Eating Healthy on a Very Small Budget

[O'GodHowGreatThouArt]

I'm attempting to figure out how best to eat reasonably healthy on a budget. Right now I've got a $200 Dining Dollars plan at the University of West Georgia, which enables me to eat anywhere on campus. This is good, but the costs of eating (ranging from 2.99 - 5.00 per meal) will burn through my budget before I turn around good, plus I want to have the $5 all-you-can-eat meal plan in the Dining Hall for my REALLY long days without having to pay out of pocket.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to get that's healthy, dirt cheap, and can be cooked in a microwave or an electric kettle (I have a mini-refrigerator for colder items)? I'm basically at the point where either I eat big in the morning with nothing else to eat that day or reload every three weeks (not acceptable), as I can't think of any other options.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Scot]

This article is a little outdated but could still be helpful.

DoctorYourself.com - Eat for $12 a Week

 

[CharlieJ]

Brown rice is definitely the answer. Very healthy, very cheap, and I'm pretty sure you can cook it in one of those electric pot things. Microwaves don't tend toward health, though, since they burn so hot that they can actually zap the nutrients out of food (or so I've heard).

Milk remains a very cost-efficient source of protein, especially if you drink enough to go through a whole gallon by the expiration date (usually around 2 weeks).

If there's a local farmer's market nearby, you can often get some decent fruit and vegetables for around $1/lb., some of which don't even need refrigeration.

Personally, I hate beans, but many varieties are both healthy and cheap.

Greek yogurt is very high in protein and can be gotten fairly inexpensively.

 

[Edward]

Ramen noodles one meal a day - not particularly healthy, but cheap and filling (and easy to store and nuke). Yogurt for breakfast with some fruit in it.

Eating healthy is overrated at your age. But learn to make various Cole Slaws and snack on carrots if you feel the need.

 

[Zach]

I would recommend a small rice cooker (some listed as under $20 on Amazon) and cooking some brown rice. My rice cooker was an awesome investment.

 

[jgilberAZ]

I have to disagree with the posts so far.

Carbohydrates will drive your blood sugar up for a couple hours, and then it will drop dramatically. When it drops, you'll be starving, looking for anything to eat. This cycle will continue throughout the day.

Avoid the carbohydrates. Avoid the blood sugar swings. Avoid the hunger pangs.

If you do this, you will be able to eat less without having to starve yourself. Eat less == saving money.

I highly recommend the book "Wheat Belly" by Dr. Davis.

I've lived through this. I used to eat shredded wheat for breakfast every day. And, two hours later I'd be starving to death. Stomach growling. Can't think of anything but lunch. etc. etc.

Now, I eat eggs and bacon (or sausage) every day. I no longer have wild hunger pangs. I eat when I want to eat, not because I have to eat to stop my hunger pangs.

My blog has a list of some links I've gathered:

Jeff Gilbertson's Blog: Low Carb Diet

I'm basically at the point where either I eat big in the morning with nothing else to eat that day or reload every three weeks

Eat a reasonable fat/protein (no carb) breakfast and you'll be fine until dinner. Then eat a reasonable fat/protein dinner.
Keep your daily carbs below 50g.

It will take your body about 4-5 days to adjust to not eating carbs (ie, burning body fat).
Just stick with it.

 

[newcreature]

If you have a freezer, frozen vegetables are much cheaper than fresh vegetables. If you can't store frozen veggies, you can buy canned ones but drain them first and rinse them in cool water before cooking. Try to get a little protein in every meal: tuna, cottage cheese, peanut butter, yogurt. I usually buy lots of fresh fruit but lately my budget doesn't allow that, so I have been buying canned fruit. Make sure to buy the fruit in water or light syrup, not heavy syrup. Avoid too many starches and carbs like rice and pasta, as Jeff said, these cause your blood sugar to be unstable. If you can spring for some protein powder to add to foods or beverages, that might be a worthwhile investment.

 

[VictorBravo]

Now, I eat eggs and bacon (or sausage) every day. I no longer have wild hunger pangs. I eat when I want to eat, not because I have to eat to stop my hunger pangs.

Funny, I stumbled onto this diet fairly long ago. I usually have a 4 egg breakfast, a slice of butter-fried toast, some cheese, sausage, maybe some homemade spicy pickles on top.

And pretty much nothing else all day except maybe a few slices of cheese or an apple. Dinner is usually beans, some kind of meat, more cheese, and more pickles. I've added some carbs in the past year, but mostly from fruit. I'm rarely hungry, and when I am, I just ignore it and it goes away.

