Healthy eating on a budget

Healthy eating on a budget doesn’t have to be so expensive.  Healthy eating may appear to be more expensive than foods that are high in fat and sugar, but there is so much that you can do to make healthy eating more affordable. Here are a number of tips that you can follow to help you improve the overall quality of your diet without going bankrupt.

Carefully plan your food intake. If you plan what you are going to eat and drink over the week and stick to it, this will help you to avoid buying more food than you actually need and to cut down on unnecessary waste.

Buy food in bulk and freeze to preserve shelf life. Foods such as pasta, rice, and wholegrain breakfast cereals will keep a long time and can be bought in large bulks, which is cheaper than buying a bit at a time. With fruit and veg, you can buy large bulks of in season products and then freeze what you don’t need at the time and consume at a later date.

Keep a look out for the special offers on foods in supermarkets.  Make the most of the Buy One Get One Free offers. The one con with this is that supermarkets tend to put special offers on the foods that are almost out of date, so always check the use by date and be sure that you will eat the food before it goes off to avoid waste. You can however freeze the food in order to increase shelf life. 

When shopping at the supermarket, choose the supermarket’s own branded options as these will be cheaper than the brands of outside companies.

Buy fruit and vegetables that are in season and have been grown and produced here in the UK. Fruit and veg produced in the UK is cheaper than those imported from overseas. 

If possible, find a market close to home and buy fresh fruit and veg from here. When buying fruit and veg at a market, you are buying the products directly from the farmers that have grown and produced the fruit and veg and this works out significantly cheaper than buying fruit and vegetables in supermarkets.  Buying on a late afternoon on a Friday may be more open to even cheaper deals.

Buy all the raw ingredients and cook your meals from scratch rather than buying ready meals or processed food. It is healthier to cook your meals from scratch rather than buying ready meals, which are often high in saturated fat and salt and it works out a lot cheaper too.

Buy frozen veg as this is cheaper than the fresh products.  Frozen veg will also last for a long time.

Use leftover vegetables to make salads or soups for example.  You can also add salads to a sandwich or have them as part of an evening meal with cottage or shepherd’s pie for example.

Get canned oily fish such as salmon and canned tuna and have this in a sandwich with a salad. Salmon is a great source of protein and essential fatty acids of the omega n-3 brand. Getting the supermarket own brands will work out significantly cheaper.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and porridge is always a cheap and great choice. Beans on toast is also a cheap choice and the baked beans count as part of the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day due to their fibre content.

Make your own healthy packed lunch rather than buying expensive foods from the canteen.