Any tips for cheap healthy food shopping?

kaydn

Sainsburys have bags of frozen fruits in their basics range in two varieties £1.29 for 400g I always have a couple of bags in the freezer

geordie_joe

Edwardia wrote: »

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[/INDENT]Baked potatoes, baked beans and rice are NOT low GI !!!!

Are you completely sure?

Edwardia wrote: »

To check whether a food is low GI or not please check the official University of Sydney website www.glycemicindex.com

I did and it said baked beans are 40, which is low.

It also said that baked potatoes are 69, which is high, but then goes on to say

2. Be wise with your potatoes
If you are a big potato eater and can't bear the thought of giving them up, you don't have to. Just choose wisely, and be careful with the quantity. Choose one or two medium-sized low GI potatoes such as Carisma,

It's the same with rice, the chart says it's high but another page says

5. Make your starchy staples the low GI ones
Look for the low GI rice's,

Edwardia wrote: »

There's a difference between glycemic LOAD and glycemic INDEX.

I'm sure there is, but that site uses a font which shows capital i and l as the same, so it is difficult to know if they are talking about GI or GL.

Edwardia wrote: »

With GI anything under 55 on the index is low.

Yes but it appears that if something is high on one page, you just move to another page and it becomes low.

rachbc

Edwardia wrote: »

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With four teenagers and feeding them healthy food not processed junk I don't think there's a huge amount more that you can save since you're going to the cheaper shops anyway.

2 teenagers- 4 people in totally.

Without seeing a shopping list/ menu plan its impossible to say if savings could be made - for example if they are eating asparagus and sugar snap peans with every meal then simple changes could be made subbing in cheaper veg with little loss over all of nutritional value. Hence my suggestion to eat more seasonal veg rather than more expensive frozen berries - 100g of fresh carrots will provide more fibre and less sugar for 10p than 100g of frozen raspberries will for 60p! Its not just where you shop but what you buy and I certainly believe its possibly to eat healthily for less than £150 pw including a range of fruit and veg, meat, pulses, dairy and wholegrains.

OP do you have and low GI/ GL staples that you could buy in bulk - pulses, brown basmati...asian stores are a good source but amazon is an option if you don't have such things nearby!

marco21st

Looks like I have to let you deeper into our family life.

There are four of us. My wife, my 15year old D and my 14year old S and me.
D is vegetarian and S is the exact opposite and shouts all the for meat.
We bake our own bread, mostly wholegrain rye (sour dough), but again the kids don't like it that much and rather want bought bread (best of both at lidls for 69p). We have 6 chickens which means plenty of eggs. We did a lot of home baking but since we try to stick to low GL it is complicated as we are not supposed to use standard sugar or flour. We still make our own jam, but only have rhubarb in the garden and so we have to buy all the other ingridients.

Now going on to our food plan, this is for this week:

Monday - Friday:
Breakfast (BF): 40gr porridge with 160gr milk and berries (frozen).
Morning Snack (MS): An apple and some nuts
Lunch (L): Salad with either chicken, egg, tuna or mozzarella/feta
Afternoon Snack (AS): 100gr Greek yogurt with either berries (frozen), peaches (canned) or mashed apples (home made from Bramley's) and some nuts or Granola (again home made - oats, fruit sugar and various nuts)

Dinner (D)
Monday: Burgers made from lean mince with salad (no buns)
Tuesday: Omlette (with peppers, tomato, mushrooms, ham and cheese) and salad
Wednesday: Halloumi kebabs (with chicken, tomato, peppers) and brown basmati.
Thursday: 1/2 a pizza and salad
Friday: Chicken with salad, tomato, feta and pita bread.

Well that is now for the wife and me. Son eats cereals for breakfast, bread with tuna spread and an apple for lunch and dinner with us, unless he has friends over, then they have pizza (farmfoods 5 for £4) or burgers (Lidl/Aldi 1.29 for 2 / 99p each).
And now add some sweets.

My lovely daughter has mostly eggs and toast for breakfast. Toast with cheese and a fruit for lunch, a yogurt with fruit for snack and for dinner either same as we have or quorn as substitute.

We don't drink alcohol and mostly have water (sparkling and still) and Pepsi Max (but only if we can get the 2 litre bottle for 99p or cheaper).

This is me now standing naked in front of you:eek: nothing to hide

rachbc

Yum sounds like my sort of food. We are hen keepers too and always trying to find new ways of using eggs!

There is a lot of salad in there which is reactively expensive for veg you could add more variety with some slaw type salads (don't gave to be dull carrot cabbage and Mayo). Or serve cooked veg instead of salad depending n what's on offer/ in season. If you can find somewhere safe from the hens to try growing mixed salad leaves?

If you use lots f nut def worth buying in bulk if you can. I get kg of almonds for £4 from Asian shop.

I'm currently thinking of investing in a yog maker as I eat Greek yog twice a day - can make a litre for the cost of the milk! Then you could add chopped fresh fruit in season rather the frozen berries I like really soft pear and a pinch of Ginger in mine.

Would you swap chicken breast for thigh?

marco21st

rachbc thx for the tip with the Asian store and the nuts. Really good idea. We eat so many nuts and we started to get them from the Asian corner in Tesco but the 750gr bag almonds still costs us £5.99...

I think we will try to start eating more soups, they seem to be cheaper than cooking every night.;)

recovering_spendaholic

Marco21st I am afraid I haven't got much to add to what others have said but I just wanted to say that I think your meal plan sounds absolutely delicious!!

rachbc

Soup is a great idea for lunch too - I've got one today made with the left overs of last nights tagine of veg and chickepas with some extra stock added. They can be really filling is made with lentils/ beans and I never bother with bread with mine

miss_scrooge

Could shop in local fruit and veg market and fruit and veg shops alot cheaper then supermarkets.In my local market nothings over a pound.

sayahu

miss_scrooge wrote: »

Could shop in local fruit and veg market and fruit and veg shops alot cheaper then supermarkets.In my local market nothings over a pound.

I second the local market (esp. at the end of tradin on saturday), it depends on what time you have, or you could always get your young adults to get the fruit and veg from the market if your busy - after a little training from you! (my mum did this with us, so from the age of 12 we would be sent to get the fruit / veg after going to the library on the weekend).

Good luck cutting down £