Healthy and Cheap Food Options

By David Francis


Sometimes life throws you curve balls. For reasons unknown, a lot of things just really don't manage to work out the way you long for them too. Many times, these curveballs cause us to strike out in terms of being dedicated to our health and wellbeing goals. We start to interrupt the nice dietary and exercise habits that we worked really hard to set up, unwanted weight returns, pain creeps in and depression starts to smother initiative and ambition.

It's happened to the best of and we all know what this is like. Luckily, there's always a remedy. As it may not regularly be the perfect solution we really wish for, we should instead open ourselves to trying something totally new or adjust our perspective to allow a bit of creativity to spark a fresh and efficient strategy.

Before I get into the meat in the post (pun intended) I need to create a quick frame of reference. Recently I discovered the individual situation of someone who has been thrown a handful of major curveballs by life. Everything was going smoothly, weight loss and great energy were the results of a good diet and workout program until an unsatisfactory surgery and exhausted insurance funds left a family of four in the lurch.

My challenge was to find out if you are able to provide four adults a comfortable, real food diet with limited funds of $400 a month. It had been reported the family eats out twice every month. I am about to have the recommendation of cutting that back to once per month so as to improve the overall monthly budget up to $448.Using a daily food budget of $17.04, I began to ascertain precisely what was possible. For just a quick philosophical aside. The prioritization of selecting things to eat flows with this order: Could it be real? Is it within the proper nutrient proportions? Would it be properly prepared? Would it be from the proper source? At the grocery store, its pretty easy to find real foods that may be combined within the right proportions to build and maintain an advanced level of health (ie. healthy weight, good energy, positive mood, etc). It is harder to locate pre-made real foods which have been properly prepared and even harder to discover real food which comes through the right sources (fewer choices that are typically a lot more expensive).

Ok, it's finally here, the budget food ideas which i promised. It's true that that this is really a super simple one day plan, but it really works, both with a nutritional plus a budgetary stand point. Breakfast - $2.80 3 eggs, scrambled or fried in two tablespoons butter, 8 oz of whole milk. Lunch - $5.44 Tuna Fish Sandwich, tuna mixed with 2 tablespoons of olive oil based mayo and 1 teaspoon of mustard on sprouted grain bread, carrot sticks, celery with cream cheese. Dinner - $7.54 Taco Salad, shredded green leaf lettuce, hamburger with taco seasoning (follow directions on package), Shredded cheddar cheese, chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, canned pinto beans. Snack - $0.71 dry roasted peanuts. The grand total for the day (keep this in mind is good for four adult servings for each and every meal and snack) comes out to $16.49. That's $0.55 under budget! And you just thought it couldn't be accomplished, tsk tsk. Like I said before it is a very basic plan and certainly not gourmet nevertheless it requires almost no actual cooking, it's all real food and possesses an abundance of protein while keeping carbs low.

OK, inform me of how you feel. Can you survive using a simple diet plan similar to this? I really hope so because what you're probably eating right now could be killing you ever so slowly, even though it's more gourmet. Please remember, when life throws you curve balls, keep swinging for that fence and you'll eventually hit your home run.




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