healthy eating too expensive...

Heena

I am living with my room mates and take healthy diet - well, if you ignore all the sweets and rubbish I eat as well. I cook everything from fresh, frozen or dried ingredients - no pre-prepared meals.

I usually eat Dal and rice in Dinner.- If you buy coriander and garlic from an Indian supermarket it's always, always cheaper and you get a lot more of it!In case of Dal you can freeze it and then later either eat it plain or use it as the basis for a delicious beef or vegetable curry. Its good for health.
for lunch we make chapati and any seasonal vegetable ,and take some salad also .
In noon we take fruit juice or lemon juice .:)

Middy

I live on my own and don't buy these veg because I throw out half of them away:
.Celery
.Cauliflower
.Cabbage
.Lettuce (though buy bags of mixed salad leaves)

jenniewb

Middy wrote: »

I live on my own and don't buy these veg because I throw out half of them away:
.Celery
.Cauliflower
.Cabbage
.Lettuce (though buy bags of mixed salad leaves)

You can still do things with these! For the first three:

Soups, Stir-fry (ok maybe not the celery, pre half-cook the cauliflower and cabbage first, add blackbean sauce and soy sauce whe in the wok), stews (celery goes really well in stews) , Cauliflower can be made into cauliflower cheese....

Lettuce makes a great filler for most cold foods, it bulks it up and is a low calorie option, great if your watching your weight. Always add food to eat with lettuce or it gets a bit sickly. But its really great for skin. It can however be quite costly though so wait for it to be reduced at the end of the day and only buy what your have planned to eat.

please don't think you cannot use anything- as long as there is no mould for it, there is a recipy somewhere :money:

geordie_joe

Middy wrote: »

I live on my own and don't buy these veg because I throw out half of them away:
.Celery
.Cauliflower
.Cabbage
.Lettuce (though buy bags of mixed salad leaves)

You can freeze cauliflower and cabbage, I do it all the time. I usually freeze them in small, individual portion sized bags

xanthe

You can use celery in stir-fry. Cut them into thin sticks along with carrots, garlic, shredded meat and soy sauce!

lisawin

Hi, my partner was recently made redundant, so because he's often home, he usually does the dinner cooking before I get in. Honestly, between my job and Steve looking for work, we don't have much time to prepare meals, so the temptation to get take-aways is always there - but we can't really afford it and we'd like to try to watch our weight.

Does anyone have any tips for eating healthy on a budget? Seems like what we can afford doesn't look very good for you whenever we go to the shops.

VfM4meplse

I would suggest the following:

• Stop buying meat, dairy and any processed food
• Invest in wholegrains (couscous, bulgar wheat and rice) instead
• Find a fruit and veg stall instead of the supermarket
• Start shopping at Lidl / Aldi / Netto rather than anywhere else

Draconian, maybe -but you will lose lb and retain £££.

overlykeensaver

do you have a decent sized freezer so you can prepare food in advance and freeze it? when you do cook something (ie pasta sauce - cook onions, garlic and a tin tomatoes and a pinch sugar - simmer gently for 15 mins = delicious!), make double so you can have another "ready-made" meal another time.

I think you would find the Oldstyle board very useful - they have loads of advice on cooking on a budget. Good luck!

msgnomey

Pop over to the old style money saving board there are lots of threads there about cheap meal, food planning etc

xx

wyebird

Yes, look at Old Style and have a look here too Weezl's website about feeding a family of 4 for £100 a month. There is a thread about it on the "how much have you saved" board