Any ideas for less expensive healthy foods?

Hey y'all,

As a college student with virtually no money, and as a very overweight woman, I am having the hardest time eating healthy. On the plus side, I'm not eating anywhere near the amount I did before, which has helped me to lose about 10 lbs a month, on the negative side, the food I am able to eat only adds up to about 1200 calories a day, when this site tells me I should be eating 1850. As a vegetarian, I'm spending all my money on protein filled foods and tons of fresh vegetables and fruits, which costs me about $50 dollars a week. Twice as much as it did when I was back at home and eating junk food all the time. I scavenge the web for coupons, but am still starving at a high price. Do you have any ideas on how I can eat more for less? I'd appreciate any and all ideas!

Thanks,

Annabelle

ps. I've lately been living off of canned pumpkin, because it's extremely cheap and pretty healthy, but goodness, it just doesn't taste very good alone; any ideas?

 

You can take that canned pumpkin and make it into a delicious soup with the right seasonings and some chicken broth.  CC has some great recipes for pumpkin soup--just look it up.  Beans are also very cheap and extremely healthy, by the way.

beans!  super cheap...

I love Luna Bars if you want some sort of snack during the school day or something. They are pretty cheap too, on sale for 10 for $10 at my grocery store currently. Might not be the same for you though. Also, there is a website (www.wesaveyoulots.com) which sells nutrition bars extremely cheap. I must state that they are past their sell by date, but somebody on CC wrote to the Luna website and they said that the bars will be fine.

Hope this helps.

Nuts- will fill you up--they can be expensive--but if you buy a big back and then measure out your portions then they last a long time! Beans are also very cheap. I try to cook a pot of beans at least 2wice a month--they usually last for about 2 to 3 weeks if you store them in the fridge.!! Beans, Nuts, & Soup, I love to eat Tomatoe soup---it can be cheap & will last

 

Beans, nuts , soup

I also eat a lot of natural peanut butter & jelly (if you measure them out with a tablespoon they last a  long time. Also watch for adds and clip coupons!! Good luck

I'm a broke college student too, except I need to eat 2500-2700 a day, so logically my food bill is twice as much as yours (I'm not vegetarian though).

The easiest thing to do is buy dry beans, oatmeal, and rice. Also no sodium added canned veggies are ok. Nuts aren't really cheap, but peanuts are definitely the cheapest.

Do you eat eggs? You can buy those pretty cheaply. 

 If you live near an asian super market they are pretty cheap. 99 Ranch market or SF markets have good everyday prices for fruits and veggies. I gotten around 5 bags of food for 17 dollars. 

 The food comprise of soy milk (nonsweeten), tofu, bean curd, vegetables, and fruits. 

Look around for discount grocery stores. They seem to crop up around universities. Also, try to find a bulk store- we've got Bulk Barn here, and it's fantastically cheap. You can buy exactly as much as you need of pretty much anything dry.

Look for student discounts- ask everywhere you shop if they have one.

Lentils are great! They really fill you up (loads of fibre) and are quite cheap. If you need to add in more calories, whole grain pastas are fantastic for that, and usually pretty cheap. My favourite is spelt penne. Mmm! You can make a sauce out of canned tomatoes and various spices. You could probably make one out of pumpkin if you really wanted to ;)

