How to Cook Healthier Meals (on a Budget)
Eating healthier can make you feel better, enjoy more energy, and become the best version of yourself. However, many people find it difficult to cook consistently healthy meals on a budget. It’s even harder if you don’t have much extra time to prepare food for yourself.
How can you cook and eat healthier on a budget?
Consider Working With a Nutrition Clinic
A nutrition and weight loss clinic could be instrumental in helping you learn to make healthier meals. Together with your nutrition consultant, you can learn the fundamentals of nutrition, select appropriate foods and meals for your goals, and ultimately get more practice in building nutritional intake plans for yourself. If you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle, or pursue some other specific fitness goal, this is even more valuable.
Even so, there are some strategies for cooking healthier meals that you can practice on your own.
Understand Your Goals
“Healthy” means different things to different people. However, there are some fundamentals that seem to be common across all variations of healthy eating goals.
· Fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are typically very good for you. They’re packed full of valuable micronutrients, they tend to be relatively low in calories, and they often offer other benefits, such as antioxidant protection or high fiber content. If you eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, most of your core nutritional needs should be met.
· Variation. You also need to vary what you eat on a daily basis. Different foods have different nutritional balances, so eating many different types of foods means you’re more likely to meet all your baseline needs.
· Balance. The balance of what you eat also matters. If you eat too many carbohydrates without sufficient protein or healthy fats, it could compromise your ability to achieve your health and fitness goals.
· Minimization of junk food. You should also plan to minimize the use of junk foods in your cooking. Certain types of foods have little to no nutritional value, such as potato chips, candy, and ice cream.
Easy Strategies to Cook Healthier Meals on a Budget
These are some easily adoptable strategies that you can use to cook healthier meals on a budget:
· Shop around. First, consider shopping around at different grocery stores. You’ll often find that the same foods are listed at different prices, depending on where and when you go. If you’re willing to be patient and do some research ahead of time, you can save a lot of money on healthy ingredients.
· Build around in-season fruits and vegetables. When fruits and vegetables are in season, they tend to be much more abundant, and therefore, less expensive. Because of this, you can save money and get access to nutritious foods by building your meals around in-season fruits and vegetables. For example, you can build a dish around spinach and mushrooms in the spring, but focus more on apples and green beans in the fall. Rolling with the seasons also gives you more exposure to different types of foods.
· Swap unhealthy fats for healthy ones. One easy strategy to make a meal healthier is to swap unhealthy fats for healthy ones. Although the line between these two types of fats isn’t as thick or precise as we might like, in most circumstances, unsaturated fats are superior to saturated ones. Using extra virgin olive oil instead of lard or butter might be a positive swap for your health.
· Reduce simple carbohydrate content. Carbohydrates can be good for the body, especially if you burn through a lot of energy. However, the most valuable carbohydrates are complex carbohydrates, and simple carbohydrates often exist as empty calories. Pay close attention to the sugar and carbohydrate content of the ingredients you cook with, and try to reduce simple carbohydrate content by increasing the prevalence of other nutrients.
· Steam or bake instead of frying. Frying and some types of sauteing can make foods unhealthier, so consider steaming or baking instead. There are a variety of techniques that can help you cook healthier, more balanced meals.
· Focus on seasoning. Don’t try to make your meal tastier by adding unhealthy ingredients like sugar or excessive amounts of saturated fats. Instead, focus on seasoning with herbs, spices, and ingredients like garlic and onions.
· Buy in bulk and prep ahead. If you’re trying to spend less money on culinary ingredients, consider buying in bulk and prepping ahead. This way, you can score quality nutritive ingredients for less money – and probably save yourself a lot of time along the way.
Cooking healthy meals isn’t always easy or straightforward. But once you learn a little more about nutrition and put strategies like these into practice, it becomes much easier and more accessible.