By the way, I was never looking for a weight loss diet--it all came about differently. We had a diabetic cat, so we got a glucose meter, and then we started doing glucose curves on ourselves after eating. It was sobering to see my fasting glucose level of 69 spike up to 175 after eating heavy carbs. Baked potatoes would sometime spike me even more. I self-diagnosed as pre-diabetic, even though my fasting glucose levels were always very respectable. And I could just feel the sugar rush after eating things like rice (even brown rice would spike me to the 160s in an hour). So I cut carbs way back.

That was about 4 years ago, and I was around a fairly strong 195 pounds (I'm 5'11"). In my youth I was 205 and mostly muscle, but I was sort of flabby after becoming quasi-sedentary. Now I'm 165 and my 54 year old knees thank me for lightening up. And my blood sugar stays between high 60s and low 110s almost all the time (occasional spikes to 130)--and I have plenty of energy.

 

[AThornquist]

With these low-carb diets I am wondering where all the "daily recommended calories" come from. Anyone have insight into that? Is it mostly from cheese/meat fat?

 

[VictorBravo]

With these low-carb diets I am wondering where all the "daily recommended calories" come from. Anyone have insight into that? Is it mostly from cheese/meat fat?

Lots of nice calories in fat. . . .

Rule of thumb from my animal science nutrition analysis days: Gram of protein: 4 calories; gram of carb: 4 calories; gram of fat; 9 calories.

There's a reason historically why fat was considered a valuable food.

I suspect that our obesity epidemic is not so much related to too much fat as not enough (low-fat everything makes you want to eat more). Eat a big bag of low-fat chips and you will be hungry in an hour. Eat something high in fat, even a few spoonfuls of unsweetened peanut butter, and it seems you will be satisfied for much longer.

But, I'm just an avid self-experimenter. Don't take my statements as anything but anecdotal.

 

[jgilberAZ]

Calories are mostly irrelevant.

Most of them, however, if you want to count them, come from fat and then protein.

LCHF = Low Carb High Fat

Swedes are reaping the benefits of a food revolution. This revolution began in 2004 when, after much research, Dr. Annika Dahlqvist adopted the Low-Carb, High-Fat (LCHF) diet for herself and began recommending it to her patients. The LCHF diet alarmed Swedish dieticians who were still stuck in the same old dogma of High-Carb, Low-Fat diet guidelines. Thus, two dieticians in Sweden referred Dr. Dalqvist to the Swedish Medical Board. They complained that she was hurting her patients’ health by advocating the LCHF diet. They wanted her medical license revoked.

The flashpoint occurred in 2008 when, after a two-year review, the Swedish Medical Board determined that there was sufficient scientific evidence to support the health benefits of a LCHF diet. To the disappointment of the dieticians involved, Dr. Dalqvist was allowed to continue practicing medicine and suggesting the LCHF diet to patients. Soon after, as many as 1 in 3 Swedes began to adopt the LCHF diet in some way, shape or form. Norway and Finland have since followed suit, and the health of their people has also improved—along with their butter sales!

So, most of the calories come from fat (good fats), a moderate amount from protein, and very few from carbs.

 

[AThornquist]

Very interesting. I think I may try my hand at this low carb stuff.

 

[Scott1]

For health, weight, overall eating cost value, eat breakfast.
For breakfast, oatmeal and a small bit of fruit.
Pinto beans slow cooked in a crock pot, with cheese sprinkled on top, tortilla or cornbread.
These two 5 times per week form 41 percent of your eating at very low (and healthy) cost. Maybe skip Sunday evening meal each week. That's 11 of your 24 meals.
Do 11 of the 13 remaining on your dining plan, and save 2 to eat somewhere else to avoid the monotony, have something to look forward to, and prevent "binge" eating out.
Good nutrition affects your stamina and how alert you are, etc.

 

[Pergamum]

Find more money. I am sure you spend money on other things. The poorest in America are the least healthy. And the cheapest food is usually the worse. Don't force yourself into a situation where you glut yourself for breakfast and starve all day. Get an extra job or work a few extra hours - a good diet is not something to skimp on.

 

[rookie]

My wife and I have watched a couple of food documentaries recently. Food Inc, and the other one is Forks over Knives.

Between the 2 of them, we have nearly eliminated red meat, and severely cut down on chicken and fish. We eat mostly fruit, vegetables, and nuts and such. I can tell you, that for the longest time, I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. (not sure on the spelling), but when I got hungry, I had sweats, shakes and quite frankly, not fun. When we changed our diet, we now each much less (since we're eating whole foods, calories are denser) and you'll learn it all in those documentaries.

 

[Hilasmos]

My wife and I have watched a couple of food documentaries recently. Food Inc, and the other one is Forks over Knives.
Between the 2 of them, we have nearly eliminated red meat, and severely cut down on chicken and fish. We eat mostly fruit, vegetables, and nuts and such. I can tell you, that for the longest time, I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. (not sure on the spelling), but when I got hungry, I had sweats, shakes and quite frankly, not fun. When we changed our diet, we now each much less (since we're eating whole foods, calories are denser) and you'll learn it all in those documentaries.