 Oatmeal oatmeal. the calories may be higher than you wish but if it keeps you from a morning snack because you are not hungry it may be worth it. 3/4 cup oatmeal (bigger flakes rather than instant) and1/4cup of skim milk powder is your basic. add water to taste - try1cup to 1.5 cups at first. put in microwave at full power for about 2 minuets(enough to bring water to a boil) them a lower power(20% or 30%) for a further 3 min or so to finish cooking. the lower power is to keep from boiling over- if you use a deeper bowl it will allow one full power cooking session. there are all kinds of stuff you can add to change tastes. brown sugar,maple syrup, cream,nuts, raisins, spices like cinnamon,fruit like apples(apples going soft when you prefer them crisp can be used up deliciously by adding it chopped up in small pieces.) dried berries like cranberries and blueberries. it is quick because you could make it the night before ,just popping it in the microwave in the morning. to be even faster I also cook it the night before last thing at night, leave it in the microwave(no one else to using it overnight) and just heat it in the morning and add the non-basics. you could even eventually get a bunch of small containers with the dry stuff measured out (good bulk weighing if you need to use a scale use a scale for greatest accuracy- like for diabetics) . Your own individual packets! way cheaper! Bulgar, cracked wheat, other grains could be cooked in a similar manner too.(cream of wheat tends to lump too much even if you stop the microwave to stir) add ground fax seed for omega oils, and ordinary wheat bran for fiber. I'd make up a tagged recipe like the following for quick calorie counting and just add whatever you use for variety 62 grams Oats, Regular And Quick And Instant, Unenriched, Dry [8120],3/4 cup 35 grams skim milk powder [1092]1/2 cup 1.5 tbs wheat bran comes to 375 calories. Just add water and pop it in the microwave in the morning. prepare the dry stuff the night before. Add stuff according to taste. dried fruit(rasins, apples?), brown sugar, cinnimon, etc to your taste. Can make up a bunch of ziplock bags of individual serving. Can add extra perishable extras like chopped apples ,cream to the hot porriage - that way the dry mix can keep till the next morning if you have overslept.

 

if you are willing to cook "beans", the easiest (no gas problems) are the dry lentils. Red lentils are extremly easy to cook. pricier than green lentils but so much faster it might be worth the price difference. It also has enough of a difference from green lentils that they just do not taste the same when substituted. if you like Indian food you could look up recipes under Dal to experiment- you can cut down the spices to your taste.  Depending on how much stock, water you add it could be made as thick as a hummas dip or be of a soup like consistency.  it freezes fairly well -a good thing because its richness and blandness allows it to go bad faster if forgotten in the fridge more easily than acid tomato sauces if you tend to try to cook for more than one meal. One favourite of mine is to boil lentils in water till cooked.(fairly thick consistency-like ketchup or thicker is my preference - some people like it more liquid) Meanwhile slice onions very thin , then fry them in a bit of hot oil. Take it off the heat when it starts to brown (its best thoroughly brown but not burnt - the hot oil will keep it cooking if you do not remove the onions from the oil - so take care -overtime you will figure out how to cook to get it just right). Add some mild curry powder (say about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon to about 1 cup of dry red lentils being cooked) to the hot oil. heating in oil I think brings out the best flavour. leave in in the oil for about a minute and add all to the cooked red lentils.  Salt and pepper to taste. Cooking in stock (cubes,powder) changes the flavour.  You could add stuff like carrots, eggplants, zucchini,etc and let them cook in the mix too. Firm tofu for extra protein, might work if you were careful stirring. That and rice is a favourite(comfort) food to me-so much so (I eat too much) that I restrict eating it. 

You could try the pumpkin added to a custard pudding for a sweet dessert- basically pumpkin pie not in a pastry shell that was cooked stirred in a pot on the stovetop.  (sure to be microwave or steamed recipes too)  Recipes for sweet squashes like butternut and acorn might work with the pumpkin.  Add apples(applesauce) to make a less strong pumpkin flavour ?

Thank you all so much for your suggestions!

What I usually do is buy some Protein powder (soy tastes the best) and mix it with some soy milk or skim milk (if your diet allows for that; I'm not vegetarian, sorry).  I would recommend soy powder by EAS Nutrition.  You can buy it at Wal-Mart for about $8 - $9 and it lasts about a week or two, depending on how much you use in a day.  I usually do about 1.5 scoops (about 30 grams of protein) and mix it with skim or soy milk and you can throw in some ice, a banana, mango, strawberries, etc. to add to the taste (I prefer Vanilla, but the Chocolate is good too).  You can buy a mini blender for $20...  It ends up being a really good filler at about 370 calories (when using about 12 ounces of milk/soy/etc.) and if you workout, the pounds will melt off because of the protein content.  I usually do one in the morning and/or lunch and have healthy snacks (fruits and veggies) in between and some chicken or fish for dinner (I know this is not vegetarian, but something that has a high amount of protein is sure to fill you up and help drop the pounds).  Good luck!

