On a Limited budget and income..what should I be eating that is cheap and nutritious?

Question

I have had times when I was living on only a few dollars a week...and I used to make soups with grains and vegetable offcuts...what foods would give the best energy source for the most reasonable cost?

Answer 1

When you are on a limited budget, the obvious thing that will fill you up are starches and carbs, but eating that alone is not healthy. However, you can combine healthy things to eat with pasta & rice, which will give you that "full & satisfied" feeling but yet still be somewhat healthy and nutritious. Combine it as in pairing a cup of rice/pasta/potato with a main dish.

As a base for your starches, you can buy a big 10 lb. bag of white rice for less than $7, and that amount of rice can last one person easily for 6+months. You can also buy a case of asian instant ramen (noodles). On sale, they are only $0.10 cents each. I think regular price is $0.25 cents. They're pretty tasty alone but are high in sodium so I would not recommend eating it daily, but once or twice a week alongside veggies could be ok...

A cheap & healthy dish/soup I used to make when I didn't have much $ was a Chicken soup which I ate with a cup of cooked white rice. Using this recipe, it would last me for over 4 days and only cost about $6 total to make:

1 whole chicken (on sale about $2.50)
1 onion ($0.25)
2 potatoes (or whatever you can afford - $0.75)
1 mini bag of carrots or loose ones ( $1.00)
1 celery stalk ($0.30)
1 bag of frozen corn ($1)
Salt, pepper & any other seasonings you have
6-7 cups of water, enough to cover all ingredients

All you have to do is boil the above in a large pot until the chicken is tender, skim the fat, and eat. Again, there is enough leftovers to last for almost one week.

I guess some other advice, which you probably already know, is to buy whatever is on sale and make your dishes around that. Especially with meat, you can freeze it for later.

Answer 2

Meat is the most expensive food. Be sure that you don't eat too much of it. If you are an average size woman who gets the proper amount of exercise, you should eat around 4 to 6 ounces of meat or meat substitutes per day.

Dairy-Grain-Beans & Legumes-Nuts & Seeds-Dairy...
Any two adjacent protein sources make a complete protein that can be substituted for meat. Search the net for "complementary protein" to read more about this. Example: beans and cornbread are a meat substitute. Breakfast cereal with milk and nuts are another.

This publication explains how to use the food pyramid on a meal-to-meal basis. It was written for diabetics, but the only thing different for people who aren't diabetic, is that you don't have to be concerned about
(1) the time you eat or
(2) what you have at each meal or snack, and
(3) you don't have to eat snacks.
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/eating_ez/index.htm

Shop in a grocery store where the price tags have the unit cost, like "$.27 per ounce" on them. Don't even look at the total cost; decide which brand and size to buy based only on the unit cost.

Ignore how much you will "save" by buying a certain brand or size at a discount or with a coupon. The only thing that counts is what you PAY, not what you "save" from a price they are not going to charge you.

Look on the bottom shelves first. The items with the lowest profit, and often the lowest unit cost, are placed there, where people often do not look.

Look for ideas from the "frugal living" movement. They have lots of good ideas for saving money in all sorts of ways, including food.

Here are some more nutrition links:
Nutrition: http://www.pbrc.edu/Division_of_Education/Pennington_Nutrition_Series.asp
Exchange Diet: http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/index.htm
Food Pyramid: http://www.mypyramid.gov/

Answer 3

Beans and whole grains, such as brown rice. But not the instant kind. Buy dried beans and rice, and cook it slowly. If you have a crockpot, that would be ideal! You can find all sorts of recipes online to make them more interesting. Plus, do a search for "frugal recipes" or something of that nature, and see what you can come up with!

Canned tuna is another food packed with protein. I took some straight from the can, tossed it with some rice and left over veggies, then poured on a little italian dressing, and voila! Instant lunch or light dinner! It was pretty yummy too!

I'd love to know if this helped you or what you were able to find out! Good luck with it!

Answer 4

Eggs are the most efficient source of protein because the body absorbs it more completely than any other protein source, and they're pretty cheap. Eating whole grain foods will give you more long-term energy than processed white flour... and whole grains are healthier. Buy fresh fruit/veggies on sale. Stick with fresh things like that and you're on your way to a great healthy diet.

Answer 5

stay on the outside edges of the grocery store.
stay with food that is in it's original form.
that means fruit and veggies, inexpensive cuts of meat, and milk products.

Here's a list of the most nutritious foods:
Beans (all kinds, even the canned stuff)
Blueberries
Broccoli
Oats
Oranges
Pumpkin
Wild Salmon
Soy
Spinach
Tea
Tomatoes
Turkey
Walnuts
Yogurt
Apples
Avocados
Dark Chocolate
Olives

Answer 6

bean burritos if you have to go out and the frozen ones at the grocery store. beans, rice, potatoess at the grocery store.


I lived on potatoe soup when I was in England, my treat for myself was pesto on rice and sometimes a little cheese on that.

All carbs really and I actually lost a ton of weight back than so much for low carb diet!

Answer 7

Red beans and rice, chicken and dumplings, homemade beef stew--cooking with a crock pot is a good way to eat cheap and healthy without standing over a stove all day!

Answer 8

Canned beans and brown rice!

Answer 9

Mcdonalds sallads

Answer 10

Rice, pasta, potatoes