The "rest of the story" (at least in potentially axe grinding documentaries) is "Fat Head," which spins everything in the other direction.

 

[arapahoepark]

Here's a book, it's Italian food and I am not sure how much it would cost exactly, but it means poor kitchen in Italian and has recipes from the Great Depression in Rural Italy:
Cucina Povera: Tuscan Peasant Cooking: Pamela Sheldon Johns: 9781449402389: Amazon.com: Books

Here's this also a site for some of that:La Cucina Povera Kitchen of the Poor

 

[jwithnell]

Get a part-time job in a restaurant. Most have policies that let employees eat at least a part of their menu. In one pizza place I worked during college no-shows on pizza pickup orders and ones that got sent out with the wrong toppings were set out for us to munch. At a grill, we could eat all but the more expensive cuts of meat.

 

[heartoflesh]

I've started making homemade hummus which I bring to work in a tupperware container and it lasts me all week. I eat it on crisp bread. It's easy to make, filling, healthy and tastes great.

Here's my recipe. Mine has some kick to it but you can really do anything you like, the essentials being lemon and a little salt....

2 cans garbanzo beans
2-3 jalepeno peppers
6 cloves of garlic
Juice from one large lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

I roast the peppers and garlic on a dry frying pan, just so the outside skins turns burnt. Then I put everything except the olive oil in food processor or blender. Slowly add olive oil until a smooth, spreadable consistency.

 

[VictorBravo]

Bryan, I realize that my contributions to the thread didn't really answer your question, but I agree with Josh and Scott and others that if you can get a slow-cooker of some kind, you can eat well and cheaply.

In my college days, which might sound like ancient history to younger folks, there was no such thing as an affordable microwave. But there were slow cookers. Slow cooked dried beans, rice, (meat optional) kept me going for a long time. A bag of dried beans is cheap if you buy a big enough one. Same for rice. Add eggs for protein and maybe tomatoes or peppers, and you trick yourself into thinking you're eating high on the hog.

I learned this from my grandmother who raised 9 kids on the high plains during the depression. She had a big cast iron pot cooking slowly all the time--and she'd add whatever was available to it from day to day. It was an ever-changing tasty hot meal.

If you are in a dorm, maybe it's not feasible, but it is a solid approach.

 

[Jeff Burns]

My wife and I feed a family of 4 on about $250 every two weeks. We eat as much organic as we can afford, buy all or our fruits and vegetables from the farmers market, buy our flour from a 200+ year old grist mill, and the rest from Whole Foods, Earth Fare, and the Fresh Market (think hoitey-toitey grocery stores). We've found that we can get much of the packaged goods for just as cheap from WF as from Harris Teeter and these are organic or maybe even certified non-GMO.

I would say your first investment needs to be in either a crock pot or an electric skillet. Stop using the microwave as much as possible. you're nuking the nutrients right out of the food. Also, like others have mentioned avoid excessive carbs from bread, rice, etc. That's not to say avoid them all together, but most americans eat way way way too much (just look at the USDA food pyramid). Eliminate all soda/ soft drinks. You'll feel tremendously better and the cravings for SUGAR (not caffienne, people are much more addicted to the sugar) will go away soon. If you need/like caffienne, drink black coffee, as much as you want. I would also recommend ditching anything but hormone free whole milk. The disrupted fats in 2% and skim milk aren't doing any thing good for your system.

Last but not least, never buy the idea that "you're too young to worry about these things." Tell that to the poor kids growing up ridiculously overweight and suffering from type 2 diabetes at age 13. It's not pretty and it's totally avoidable. We just have to reprioritize. Food is fuel, it keeps you healthy and keeps your body running like it's supposed to. You need to be willing to skimp on other areas to make sure you're getting the best you can in this area. Setting a good foundation now could help you avoid a lot of long term problems down the road.

 

[Zach]

Now, I eat eggs and bacon (or sausage) every day. I no longer have wild hunger pangs. I eat when I want to eat, not because I have to eat to stop my hunger pangs.

Funny, I stumbled onto this diet fairly long ago. I usually have a 4 egg breakfast, a slice of butter-fried toast, some cheese, sausage, maybe some homemade spicy pickles on top.

And pretty much nothing else all day except maybe a few slices of cheese or an apple. Dinner is usually beans, some kind of meat, more cheese, and more pickles. I've added some carbs in the past year, but mostly from fruit. I'm rarely hungry, and when I am, I just ignore it and it goes away.