Original Post by jillargiris:

What I usually do is buy some Protein powder (soy tastes the best) and mix it with some soy milk or skim milk (if your diet allows for that; I'm not vegetarian, sorry).  I would recommend soy powder by EAS Nutrition.  You can buy it at Wal-Mart for about $8 - $9 and it lasts about a week or two, depending on how much you use in a day.  I usually do about 1.5 scoops (about 30 grams of protein) and mix it with skim or soy milk and you can throw in some ice, a banana, mango, strawberries, etc. to add to the taste (I prefer Vanilla, but the Chocolate is good too).  You can buy a mini blender for $20...  It ends up being a really good filler at about 370 calories (when using about 12 ounces of milk/soy/etc.) and if you workout, the pounds will melt off because of the protein content.  I usually do one in the morning and/or lunch and have healthy snacks (fruits and veggies) in between and some chicken or fish for dinner (I know this is not vegetarian, but something that has a high amount of protein is sure to fill you up and help drop the pounds).  Good luck!

 That's actually a pretty terrible idea. Almost every tub of protein powder warns you not to use it to replace food. You should only use protein powder post-workout, or while eating real food.

I second the beans, lentils and rice suggestions. Dried beans here cost less than $1 for a 1 lb bag that would fill my family of 4 up for several meals. We also buy rice from the asian market in the huge bags. It's much cheaper that way.  

For fruits and veggies, buy local and in season. Here's a brief sample of what's in season now, you'll note pumpkin is on there, if you might do better buying a fresh pumpkin rather than going with canned right now.

Look around (do some googling) to see if there is a farm share you can purchase. If not, always compare prices and realize that the grocery store will put the most expensive produce in the first, most prominent row. Therefore the first items you see - the ones set up to catch your eye - are not always the cheapest. Often their prices are jacked up tremendously, and a row or two later you'll find cheaper. For example our WF sells two kinds of bananas - 99 cents vs 69 cents. The cheaper ones are farther back down the aisle, tucked kind of out of sight.

For out of season, be sure to compare the price of frozen vs fresh. Frozen can be cheaper, depending on the time of year. Especially if you have a coupon.

As for tofu, a trick I learned from a friend is to talk to chinese restaurants. Sometimes they will sell you fresh tofu by the tub. Huge tub. It's much better than what you can get in those small aseptic packages. If you have time to spend in the kitchen, you can even make tofu from scratch. I've never done it myself, but it sounds pretty simple.

Making breads, pancake mixes, even pasta etc from scratch can also be much cheaper than buying a prepared mix. It may seem expensive to buy all the ingredients but when you cost-average it out, it is highly economical.

You can get a fair amount of protein from starchy carbs - think of things like nuts and seeds, tofu, etc as more of a garnish, so a little goes a long way.

Pasta goes on sale a lot - I always wait until it is 25 cents a box, then stock up. Unfortunately it's usually not the whole-grain type. But sometimes you have to prioritize cost, it's unfortunate, but there you go. Organic and whole grain does cost more. I always try to balance it out - one trick is to buy wheat germ and learn to use it liberally. You can add it to baked goods, your morning oatmeal, chili, etc.

For starches don't skip over potatoes. They are filling and tend to be one of the cheaper items. They get a bad rap because most people eat them with butter or fried, and don't eat the peel. But they can be a good mainstay of your diet and as a plus are quick to microwave. Top with beans and salsa and you have a healthy balanced meal.

Barley is another good one. It tends to be cheap, and a little goes a long way. Just add 1/4 cup to soups and it expands right up. Very filling, nutritious, and high in fiber.

Nuts ARE expensive but they pack a lot of protein and nutrition so they go a long way.

