Achieving a healthy diet can be pivotal to our mental and emotional health including our physical well-being. The benefits to our mood, energy, waistline and how we think and feel can be extremely beneficial.
Nutritious food is seen as expensive and when on a tight budget often is the first thing to be cut, but this doesn't have to be the case.
As food costs continue to rise, and many of us are feeling the financial pinch, achieving a healthy diet is achievable and yet still saving on our shopping bills.
So how can we eat well on a tight budget and save money.
Buy seasonal produce as when food is in season there is often surplus which reduces the price of the produce.
Buying supermarket own products are often a lot cheaper than trademark products, and frequently are comparable in terms of safety, quality and nutritional value. But always compare the ingredients and nutritional label.
Planning and creating weekly meal plans using similar ingredients to rotate across the week, reduces the opportunity of waste, saving money focusing on shorter shelf life food for example fresh fruit and vegetables, and rotating the meals to avoid food spoiling and if plans change batch cook for the freezer.
Cooking at home our meals and treat meals i.e. fakeaways to save money on dining out, or having takeaways with additional delivery fees, service changes and tips. also cooking your meals means you have complete control of what you are eating, with out added sugar, salt and artificial ingredients.
Swapping our proteins over the week from animal to plant helps reduce our weekly shopping bills without compromising on nutritional value, as rich in protein, fibre and a variety of other essential vitamins and minerals i.e. beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu and tempeh.
Always be aware of savings i.e. weekly deals and discounts of your local stores, local stores often share promotional circulars in the post or magazines, newspapers etc... never shy away from clipping coupons/vouchers, there is no shame in being a savvy money saver. (The other day 'Always' posted out advertising coupons saving £17.00 on products).
If you struggle to use up fresh fruit and vegetables before they start to go bad, then swap to frozen fruit and vegetables, these are often in fact fresher than fresh fruit and vegetables and cheaper with the same nutritional value.
Never discard food scraps be creative and cook up a storm using them, i.e. vegetable stalks make great soup and stale bread cubed and baked make amazing croutons.
Storing food appropriately can extend the shelf life, reducing food waste, and if you are not sure how to store food ask a friend or Google.
Bulk buying food with long shelf life dates for example dried legumes, nuts, seeds, grains and tinned products tomatoes, vegetables, fruit and legumes can save money.
If you over cook don't throw the leftovers away freeze the meal for another day.
Add pulses to stretch out the meat for example swap when making mince beef recipes half the mince beef with lentils, reducing the cost but not the nutritional value.
These tips support you to eat healthily without costing a fortune, in fact more likely to save money in the long run, and help support improving your health.
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