Including a diet that is mostly organic, raw, wholesome and unprocessed can help people in maintaining a healthy weight and this type of diet will also help people in gaining the required energy for participating in the day to day activities.
However, the important thing to remember here is that healthy foods do not come at an affordable cost. For instance, organic fruits and vegetables, organic chicken and free-range eggs are generally priced at a premium.
Also, you can find only a limited selection of healthy foods available in your local grocery store. If you are shopping for groceries at whole foods or other health food stores, it will put you well over budget. In such a case, it becomes important that you will have to make a smarter move with respect to how to shop and what to purchase.
Save Money on Food Without Compromising
With healthy foods being your objective, besides saving on your budget, here are 10 ways to save money on food without compromising on your health and your budget:
Shop for grains in bulk
Nowadays, there are wholesale markets, where you can buy grains in bulk quantities. Generally, when it comes to wholesale purchase, the cost will be lesser.
This type of purchase can be done at an affordable cost as against purchasing the same grain packed by a premium organic line or health food brand.
Here, when you can organize your storeroom for accommodating larger canisters or bins of rice, flax seeds, oats, wheat flour and other grains, you can save on healthy grains without compromising your budget.
Plan your visit to the farmer’s market
It will be possible to find in-season fruits and vegetables at an affordable cost in the farmer’s market. Here, the cost will be affordable as against your neighbourhood food and grocery store.
You can plan your visit to the market once in a week and can purchase a week’s worth of fresh produce from the farmer’s market. Particularly, when you plan your visit at the end of the market hours, you can enjoy great savings as the farmers wish to clear the stock as early as possible.
Go for unprocessed foods
The important point to remember is that the more processing involved in packaging and arranging onto the shelf, higher will be cost. Some of the examples are given below:
Frozen fruits as against fresh fruits and vegetables:
Even though, it is stated that frozen fruits are not healthier, the fact is that these fruits are flash-frozen. So, the essential nutrients are kept intact and they are generally less expensive as against fresh alternatives. Here, you can opt for a store’s brand as against a name brand to enjoy more savings.
Make your own healthy baked foods
Gluten-free brownies, low-fat muffins and other healthy bakery items will generally cost you more as against your typical bakery diet. These foods are considered premium, so it is much better off-baking a large batch at home and freezing any extra for the near future.
You can find healthy recipes online for bakery items and can purchase the appropriate ingredients for making them at your home.
Go vegan once or twice a week
You can bring down the weekly cost of grocery by following meat-free days. This can be the great choice, if you have a large family. Also, you can cook a double batch and can freeze a batch for the following week.
Here, you can opt for vegetable based dishes during these days, which will also improve your health to a great extent, in addition to saving you some money.
Get benefited from coupons and in-store deals
Generally, many stores announce some discounts during weekends to attract consumers and they also make their coupons available for the purchasers.
Sometimes, they give coupons during your current purchase for use during your next purchase from the same store. You can make use of these discounts for saving money on your food without compromising on quality.
Take lunch to office
If you regularly have lunch from your office canteen, you can just pack your food from the home, rather than having your food daily at the canteen, so that you can save.
This is also healthier as well and if you are more into outside food, you can use this option once or twice in a week as against having your lunch daily at the office canteen.
Harvest vegetables and fruits for yourself
If you have a larger backyard in your house, you can just harvest some vegetables and fruits, so that you get the happiness of harvesting your own foods without compromising on health.
Go for cheaper fish
As against fish varieties like halibut, tuna and cod, which costs more, it is better to go for lesser familiar and health alternatives like mackerel, herring, Coley, rockfish and megrim.
The above-mentioned strategies can be of great help to save money on food items without compromising on the quality or your budget.