Availability of time and money is often an obstacle to buying and preparing healthy meals. It doesn’t have to be this way!
As you probably know, ready meals are not worth buying, as they often have low nutritional value, not to mention that they usually cost more than if you cooked the same food yourself at home.
The ideal solution is cooking at home . If you can take the time (cooking requires foresight and preparation), in addition to cost savings and healthier ingredients, you can gain another huge advantage: you will eat less (people consume about 20-40 percent fewer calories when they cook at home than they do at restaurants away their food).
If you want to eat healthier quickly, efficiently and easily, here are some budget-friendly ideas that you can try right away.
1. Always keep the pantry full
You can save a lot of time by making sure that basic foods and spices (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, red onion, garlic) are always on hand. Regularly check what is running low and replenish any missing supplies.
It is useful to stock up on canned fish (such as sardines, tuna), legumes (lentils, peas, beans), rice, traditional potatoes or sweet potatoes, frozen fruits and vegetables, and coffee or tea .
If you have these handy in the kitchen or pantry and you’re hungry, you can throw together healthy meals very quickly and easily without having to go to the store every time.
2. Season your food the way you like it
In restaurants, food is typically salted to make it taste better. At home, you are unlikely to use as much salt as a restaurant chef. A lot of salt is not good anyway, because it promotes the development of high blood pressure , but the opposite is also true: if you want to lower your blood pressure, use less salt.
Buy spices according to your own taste, and you have already done a lot for your quality of life and health.
If you cook for yourself at home, you control every single process of food preparation and decide on the flavors as you like.
Use different kinds of onions often (for example, garlic, spring onions, leeks, scallions, red onions). These are inexpensive, healthy, and can be used in a variety of dishes.
3. Eat meat, but in moderation
Although you can get protein into your body from plant sources (see legumes, tofu, eggs, and they are also cheaper than meat and fish ) , but for the sake of variety and simplicity, it is sometimes worth eating meat as well.
Treat meat as a holiday food, make it a special and rare occasion when you eat meat.
Give me the way: eat meat rarely, but then strive for quality and buy meat from free-range, pasture-raised, wild or even organically farmed animals. Such meats are not only tastier, but also have a higher nutritional value compared to normal meats.
4. Choose based on nutritional content
If you project the nutritional content into forints, not all food is the same, even if it costs the same. Buy foods that give you the highest possible nutritional value for a given price. There are quite a few staple foods that are cheap, healthy and full of physiologically beneficial nutrients. Examples include rice, lentils, peas, beans, beets, onions, eggs, apples, etc.
Foods with high nutritional value are cost-effective sources of the most important vitamins and minerals . Focus on these foods and avoid zero-nutrition, empty-calorie foods (such as sugary sodas, candy, frozen pizza, and similar convenience foods).
5. Don’t be afraid of frozen fruits and vegetables
Frozen berries (such as strawberries , raspberries, blackberries, cherries, blueberries ) are at least as good as the fresh version, and in fact, out of season, in the colder months, they are even cheaper than fruit shipped here from who knows which distant country.
Not to mention that, according to research, the nutritional profile of fresh and frozen vegetables and fruits is practically the same.
6. Buy larger quantities at once
It is generally true that if you store larger quantities at once, you will come out cheaper in the long run, but this is especially true for the staple foods mentioned in the first point .
It is cheaper in the long run if you buy larger quantities of different foods.
It is cheaper to buy a 3-liter bottle of olive oil at once, which will last a long time, than to buy 500 ml bottles one after another. But the same is true for a large bag of potatoes or a kilo of rice.
Focus on the big pack and you’ll have more in your wallet.
7. Cook in large quantities
This also saves you time and money. Make a big soup that will last for a couple of days. That way, you don’t have to prepare new dishes every day, just take them out of the fridge and heat them up. Or if you prepare dinner in the evening, cook a little more so that there is some leftover for lunch the next day. If you freeze food, it will last even longer in the fridge. Make the most of your cooking time.
There are situations when you arrive home late and don’t have time to cook. In such cases, it is much healthier and cheaper to take yesterday’s food from the fridge than to order a pizza dripping in fat (which is why, let’s face it, sometimes this is also good – don’t deprive yourself of what you like, just be able to keep it in moderation).
8. Make coffee or tea for yourself cheaply
If you make your own coffee or tea in the morning, you can save money compared to buying the same from a vending machine or in a store. We especially recommend green tea or kombucha – simple, delicious and healthy!
9. Forget store-bought salad dressings
If the most important staple foods are available in the kitchen or pantry, you can make delicious salad dressings quickly and cheaply. Here’s a simplistic example below.
Mediterranean salad dressing:
1. Simply mix some olive oil with sea salt.
2. Add black pepper and chopped garlic to taste .
3. Mix it all up and you’re done.
The real thing is fresh, but stored in the fridge for approx. it stays for a week.
10. Leave carbonated soft drinks and sugared fruit leaves
Water is free and doesn’t even contain calories (how surprising). The problem with sugary drinks is not only that they have zero nutritional value and empty calories, but also that they are expensive and in the long run you only increase the profits of the soft drink companies. Which is fine anyway, just know what’s important to you.
However, don’t be surprised that if you drink such drinks regularly, you will gain weight and even your wallet will become thinner.