3 shortcuts for cheap, healthy eating

Tips to help you save money and feel good.

There’s often a misconception that creating yummy, healthy meals at home is a really expensive way to eat. In reality, it can be the opposite. Cooking and eating healthy food can be super cost effective if you’re smart with what you buy and when you buy it.

A couple of years ago, photographer, Peter Menzel travelled the world documenting what different cultures eat in one week. The project, Hungry Planet: What The World Eats, was incredibly fascinating. Countries like the US, Great Britain and Australia had a lot of pre-packaged foods, which are surprisingly expensive. After all, any time a company value-adds to a food, they generally charge a little bit more for it.

Then there were countries like Mexico, Egypt and Guatemala, where the families were shown with a lot of vegetables, grains, nuts and occasionally meat. These generally aren’t wealthy countries, yet the families manage to create meals with fresh, healthy ingredients every single day.

Thinking back to my own experience living in Vanuatu, I witnessed first-hand what the locals bought with what little money they had. They would go and buy food that was in agricultural surplus, because it was the cheapest way to eat. By default, they built their diet around what was fresh, in season, and locally available.

For me, adopting that same philosophy with food means I save money, and so can you. Here are my four shortcuts for creating healthy meals that won’t break the bank.

A great way to cut costs is to work with ingredients that are in season. In Holland, you always know when asparagus is in its prime because almost every restaurant you walk past will have asparagus soup on the menu.

In Australia, we can be a little bit blind to this. We expect avodacos and tomatoes in the middle of winter and crisp, green broccoli in the middle of summer. We think that everything is in season all the time, but the reality is vegetables are being shipped in from all over the world, which means they’re less fresh by the time they reach us and generally more expensive to cover the costs of freight.

I personally love the challenge of looking for seasonal produce at my local market and building a tasty meal around what I find. There’s something really satisfying about it.

Reacquainting yourself with typically unpopular vegetables is a great way to save money on your weekly meals. Veggies like cabbage and spinach are always the foods that kids wrinkle their noses at, but with some culinary TLC they can really sing.

A little bit of planning can go a long way with these types of vegetables, and you’ll find they’re often the cheapest to cook with. Whether you sauté them in olive oil and garlic, pickle them for sauerkraut, or simply roast with some herbs and spices, they’re a great addition to any meal and very friendly on your hip pocket.

It’s a given that any cheap and healthy meal should also be delicious. A really cost-effective way to inject big-time flavour into your meals is by stockpiling a few basic ingredients.

My go-to would be a good olive oil. It’s an absolute must-have. I would also say having a good assortment of herbs and spices, maybe some balsamic vinegar, lemons, salt, and of course garlic will hold you in good stead for creating really tasty meals at home. Garlic is a game changer when it comes to flavour, and it’s a really inexpensive way to give any meal a real kick.

Filmmaker of 'Food Matters' and 'Hungry For Change', and founder of FMTV, James has dedicated his life to discovering the truth behind nutrition and our food supply. James, alongside Laurentine ten Bosch, has transformed the 'Food Matters' film into a global wellness hub, with a community of over 3.3 million followers across email and social networks. The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances.

Disclaimer:
The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as financial, medical, health, nutritional, tax or other advice. It does not take into account any individual’s personal situation or needs. You should consider obtaining professional advice from a financial adviser and/or tax specialist, or medical or health practitioner, in relation to your own circumstances and before acting on this information.