By the way, I was never looking for a weight loss diet--it all came about differently. We had a diabetic cat, so we got a glucose meter, and then we started doing glucose curves on ourselves after eating. It was sobering to see my fasting glucose level of 69 spike up to 175 after eating heavy carbs. Baked potatoes would sometime spike me even more. I self-diagnosed as pre-diabetic, even though my fasting glucose levels were always very respectable. And I could just feel the sugar rush after eating things like rice (even brown rice would spike me to the 160s in an hour). So I cut carbs way back.

That was about 4 years ago, and I was around a fairly strong 195 pounds (I'm 5'11"). In my youth I was 205 and mostly muscle, but I was sort of flabby after becoming quasi-sedentary. Now I'm 165 and my 54 year old knees thank me for lightening up. And my blood sugar stays between high 60s and low 110s almost all the time (occasional spikes to 130)--and I have plenty of energy.

I figured I would try this because I am always hungry around 10:30 even if I eat Breakfast. I had 3 Eggs and Greek Yogurt for Breakfast at 8:30 and it's now approaching five hours later and I'm still not hungry. Thanks for the recommendation, Victor. Based on some of the advice in this thread I might really need to change some of my eating habits.

 

[JoannaV]

Collect some wood, make a fire, and roast a pigeon.

People do vary as to what the ideal diet is. For example, some people find it best to avoid almost all carbs, whereas others can do fine just reducing their carb intake a little.

My first term at university I just ate one meal a day, either at a uni cafe or a sandwich from the store. But then my clothes got to be too big so I would've had to buy a new wardrobe

 

[Andres]

When I lived in a dorm, I ate lots of oatmeal and tuna straight from the can. I was hardcore and big into bodybuilding. Both are healthy, super cheap, and don't require much in regards to prep work. Just be considerate of others with all the empty tuna cans - they tend to stink pretty quickly!

 

[JennyG]

There are lots of brilliant and super-cheap things to do if you have access to an actual cooker - but you only have a microwave and kettle
That cuts down your options pretty considerably. however, there's still porridge! (oatmeal to you )
Porridge is a complete food in itself, seriously.
Highland shepherds in the old days in Scotland survived and kept healthy on that and nothing else, while they lived with the sheep on the mountains for months at a time. Actually, the Scottish students of a previous generation did likewise during their University terms, so that's a good precedent for you.
It is possible to cook it in a microwave. Just put the oatmeal and water in a bowl, with salt to taste, and keep stopping the microwave to stir. It's not quite as good as when you make it properly in a pan, but then there's no pan to wash.

 

[Edward]

It is possible to cook it in a microwave. Just put the oatmeal and water in a bowl, with salt to taste, and keep stopping the microwave to stir.

They sell it pre-measured in cardboard bowls - add water per the directions and nuke. I haven't eaten it in a couple of years, but it used to be about 68 cents a serving for the Walmart store brand.

 

[DeniseM]

I did a quick search and saw that you do have Aldi grocery store available in your area. I would strongly recommend this store to you if you have not shopped there before. By shopping at Aldi, I am able to feed my family of eight for about $150 per week and we do eat meat almost every dinner. That number also includes buying diapers for the baby and other paper products. A bunch of bananas is only about $1. That one bunch of bananas would provide you with a snack every afternoon. A bag of baby carrots is usually around a dollar also. A sandwich and a piece of fruit and serving of veggies for lunch each day seems very reasonable when you are only buying for one person. I know that the price of groceries has gone up over the years, but when it was just my husband and I at home, I could get all of our groceries for the week with just $40 dollars.

 

[thbslawson]

Couple of things you can "stretch" out, and do in the microwave:

-Brown rice (mix in all kinds of things such as beans, canned chicken, tuna, etc. whatever you like)
-Eggs (You can do a two-egg omelet using one whole egg and one egg white, or just all egg white, keep some sliced sandwich turkey meat around, and some peppers and onions for flavor)
-Oatmeal with some chopped nuts, raisins and chopped apple
-If you get a small George Forman, it can double as a sort-of panini maker. Get the store brand whole-wheat, lean cold cuts and mozzarella.
-Bananas are cheap!

Just some ideas.

 

[Edward]

I did a quick search and saw that you do have Aldi grocery store available in your area.

Not that I saw. The closest I saw was over 20 miles away (Since the college is on the far side of Carrollton, more likely 25+). You are probably looking at $7-8 dollars worth of gas round trip. If you live in a dorm room, you aren't going to be able to buy enough each trip to offset the added cost over shopping at Walmart. If you spotted one closer than Douglasville or Hiram, please correct me.

 

[newcreature]

If you get a small George Forman, it can double as a sort-of panini maker. Get the store brand whole-wheat, lean cold cuts and mozzarella.

I didn't even think of this. I have a George Foreman grill and have used it for everything from grilled cheese to steaks. It is small, easy to clean, and virtually fool-proof. You can put just about anything you want on bread and stick it in the grill. And it doesn't just do paninnis and sandwiches, as I said I have used it for cooking steaks as well.