I'm not so much into canned goods - but it's true they can be cheap, esp if you stock up while on sale. I do buy canned tomatoes, canned pumpkin, canned beans (for convenience only - dried is always cheaper, IME). I don't bother with canned soups because I can always make soup for a lot cheaper.

Do you have a Trader Joe's nearby? They have great prices too.

Finally, I think the most important tip is to plan it all out so you waste nothing. This is especially true with fruits and veggies. Shop often and if you can't, plan out meals so you use the most fragile items first, the ones that are sturdier or require a bit of ripening time on the counter last. Batch cooking veggie soups and then freezing the remainder is good cost-saver and less potentially wasteful. Learn to freeze bananas, which are cheap at 69 cents a pound but if they get too ripe and you end up throwing them away, the cost goes up. Use the broccoli stems - not just the crowns.  Keep a container in the fridge for veggie scraps (leaves, stems, etc) and leftovers, then once a week use them to make a "leftover" soup or (if it's really just the dregs) a broth.

In the supermarket, check out the ethnic foods aisle.  While most are expensive the Mexican and southwestern section has some bargains.  For instance, canned beans, which can be a real time saver, cost a lot less.  The rice is cheaper, and so are the various seasonings. 

I hate to say it, but tofu!  It apparently takes on the taste of whatever you sautee it with.

What I do for a good amount of veggies is go to the 99 cent only store. The ones that I go to (los angeles, CA area) have bagged spinach, salad packs, romane lettuce green/red/yellow/orange sweet bell peppers (2-3 per pack), roma/regular tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, apples, plums, etc in the fridge/produce part of the place. 

Sometimes they're not as fresh as I want them to be (like the orange bell peppers today there were old...but the yellow ones were great :D) but compared to the local markets that sell them for $2 each, I can get 2-3 for 99 cents so it's a real bargain.  They also have a lot of canned goods and other frozen/fresh items (like beans, stewed tomatoes, canned/frozen veggies) but I have seen them cheaper in other markets so watch out for those

They sell eggs and regular milk/soy milk there as well, but the brands they carry change randomly so depends on how your quality-price ratio goes. I found a 2-pack of the frozen boca meatless breakfast wraps there this week, but I'm almost sure I won't find them there next week...or the organic horizon milk I found there once...and never saw again ; ;

For items like tofu, I go to asian markets mainly. They have the extra extra soft silken tofu that I can almost never find at regular markets or the freshly made tofu/soy milk, and one of them usually has a sale going on. Veggies and fruits kinda seem cheaper at asian/mexican stores on a general basis (vs. chainstore supermarkets) but the supermarkets can have better sale items as well, so kinda hard to say that they're definitely cheaper. Also there are asian stores that are really expensive...so watch out on those. 

 When I moved for college what I did was asked around for where they were after I was in a situation similar to yours (not vegetarian but I was a poor collage student), but I never found out where the cheap markets were for a long time. Really helps to talk to non-students (working in the east asian library on campus helped in that sense for me lol) because a lot of students were either not that health conscious (ie. pizza/mac n' cheese for a meal) or just didn't care much about the prices. TV commercials during the local asian program times can also give an idea on where the asian stores are as well. Sometimes even the address/names are in that specific language though, so might help to tape it and show it to someone who can translate ^^; Our area also has ethnic-specific phone books/newspapers that are sold locally or passed out for free at the ethnic markets, so those may help too (our asian library subscribed to them, so might want to check if your library has them too)

good luck :D

Oats
Very versatile.
From muffins to oatmeal, to grinding up and using instead of flour. You can coat tofu in crushed oats and bake with spices for a crispy outside. I also found these super healthy kids snack bars looked at the ingredients, figured it out and made my own!! They were dates, sultanas, oats, cocoa, applesauce and honey and had the % on the ingredients. You can make your own muesli bars for qwuick snacks. Otherwise, dicount bulk fruit and veg. Buy a stack of apples. If you dont eat them turn them into applesauce. Freeze ripe bananas, buy nuts plain and unsalted in bulk from food catering stores etc

oz girl.. i'm not sure where you live but do you have any of those membership stores near you? like bj's, sams club, costco etc?? everything is so cheap because it is in bulk.. i buy my fresh and frozen fruits, veggies, chicken breast, and a few other things there... you shell out some money when you're there but then it will last you for weeks! =)

Fifty dollars a week isn't bad, in fact it's better than what I usually manage, but I could also use ways to trim my spending. (I am also vegetarian)

When I was in college I used to go to Wendies and order a side salad and a baked potato off the dollar menu. For several lunches a week, I would only be paying $2 plus change.

