Posted on 01/18/2014 11:57:04 AM PST by nickcarraway
On a tight food budget? Here are seven inexpensive and nutritious items you should consider adding to your grocery list.
Trying to live on a food budget of about $4 per day can be quite a challenge. People quickly discover this when they take the Food Stamp Challenge and try to learn what it's like to be poor for a week.
The challenge mirrors what someone can get through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal program that helps low-income people buy groceries. One in seven Americans receive the benefits, which were significantly reduced by Congress in November.
To qualify, a family of four can have an annual net income of up to $23,556, which puts them at the federal poverty level. They would then receive up to $632 a month in SNAP benefits, which equates to about $5.25 a day per person for food. The average SNAP recipient receives $4 per day, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
While getting this extra money can mean the difference between eating and going hungry, the limited funds can make it difficult to choose which food to buy. Getting the most nutrition for your money can be hard when you don't have a lot of money for groceries, but it's not impossible.
According to dieticians and nutritionists, some foods are better than others when you're trying to stretch a dollar. Here are seven that you should consider when funds are tight:
Brown rice. The vitamins, minerals and antioxidants are some of the benefits, but one of the biggest pluses may be that the high amount of fiber in brown rice helps slow digestion and fill you up for a long time.
"Fiber is one of the best [nutritional components] that helps with satiety, or the feeling of fullness," says Rachel Begun, a food and nutrition consultant in Boulder, Colo."They also help to spread the food dollar because they're a component of meals that can help you make a fulfilling dish."
Beans. Like many items at the grocery store, buying in bulk can save a lot of money. Dry beans can cost about $1 per pound and expand to three times their volume when cooked, turning three to four cups of dry beans into nine cups when cooked, says Carol Wasserman, a certified holistic health practitioner in Manhattan.
And beans, like rice, can be flavored with spices and herbs to make the main portion of a meal.
"We have to kind of shift our thinking from having the meat be the center of the plate," and be more creative with other dishes, such as rice and beans, says Julieanna Hever, a plant-based dietician in Los Angeles and host of a healthy living talk show on Veria Living.
Beans are also a very healthy choice. They are high in fiber and protein, low in fat and sodium and have minerals such as iron, potassium, magnesium, copper and zinc, along with vitamins such as folic acid, thiamin, niacin and B6.
Potatoes. These versatile vegetables can be added to casseroles and used in a variety of ways, and they're every bit as nutritious as colored vegetables, Begun says. They contain 45 percent of the recommended daily nutritional intake of vitamin C, 18 percent of fiber and 18 percent of potassium, a mineral that regulates blood pressure, she says. They've been found to have the lowest cost source of dietary potassium.
The average potato is virtually fat free, with a high water and fiber content to make it ideal for weight-loss at 200 calories for an average baked potato, according to information from GoIreland.com. Be careful how you cook them. Frying a potato raises fat content from 0 to 8 grams.
Green vegetables. Any leafy greens, such as broccoli, spinach and kale, have lots of nutrients per calorie and help protect against inflammation and disease, Hever says. Some lettuces can be bitter, she says, but can be offset in a salad with carrots, beets and other sweet vegetables.
"People aren't really used to it," she says of bitter greens such as kale. "It's kind of a taste bud transition that some people have to get used to."
Instead of buying an expensive dressing for any of these foods, Wasserman suggests mixing a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil with juice from half of a lemon or lime.
Frozen vegetables. Buying fresh vegetables in season is an inexpensive way to get them, but frozen vegetables are a good option too, Begun says. They're picked at the peak of their flavor and aren't nutritionally inferior to fresh ones. The downside of fresh vegetables is they might be picked before their height of ripeness and often travel many miles to a grocery store, she says. Peanut butter. This is another economic source of protein, rich in healthy fats, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Peanuts contain resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine, says Sharon Palmer, a Duarte, Calif.-based food and nutrition writer who covers plant-powered diets.
Protein bars. You may not want to make them the only part of your diet, but they obviously have protein in them and cost about $2 each. Andrew Ross and his wife, who live in Baltimore, eat a Quest protein bar from GNC every three hours from when the time they wake up until when they go to bed. They started this habit in April and he's lost 78 pounds so far. They also eat Power Pak pudding once a day, which contains 30 grams of protein per can and less than 200 calories. The protein bars have 20 grams of protein and less than 200 calories. Ross estimates that they spend less than $400 per month on food and drinks, saving money by buying in bulk during sales.
The best answer to getting the most nutritional foods for your buck may be to simply buy fresh food that's in season and not to fall for the theory that fast food is cheaper than what you can purchase at the grocery store. "People don't think out of the box," Wasserman says. Fast food may be quicker than preparing a meal at home, but it won't beat buying fresh fruit and vegetables in taste or cost, she says.
How do these parasites get so FAT on 4 bucks a day?
I received a Thermal Cooker for Christmas. I have so far made spaghetti sauce, chili, and a pot roast. I only had to use a stove top for 15 minutes each for the spaghetti sauce and chili and 30 minutes for the pot roast, which had to be brought back to a boil before adding potatoes and carrots. I seared the roast first in a separate pan. Ditto for softening onions and garlic and browning meat for the sauce and the chili.
The 1 gallon main pot for the thermal cooker will hold a 3# beef roast. I think it will hold a 5#-6# chicken easily if the chicken is cut up first. There is a smaller pot that fits inside the main pot. It can be used for rice. I needed to fill space when doing the pot roast, so I filled the top pot with boiling water and fitted it in before adding a lid and closing the thermal case.
