Cooking inexpensive, healthy foods can be simple and delicious.
Eating well while minding your budget is like saving money in any other area of your life. Planning, resisting impulse buys and doing things for yourself instead of paying others are all key elements. Whether you have little time to spare, or enjoy plucking items for your garden to cook from scratch, it is possible to make delicious, healthy, frugal meals at home while trimming your food budget.
Considerations
Some of the cheapest ingredients are the most versatile and tasty.
Even the lowest-priced food in the market is not a good deal if it goes uneaten. Buying a giant container of an item will be of no benefit to your budget if the contents are not something your family will enjoy. Buying in bulk can be similarly tricky. Even if you buy foods your family loves, consider whether your household will be able to eat them before they go bad. When buying from bulk bins, it's important to have an idea of each item's shelf life.
Benefits
Cooking healthy inexpensive meals is more convenient than ever. Most recipes contain nutritional information, making it easy to incorporate homemade meals into your diet. If not, you can look up individual ingredients online. Being mindful of your food's ingredients will also help you make other healthy choices. Paying attention to portion size is good for both the waistline and the pocketbook. And your children are likelier to make healthy food choices when they see how delicious your healthy, frugal meals are.
Methods
We pay a lot for convenience. Shredding your own cheese from a large block, for example, is not a huge time investment but will save you money. Herb gardens are easy to maintain and cheaper and tastier than herbs that are store-bought. Herbs also help you cut back on salt usage. Cooking a double batch of the evening meal and freezing the remainder saves shopping and cooking time and cuts oven and stove usage. Some frugal cooks spend a designated monthly day cooking several meals at a time for freezing.
Habits
Maintaining an inventory of your kitchen's contents will help prevent food waste and duplicate purchases. Plan your meals around what you have, and eat something before shopping to help you stick to your list and avoid unhealthy, expensive impulse purchases. Produce purchased in season is cheaper and tastier, so plan recipes around these items. Farmers' markets often have good deals on local organic produce. Generally, it is more important to buy organic thinner-skinned produce because it is easier for pesticides to penetrate the skin.
History
With good reason, many look to the past for healthy frugal cooking inspiration. During the Great Depression, many families were lucky to have meals on the table every day. Those who lived through it often cite "making do" as the key to their survival. Cooks stretched ingredients to their limits, creating multiple meals out of a bag of potatoes or re-purposing leftover bread into a whole new dish. This resourcefulness has eluded many modern cooks, but will serve you well if you want to save money while creating healthy, delicious meals.
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