Really healthy eating on a budget

Jenny another idea might be to put the printed recipes in plastic folders in a ring binder. It's amazing how many recipes you can fit into a binder! It's how I store my recipes. Think I might have to start another soon! Either that or go through it and ditch some of the recipes I've never tried for one reason or another.

Denise

I have an autoimmune issue and have been gluten-free for three years.

The first year I whole-heartedly embraced all the gluten-free alternatives. Not only did I spend a fortune, I also put on over a stone in weight because the alternatives are loaded with fat for flavour and moistness. The penny dropped when I compared the calorie content of my husband's pain au chocolate treat with my own - 190kcals vs 520kcals. That's not a treat, it was a whole meal.

Fast forward to today and I have eliminated a lot of processed foods entirely. I could not get to grips with baking at all so gave up after I spent too much money trying and produced little that was edible, even using a breadmaker.

I now stick to meat, poultry, fish, fruit and veg, pulses, dried fruit and some grains, about 95% of the time. I extensively use herbs and spices. Soups, salads and jacket potatoes are good standbys.

Occasionally I have the odd pizza that I make myself from GF bases, tortillas if we have fajitas, and pasta, although with the latter I ring the changes by having a chunky sauce on a jacket potato probably half the time. Ditto chilli, which I prefer on a jacket potato rather than rice. About once a month or so we go out for afternoon tea somewhere and I have a GF cake.

Breakfasts were a problem with me to start with, as I couldn't fathom a filling breakfast without cereals or bread. Now I generally cycle between:

• scrambled eggs with grated cheese, usually with a fresh tomato
• yoghurt with fruit and nuts/oats
• bacon and eggs
• porridge with stewed fruit
• turkey sausages and beans (sometimes I peel the sausages and flatten them into a sort of round)
• An omelette with grilled toms, basil and sea salt (usually summer when I have a glut of toms)
• hash browns with a dry-fried egg
• leftovers from the night before - lazy and very naughty!

Going gluten-free is a big change and very frustrating until you master what you can and can't eat. I get quite rapid unpleasant effects from eating gluten within minutes, so I had a very clear indication when I had eaten something I shouldn't.

Eating out is difficult as you have to place a level of blind trust in restaurants that they will be careful with your food, and I've been lucky enough to only have one incident in the three years.

Good luck!

Edited to add: I buy my fruit and veg from either town markets or Lidl/Aldi as I find it generally too expensive at the normal supermarkets. I also try and grow my own. I always buy in bulk where possible, and stash yellow sticker bargains when I can. I keep meals simple but flavourful with herbs and spices. I'm also careful with portion sizes. I should also confess to keeping two chickens, so have 1-2 eggs a day but they have to go between three of us.

Another thing to add is that a lot of the specially marketed 'healthy' foods are no more healthy than normal foods, but cost a lot more. There was one of the Dr-led health/food programmes in January which looked at things like blueberries, kale, goji berries etc, and found they are nutritionally no better than things like apples, greens and citrus fruit respectively. Annoyingly I can't remember what it was called.

On this basis, don't be afraid to go for cheaper seasonal fruit rather than blueberries.