Healthy Eating On A Budget - Tips To Make It Easier

In these difficult economic times, healthy eating on a budget is becoming a factor for many people. If expense is the main thing stopping you from serving healthy food, the following tips should provide you with some help for eating healthy on a budget.

Forget the Junk Food

Children (and often spouses) are often the ones to blame for all the junk food you come home from the grocery store with. Going shopping by yourself is the best and easiest way to ensure that you only buy what you need.

Plan Your Meals Ahead and Prepare a Shopping List

The more times you have to go to the store, the more likely you are to spend money on treats. At some time during the week, plan your meals for the next week. Before going to the store, have a look online for some cheap and healthy recipes. Write a shopping list and only buy the things on your list. If you can stick to your list, this is one sure-fire way to start your healthy eating plan and avoid over-spending on impulse buys.

Dilute the Juice

Water is essential for both children and adults and should be encouraged as a thirst quencher in every household. The body requires it on a daily basis and it provides the hydration needed to ensure that the entire body functions efficiently. If there are other drinks that your family enjoys such as fruit juices, buy them in the smallest size and save them for special occasions.

No Such Thing as Too Much Fruit or Vegetables

While certain fruits and vegetables are only available at specific times during the year, people often forget that they can be frozen. Buying your favorite fresh produce in large quantities is more economical and they can be frozen to use anytime you like. Splitting the cost with a friend and bulk buying is another way to get better prices. Make sure to thoroughly wash the fruit and vegetables and completely dry it before placing it in zipper bags to freeze.

What Is Preventing You From Building a Healthy Meals Budget?

Cleaning products, even the cheap ones, can be a big expense. Especially at today's prices. There are recipes on the internet that can be used to make cleaning products from household cleaners to laundry products. The recipes usually use common ingredients that makes them much cheaper in the long run.

The same holds true for beauty products as well. A few simple ingredients that are usually already on hand, such as sugar and salt make really good facial cleansers. Not to mention the fact that they are much cheaper and easy to put together.

Baking soda is a common ingredient that can be used to brush your teeth at a fraction of the costs. It can also be mixed with water to be used as mouthwash that does the same job as conventional products.

Look for ways to reduce utility expenses. Small changes, such as reducing thermostats, reducing water usage, and cooking in bigger batches can make big differences in utility costs.

Collect coupons for foods and other products that household uses on a regular basis. Coupons can be coupled with store sales that makes the products even cheaper in price.

Stock up on seasonal produce. It can be canned or frozen to get the cheaper price for the long run. Concentrating on eating seasonal produce affords a better balanced diet when the budget is tight.

Meat can be one of the biggest grocery costs. Reducing the amount of meat used in a meal makes the budget lasts longer. Things, such as only using half the hamburger to make that casserole, will stretch the meat budget and still give the desired flavor in the dish.

Eating meatless meals at least once a week is another way to cut meat costs. Meat can be substituted with beans or eggs to still get the protein in the meal.

Want to make a dish, but don't have all the ingredients? Instead of running to the store, look for substitutes that serve the same purpose. There are sometimes simple things that can be used in place of some ingredients. If buttermilk is needed in the recipe, regular milk and vinegar or lemon juice serves the same purpose.

Make some or all of the cleaning and personal care products. Look for ways to reduce utilities. Take advantage of coupons and other savings methods. Use less meat and prepare some meatless meals. Learn what ingredients can be substituted to give the same effect as other ingredients. All of these methods can reduce costs to make eating healthy more affordable.

Although this is a good list to start, it is not exhaustive. Can you think of other ways that reduce costs in other areas to afford more healthy meals?

Health Snacking 101: Why It Is Better to Snack for Health and Not Convenience

Snack hour is probably the best hour of any given day. However, it is important to spend it wisely with food selections that are good for you.

In most instances, snack hour is dedicated for fun food. Fun food means a burger, a hotdog sandwich, or a bag of potato chips. These are convenient snacks to munch on, but are you aware of its nutritional value? Is there any nutritional content in these snacks to begin with? When it comes to snacking, healthiness should be your choice, not convenience.

Many people may not easily agree with the above statement, but snacking should not be a window of opportunity to munch on food that you would not otherwise eat, given its unwelcome effects on your body. Even for those who are always in a hurry and do not necessarily have the luxury of time to eat proper snacks, it is still not a valid excuse to snack on unhealthy food. In fact, the less time you have means you need to eat only snacks that are known to be good for you.

Health snacks are aplenty. It may not always be readily available for you to buy, but there are many that you can purchase from your favorite grocery store if you look closely. You can even buy healthy food raw and prepare them into snacks if you have the time. If you fancy fruit, buying apples, grapes, bananas, cherries, and papayas are great snacks to munch on during snack hour. If you fancy vegetables, you can have chopped celery stalks, asparagus, and carrot sticks for your midday veggie snacks. Most fruits and vegetables are easy to eat, and thus are as convenient as the ones you can purchase from a fast food chain.