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Save money, reduce food waste, and eat healthily with these tips on how to find cheaper and healthier alternatives.
Healthy eating can be expensive – but it doesn’t have to be. Here are our best tips on how you can save money while eating healthy foods.
Use your freezer
Fresh vegetables are among the most wasted household foods – we all know how it feels to optimistically buy vegetables and find yourself eating smaller portions of them than you expected, only to see them go rotten. Similarly, supermarkets discount fresh items at the end of every day – the ones that don’t get sold go straight in the bin.
What can you do? Buy some food storage bags and save these veggies by storing them in your freezer! You can put washed, frozen spinach straight into a curry or sauce, and frozen peas or broccoli only take a few minutes to steam (just make sure you chop the broccoli before putting it in the freezer).
For a tasty meal with minimal prep, just add some frozen vegetables, herbs, garlic, spices, chickpeas and tinned tomatoes to a slow cooker for 4-6 hours on medium. Slow cooking gradually breaks down the bonds in the chickpeas, softening them so that they’re tasty and tender. There are loads of delicious vegetarian meals like this – why not try to eat fewer meat dishes? Meat is by far the most expensive part of a grocery list – adding in a few vegetarian meals to your weekly meal plan can make a big difference to your food bill.
Make your own meals
Ever heard of a ‘fakeaway’? Instead of ordering in for your evening meal or heating up a TV dinner, why not search online for one of the homemade ready meals recipes available? You can make your own versions of less healthy foods for way cheaper than if you were to buy it.
Conclusion
It’s easy to eat well for less if you spend less money on ingredients and use a bit of time and imagination for your cooking.
FAQs
I don’t have time to cook a fresh meal every single night! What can I do to save time?
Meal prep and plan! It’s generally cheaper and reduces the amount of unused food if you make a big meal at the beginning of the week (say, a curry or sauce for pasta), portion it out, and freeze or refrigerate it. Then, you can just heat it up in a microwave or a pan with a little bit of water in it, along with your preferred carbohydrate.
Okay, but that sounds like it’ll be boring to have the same food every day.
It would be! Why not try only eating two of the meals from your meal prep one week, then preparing a different batch of meals and alternating them? Depending on the size of your freezer, you could do this indefinitely! You don’t have to eat it every single day, either – just have it on hand for when you need it.
Why are portion sizes important for children?
Portion size of foods and drinks is an important part of a balanced diet and offering extra child sized portions for young children can increase the risk of them over-eating in the future.