Look for farmers markets this time of year. The veggies are cheaper and better quality than those in the store. Bags of apples this time of year tend to be especially cheap, and even red peppers are in season.

Also, even cheaper than fresh veggies, you can buy frozen ones (not brand name). I like the frozen stir-fry medley. If you toss them in a pan like a wok and add some tofu or beans it makes for a pretty cheap and quick stir-fry.

Buy brown rice and oats in bulk (and many other staple foods). With a little water and 15 minutes for the rice or 5 minutes for the oatmeal in the microwave you can make a cheap side dish. Plus, the rice can be made in a large batch and last a few days. I like to do that, then mix some with canned beans, salsa, and such, and make a Mexican-style dish or tortilla wrap. Oh, and a big bag of russet potatoes can last in your fridge for weeks, just poke and then wrap one in in wax paper, cook in the microwave for 6 minutes or so, and you have a cheap baked potato.

Oh and another thing, I went to college in the city and there was a goodwill store around the corner. I got a lot of cookware there, including a working crockpot for $5. It was one of the best things I ever bought. Add a bag of beans/peas/lentils, some veggie broth (made from scrap veggies and water boiled), onions, celery, salt, paper, bay leaf, and other seasonings and vegetables, then cook for several hours, or even all day while you work. It's easy and convenient and most of all, it's cheap. If I have too many leftovers I just freeze them for later.

well, I feel like I have been a college student forever.  (in reality, only since 1999!)  and I truly understand!

that said, can you grow your own veggies????  tomatoes, peppers, beans and squashes are all pretty dang easy to cultivate.  You may not have a yard but you can use old pickle barrels from restaraunts or beat up plastic trash cans or old tires stacked on top of each other and filled with dirt. 

The seeds are pretty cheap--you are buying the foods from a market somewhere, just take out the seeds (before you cook!!!) wash thoroughly and allow to dry somewhere for a week or two.  (look that up on the net)  don't buy seeds it is incredibly expensive for what you get and it is difficult to tell the seeds age and nature.  or I often buy seedlings of a hardy nature at the farmers market in the springtime.  these seedlings are usually pretty inexpensive and some folks will trade you for something you have that they want (do you make anything, can you watch their kids or water their plants when they are away, do you have something to give away like an old bike or computer) 

the plants I mentioned don't need much attention really--just plenty of water and sunshine.  if you get bugs or deer eating your buds, find some chicken wire or old window screens to wrap around old sticks for a protective cover. 

mmid-summer, when you have more food than you know what to do with, plan a day with a good bud to can some pasta sauces, salsas, stewed toms, and soups for the winter when you cannot grow.  (look that up on the net too, its way easier than it seems)  You can nearly always get glass mason jars from flea markets or garage sales.  you'll probably wanna buy new lids but they arent expensive (at the grocery store on the paper plates and napkins aisle)

there are lots and lots of good books out there about growing and canning to save moolah. also, discover who the extension office or agent is for the closest public university (land grant schools always have these--there are more than a dozen n the US) they'll have loads of information about how to grow, what to grow, how to do it cheaply (they may GIVE you seeds or seedlings!), and how to can, good cheap recipes and so on and so forth.  this is the purpose for these places so don't hesitate to call and ask! 

also, when I was an undergrad, my university had an agricultural dept.  they sold sooooooooooooooooooooooo many veggies, eggs, milk for rock-bottom prices.  they had everything you could think of!  but it was pretty difficult to find on my own.  ask around.  call the switchboard and ask. 

 

hope this helps! Jenn