I was listening to investment radio (
www.investeerimisraadio.eu ) and they spoke about healthy eating being expensive. I cant agree with that statement.
I wont get too much into detail about food and nutrition values, Id like to keep this post simple and more about food groups and their prices. This way we can see how we can make our eating habits cheaper and more healthy.
Lets look at the most expensive food groups that people consume often: snacks and alcohol.
Alcohol - not much to talk about here, its expensive and its not really good for your health.(actually in small doses alcohol can be good but thats a story for another time)
2 options - drink and pay with cash + health or dont drink and save cash + health.
Snacks - dont we all love to snack something once in a while, especially when watching TV or sitting in front of a computer (one way to eliminate this is to be more active and we dont have so much time to snack).
With snacks its usually the expensive stuff that is unhealthy, the big C-s - chips, cookies, candy, crisps, cereals, cakes, chocolates etc. Its hard to stop eating most of them because they consist of mostly sugar. Sugar raises our blood sugar levels and we feel good and full but 20min later when it drops we feel hungry again, which means more eating.
Healthy and much cheaper alternative - fruits, vegetables and berries.
Some of them are cheap all year around and others are cheap only when in season. Off season there is also the frozen alternatives. And if you have a garden you can grow some by yourself :)
These foods contain much less or none of the chemicals that you get from the C-s.
Theyre also much less calorie dense, it means that you can snack a lot more and longer without getting too much excess energy that youre not able to use in your daily activities.
Look at the prices, a full kg of fruits is cheaper than a 200g bar of chocolate or 200g bag of chips.
2nd alternative is to eat proper food so you dont have the need to snack.
Lunch - cheapest way is to cook by yourself, you can do it during the lunch time if you have enough time or cook the night before and heat it the next day.
If both options are not for you then you can eat outside - there you just have to find some cheaper places to save money, theres plenty if you look around.
If you eat proper food then you cant go much wrong by keeping it healthy. Only thing some people avoid is that they dont eat much salad or none at all. Salad is cheap and healthy.
Supper - for the night its good to get some proteins to help body heal itself and change/build new cells. Cottage cheese is good because its cheap and its also alkaline which helps to keep your teeth clean. Some people like to add some extras in their cottage cheese, you can experiment with ingredients if you would like to.
You can eat something else too (alternatives could be black bread/whole wheat bread sandwiches with cheese, fruits/berries/vegetables or same stuff you would eat for lunch) or not eat at all if you dont like to/dont need to.
Drinks- you can save a lot by drinking only tap water (Im not saying that just because I have stocks of Tallinna vesi)
All the sodas and juices in stores are not healthy at all. Only exception is if the juice is fresh pressed.
When we are thirsty we need solvent not the solution for our cells. Sodas and juices will just make us even thirstier because we dont get the solvent our body was asking to get.
Food is a very broad topic and its hard to write short about it, I could probably write a book on the subject. So if anything is unclear or you want to know more then just ask in the comments!