Besides cooking in about the same time as a crock pot (6 hrs), I can hold the food much longer (over 8 hours) without any change in flavor or texture, and it is still at a perfect serving temperature. All of this with no additional electricity needed after first searing, browning and bringing the fluids to boiling. The instructions call for holding at a boil on the stovetop for 10 minutes, but I found that just bringing to a rolling boil is sufficient. This is great for both not having to watch for burning of settled contents and for saving energy costs.
I still have 4 servings each of chili and spaghetti sauce in the freezer, as well as about a quart of the pot roast gravy, which goes well in further meals over biscuits or potatoes or rice. I use Ultra Gel to thicken the gravy and the spaghetti sauce, since there isn’t any reduction with thermal cooking and I dislike freezing and reheating anything thickened with flour or regular cornstarch. The frozen gravy is only medium thick and can be used as a soup base, if I so decide, or just thickened further, if necessary.
When I have freezer space/containers free, I am going to make a chicken soup with a whole chicken. However, right now, I have 1/2 gallon of carcass soup in the freezer, so that will wait.
Occasionally, I make a Mexican sauce using either chicken or beef. I always have left over sauce, which I freeze. I can take out the sauce, add in whatever leftovers I have on hand and in 15 minutes, we have either burrito or enchilada filling.
Another budget stretcher is homemade eggrolls. Small amounts of meat and a large amount of vegetables fill 20 wrappers. I fry them once and immediately put the extra hot eggrolls into foil and freeze. I then have 2 more meals of eggrolls that heat and serve in 20 minutes from freezer to plate. Any excess filling goes into either a hot & sour soup
or a fried rice dish.
I’m only feeding two people, but our large dog always gets a serving added to his dog food. Food lasts around here and there is little menu fatigue, since the frozen food can be cycled in weeks later.
I buy as much meat as possible from the markdown bin. I also use tougher cuts of bargain beef to grind for burger and I can grind venison to stretch to further. I save beef fat to add to these if the beef is really lean. Grinding 3-5 pounds of meat takes an hour from set up to finished cleanup. Some of these meals come out to .50/serving for the main course. Adding pasta, biscuits, cornbread and a salad results in meals at well under $2/person, even when my husband has seconds.
Everything on the list is pure starch except for the suggestion of vegetables. Therefore, all of it is very fattening. None of it is good for people with health issues and people with health issues don’t receive a larger budget for food.
If I had to survive on that kind of meal plan, I’d die...young. The public couldn’t afford the amount of insulin it would take to keep me alive.
By buying food that they WANT...not need?
Also, plant a garden in spring if you’ve got room. A herb garden takes up a little space. Kale, spinach, etc. in soup is delicious. Go to the Dollar Tree stores and store up on dried herbs and spices. Lentils are cheap and healthy. Go for cheap cuts of meat - they are out there. Freeze what you don’t use. Onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes are still relatively cheap and can last awhile.
I could probably live on beans and rice if I had too... provided I have a supply of spices.
Brown rice and beans are not pure starch. Potatoes have loads of vitamins. None have any fat.
People all over the world live on these sorts of foods without becoming Type II diabetics.
Arugula is very expensive in stores. Buy it in seed packets and plant it. It did very well in my spring garden. Of course, I don’t like arugula, but that’s my problem...
Also, Barilla whole wheat spaghetti is absolutely delicious. It wins most “best whole wheat spaghetti”consumer reports. It is healthy and you will be sticking it in the eye of the politically correct. We’re having it tonight!
Wow, great job, and the new pot is a perfect addition to a kitchen.. I love how you stretch the meats, which is exactly what is needed to keep the costs down.. You have the right path to healthy food at low cost.. BINGO!
As a former NYer, I can tell you that a lot of people who are picking up the more expensive brands in markets, are restaurant folks picking up the best they can get that couldn’t be obtained through their vendors or the outdoor markets.
I bet it is since I have never eaten it, and if you have ever been in a Whole Foods, they are famous for high prices.
That was a quote from Obama, when he was campaigning in 2008.
I agree brown rice is a good one. An easy meal to make for breakfast lunch or dinner is a top ramen variation using brown rice instead of ramen noodles. I like to cook brown rice with cumin and turmeric added. Very beneficial spices. So you heat up the cooked rice if not already hot in a bowl. In a small pot you can use a top ramen flavor pack or some type of bullion added to a small amount of boiling water. Add cut up vegies or some cut up left over cooked meat ( small amount). Stir it around a bit then drop and egg or two into the mix and stir until the eggs become egg foo young like. Pour over the rice. Very nutritious and filling and cheap if you are resourceful .
Now we know why Walmart went into the grocery business and why Big Business likes Big Government.
Forget those poisonous carbs such as rice (even brown), legumes, potatoes (seriously....they make the list?!).
I just purchased many pounds of chicken leg quarters (PROTEIN!) for a mere thirty-nine cents a pound — delicious and moist when baked. If you don’t like dark meat, the boneless-skinless breasts are on sale right now for $1.39/lb. I have been remarking about this sale to anyone who will listen, saying how the folks on SNAP are too lazy to shop around, for if they did they could find such bargains. This one was thanks to Western Beef, a NYC-based store that is spreading to south Florida and elsewhere. But surely there are similar stores all over the country. PROTEIN!! Then add the frozen microwaveable veggies found at Walmart for $.99/bag. Green beans, broccoli, mixed veggies, peas. 99 cents!! Fill up on this and stay healthy and diabetes-free.
WIC is a good program.
I remember that jackass enquiring about arugula! It’s pretty cheap in seed packets and not bad on sandwiches loaded down with other things so that you forget it is on your sandwich.
It’s very popular in England where it is called “Rocket.”
Can you tell us more about the WIC program. Women, infants, and children, right?
ping
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