Is your diet balanced? is it healthy? Do you eat enough vegetables? How many times did you eat yesterday? These questions can be extremely annoying especially when you are working with a very tight budget.
We are forced to learn simple ways to make healthier food choices. And are always reminded to make healthy food choices every single day. To prevent these lifestyle diseases that are often life-threatening.
However, sometimes having a healthy diet daily can be really expensive and can also be quite intense in terms of budgeting but do we then stop caring what foods get to our stomachs?
Do we then not care if the food we are buying is healthy or not? No!
Here are the 6 Easiest Ways to maintain a Healthy diet when on a tight budget
1. Plan your meals
Importance of meal planning
- You avoid impulse buying.
- You prevent future food waste.
- You save lots of your money.
- You will take care of all family members’ needs.
2. Cook at home
Most will wonder, where exactly is the connection? Why can’t I just walk into a restaurant and get food?
When you and your family consistently eat at a restaurant, in what we refer to as the restaurant indulgers, you will spend lots of money for every single plate that you order.
The worst is that the restaurants don’t really care about your health, rather they often just want to make profits.
On the other hand, when you sit down and budget for the foods, buy them and prepare them yourself, you can save lots of money that can go into other things.
Cooking at home also gives you a chance to pick out healthy foods and cook them in the most efficient way to preserve most of the nutrients in those foods.
Imagine how much money you would save if you started cooking at home, besides
- You get to choose a healthy cooking method.
- You can control your portion size.
3. Cut off junk food
Maybe it will get to a time when we will finally get over this junk food addiction.
One, two, three times and you suddenly cannot stop eating foods without the company of soda, you suddenly can not go a day without a plate of chips.
This is undoubtedly a bad addiction and when we are going into obesity, and overweight we are definitely inviting too many health problems as we know that junk foods are never heart-friendly because of the too much fat, sodium, and sugar added to them.
Also, soda, crisps/chips, and biscuits are readily available but are they affordable? most of them are expensive and when we get into the habit of buying them often then we are going to get into a very serious addiction.
What if you stopped buying these junk foods often, how much money will you save? A lot, in addition
- Junk foods are a health problem in waiting.
- also, junk foods create unnecessary weight gain, a potential risk factor for heart problems, diabetes, and hypertension.
4. Cook larger portions
Even without a refrigerator, suppose you cooked beans, the leftover can be used for the next meal.
Have you realized that when you are too lazy to cook, and there is no food available you always rush for ready-to-eat foods in other words junk foods?
Try cooking more significant portions, enough for more than one meal, and store them appropriately. cooking more significant portions also helps save fuel during the cooking, saving money in the long run.
- Save money and time
5. Replace animal proteins with plant proteins.
A good example is meat and beans. If you are working with a very tight budget you will immediately realize that beef is quite expensive and what you didn’t know is that both of these foods provide essential nutrients that your body requires, only beans are the better option here as it is cheaper and healthier as they come with additional fiber that tags along phytochemicals. Eat meat less often.
Besides it not being pocket-friendly it also saves you from unnecessary weight gain as you know red meat contains too much saturated fat.
Saturated fat always gets stored in our blood vessels clogging them and hence may lead to hypertension, heart attacks, and even stroke.
- Save yourself some cardiovascular diseases as you save some money too.
6. Make a kitchen garden
Seeds are quite affordable, if you have space, even if small, try making your own kitchen garden, and plant some fruits and vegetables.
Most people have already started embracing this idea of having vegetables grow so close to the kitchen because;
- They taste better.
- You don’t have to buy any more.
I have been keeping a close eye on my budget for food lately. I’ve realized that by planning ahead and being more mindful while grocery shopping, I can save quite a bit of money. I’ve been making a lot of meals from scratch and buying in bulk when possible. It takes a little more effort, but the savings are worth it in the end. I’ve also been trying to limit eating out and opting for home-cooked meals instead. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but it’s definitely helped me stay within my budget.
