality pieces of bread load that thing up with some like some peanut butter of some sort you can get a big jar of that ideally some organic peanut butter that doesn't have a lot of hydrogenated oils in there and you could drizzle a little bit of jam or a little bit of organic honey or something in that and you have a PB PB and J or peanut butter sandwich that is like very nutritious can be great for you in this very low cost so again for lunch I do recommend you rather do the kind of like the sandwich style or the wrap style you can add a piece of fruit in there as well for a little more filler or you can do a salad with some protein some of those hard-boiled eggs or throwing some stuff on top very good now for snacks snacks are really where you can actually you know blow a lot of money on stuff that doesn't actually fill you up the grocery stores when you look at them are designed in a particular way where they have the meats and the produce and the vegetables on like the outsides of the grocery store that's typically where you're going to want to shop the interior aisles are filled with all like the package box goods and there's a huge industry at night right now for a quote on healthy snacks that are super expensive that basically don't give you much of anything and some are actually frankly totally unhealthy so instead of buying pre-packaged like dried this dried that chips of this chips of that I recommend you go to the classic like fruit nuts tile style snack so buy some pair some kind of fruit you love things that are good oranges apples pears a banana that still has a green tip on that and pair that with some kind of nut that you love so my personal favorites although macadamia nuts are expensive pistachios are expensive I like those the almonds cashews you pair like one serving of fruit with one serving of nuts and you make that consistent your blood sugar will stay super stable it it's not something that needs to be refrigerated you can take it absolutely anywhere it is of good value especially if you buy like a nut mix in bulk and you can even like make some of the stuff on your own you can go to like his website like nuts.com and buy like a lot of bulk nuts and do what I do and you can actually like throw these together I actually throw a bunch of nuts in a little pan with some walnut oil heat it up a little bit I throw a bunch of spices salt pepper paprika Rosemary and maybe some like habanero and I just make like a nut mix and I have that and it's like super good value I'm getting a lot of good healthy calories keeps my blood sugar stable don't need to think about it and I'm not wasting time and money getting like like thin seaweed slices or kale chips that like are just super expensive and don't give you much nutrition whatsoever another concept if you really want to get like take control of your own snacks is to invest in a dehydrator so basically dehydrator is a little oven that cooks on low low heat you could also probably do this in your oven yourself and maybe you buy some of these cheaper cuts of meats we're about to talk about as it comes to dinner and you make some own jerkies you can get you can make some beef jerky or some salmon jerky you can dehydrate some fruits and stuff like that and make your own snacks over the long haul that could save you some money because you're taking more of the stuff into your own hands and not buying as much for the markup of the packaging now when it comes to dinner one of the concepts we teach here certainly on our channels and our podcasts and our programs is the idea of building perfect plates so I want you to imagine a plate of food a blank plate and half of that plate is filled ideally with some kind of green fibrous veggie that you love asparagus steamed broccoli sauteed spinach or chard a Brussels sprout something like that a quarter of your plate is filled with some kind of protein you love and a quarter is filled with some kind of healthy carb or healthy fat now when it comes to like the green aspect of it one of the most affordable ways you can do it is to buy a big bag of baby spinach throw that in a pan with some olive oil throw some lemon throw some garlic maybe in there and saute some of those greens down boom super cheap and inexpensive broccoli as well you can buy broccoli in bulk or a big thing of cauliflower you can steam that up throw some spices some salt pepper on there boom very cost affordable some of the other vegetables are a little more expensive asparagus is a little more expensive brussels sprouts can be a little more expensive but if you make the focus of buying stuff that's actually seasonal it's going to be lower in price so paying attention to where the grocery store throwing different deals because they have a lot of stock on that kind of stuff really good and of course buying local your vegetables here is good benefit now the protein is I think a place where if you're including protein into your meals like animal-based protein or like fish chicken steak these types of things there's certain cuts that you can do where you can save a lot of money so the example buying a whole chicken besides chicken breast you can save a lot of money and from that when you cook that you're going to get the thighs the wings the breasts you're getting a lot more different types of cuts chicken thighs and drumsticks are always going to be cheaper than chicken breast they have more natural fats which is not necessarily a bad thing right if you're eating this kind of healthy structured way having some fats on these things is not bad but they can also save you some money you could also buy some tougher cuts of steak things that you might make into like a slow cooked brisket some of these sirloins those are going to be cheaper than if you were to get like something like a filet mignon or a rib eye and you can start to slow cook some of this stuff a lot of these meats are a little bit tougher or absolutely delicious if you start to use a crock pot so imagine if like you wanted to save some money you bought some carrots and some Roots vegetables some carrots some sweet potatoes you bought some celery you bought some onion and you bought some kind of like stew meat and you threw that stuff in there with some stock in a crock pot for six eight hours and you come home you have like a healthy dinner that's totally reasonably based and again that meal is roughly going to be around three four five dollars per serving as opposed to eating out which is 20 a serving and you're still getting good nutrition because you're buying like these single ingredient foods that are really good and when it comes to carbohydrates if you want to include those as a part of your perfect plate concept rice in bulk super cheap you can get many different kinds of rice that you may like sweet potatoes tubers and bulk super cheap you can get a bunch of those throw those in a pressure cooker instapot or oven and have those as like a staple and these are just like basically the message here is to simplify the types of things you know the mono ingredient Foods the fruits the vegetables the meats the eggs these are the things that are of the greatest value it's the stuff that has the long ingredient list that requires a lot of marketing a lot of packaging there's a lot of markup that's really going to be taking a lot of your money and it's the least healthy stuff anyways shop the perimeter of the grocery store start to change your mindset into like how can I get the most value and nutrition for my dollar and I know you can save a lot of money with these tips so thank you my friend hope you found this valuable if you would like like a step-by-step done for you meal plan and exercise and supplementation guidance and mindset coaching we have our fit father and fit mother programs which are the best programs online for busy moms and dads over 40 there's links in the description you can check that out and also if you want to really try our stuff out we have some free meal plans and workouts also linked in the description I want to recommend you check that out because we'll get into some other budget stuff and in fact in our full programs we have a full module on how to make healthy eating on a budget even there we also talk about alcohol and what kinds of things how much can you drink there the right kinds of supplements so much good information but most importantly action steps for you to take hope you found this value one friend thanks for stopping by today's episode this is Dr Anthony balduzzi signing off I'll talk to you very soon

Channel: Fit Father Project - Fitness For Busy Fathers

Views: 19,279

Keywords: How to Eat Healthy on a Budget, Eat Healthy on a Budget, The cost of food, cost of food, affordable healthy eating, Healthy and Affordable, healthy eating

Id: -d4asXjBr8w

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023