plan meals

Is Healthy Food Really Too Expensive? 7 Ways to Save

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Alison Ashton — No Comments ↓

Healthy food is expensive. We’ve all heard that before. You may have read that on the Internet or heard it on NPR as outlets reported on a study in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health crunched some numbers to find out how much it would cost to eat according to the new federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They determined that meeting the government’s recommendation for potassium, a mineral that’s key to regulating blood pressure, would add $380 to the average person’s annual grocery bill.

They also found that the more saturated fat and added sugar a person consumes, the more food costs drop.

The issue isn’t that healthy food is too expensive but that our government’s current system of farm subsidies has made the price of unhealthy food artificially low. We spend less on food – not even 6% of our income – than the rest of the world.

Of course, all those cheap eats come at a very high price. What people save in the short term at the cash register when they load up on fatty, sugary, salty processed food they pay in the long term with their health. A recent large-scale study found that high-sodium/low-potassium diet – otherwise known as the standard American diet (SAD — really!) – significantly increases risk of death from all causes.

Is there any higher price than that?

But how much does healthy food cost, really? A USDA study earlier this year found it costs $2-$2.50 a day, on average, for the recommended daily 4-5 cups of fruits and vegetables. But other USDA research has also found geography has a big impact on food prices. What’s cheap for me in Southern California may be pricey for you.

We talk about food costs all the time in NOURISH Evolution, and while we believe a nourishing diet is a smart investment, we don’t think it should break your budget. With that in mind, here are 6 ways to save on your groceries:

Cook! Awhile back we asked our Facebook followers to share their strategies for saving money on groceries. The No. 1 tip? Buy whole foods and cook from scratch.
Plan meals. Planning is the cornerstone of a healthy diet. Armed with an organized shopping list, you’re less likely to give into temptation for expensive “extras” at the store and you’re more likely to use up everything you buy. (Need some help planning weeknight meals? Check out our Nourish Weekly Menus service.)
Eat in season. It’s a bargain compared to out-of-season fare. It tastes better, too.
Shop smart for organics. Don’t always want to pay extra for organic produce? Choose organic versions of the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen (fruits and vegetables most likely be contaminated with pesticides) and go for cheaper conventional versions of the Clean 15.
Check out the bulk bins. You can save up to 60% on pantry staples – with much less packaging, which is nice for the planet.
Pay cash. A recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research found people are much more likely to splurge on unhealthy treats when they pay with a credit or debit card than when they use cash. Lesson: Leave the plastic at home when you go grocery shopping.
Minimize food waste. If you’re like the average American family, you throw away $2,275 a year in uneaten groceries tossed in the trash or the compost heap or sent down the garbage disposer. Remember, buy only what you need and use what you buy. This pesto is an easy way to use up extra herbs – use any combo of herbs you have on hand.

Five Make-Ahead Musts

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Lia Huber — 2 Comments ↓

Alison and I were chatting about how some awesome easy healthy dinners we’d had lately just came together from what we’d had on hand. It prompted me to tease apart the “what we had on hand” to ID especially helpful make-ahead dishes that can be prepped over the weekend or early in the week and put to work for the next several days (or, even better, doubled from a recipe you’re making anyway). Here are my five make-ahead favorites to make part of your meal planning:

Chicken – On Monday nights in my house, we either go meatless or we do chicken. Why Mondays for chicken? Because then I can use the rest of it throughout the week to pull together simple meals. Here’s what my week o’ chicken looked like last week. Monday: Cook Simplest Roast Chicken (just ate the thighs/leg for dinner). Tuesday: Gave Noe a leg for lunch. Thursday: Greek Chicken Salad (then made stock with the carcass); Friday: Pork posole with fresh chicken stock. That’s four meals out of one chicken … which only took 5 minutes of hands-on prep time and 50 minutes of cooking time to begin with.
Roasted (or Grilled) Veggies – In winter, it’s these Roasted Root Veggies. In spring, these asparagus virtually live in our fridge. In summer, it’s some sort of variation on this ratatouille. Whatever the form, roasted veggies are a HUGE help in a busy kitchen. Need a quick nibble before dinner? Pile some on toasted baguette slices. Want to pull together a quick dinner? Toss some with cooked pasta and a paste of mashed garlic and olive oil. Looking for an easy lunch? Mix them with some Chickpea Couscous, with or without the pesto.
Lentils – I call All-Purpose Lentils the “little black dress” of legumes, because they go with just about anything: as a side dish or an addition to a salad, or quickly pureed into a spread or a soup. Nutritionally, they a great source of protein. I love dotting a bowl of whole grains with them, or tossing a cup or two into a salad with a nice, tart vinaigrette.
Vinaigrette – My friend Honore turned me on to making vinaigrette in a jar long ago and I’ve never looked back. I shake together a big batch in the beginning of the week and keep it in the fridge to have on-hand.
Bulgur – Bulgur is my go-to grain at the moment. I love how it cooks up super quick and has both a toothsomeness to make you take notice and a neutrality quality that makes it ridiculously versatile. I’ll cook up a ginormous batch and use some as a side dish with, say, lamb. Then I’ll use it as a base for throw-together lunch salads all week made up, you guessed it, of the other four make-ahead musts I have in my fridge. And if I have any left over, I’ll treat myself to dessert at the end of the week.

“Make-ahead” can sound so daunting. But it’s not. It’s more about smart meal planning and thinking all the way through a week so that what you cook does double, even triple duty. And that is food worth thought.

Waste Not: 5 Steps to Skip Food Waste

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Alison Ashton — No Comments ↓

The first day of the new year found me cleaning out the refrigerator, evaluating produce, sniffing the last of a bottle of cream, examining cheese. After a busy holiday season of cooking, things had piled up. Some of it could be used. Much of it couldn’t. Let’s just say it was an object lesson in food waste.

I’m not alone in this, as food waste expert and blogger Jonathan Bloom details in his new book American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (DaCapo Press). Collectively, we toss an estimated 40% of our food, including a third of our vegetables. Food scraps are our second largest source of waste–and a significant source of greenhouse gasses.

Such food waste is as hard on your wallet, too. The USDA estimates that the average family of four throws away $2,275 worth of the food every year (or, more accurately, sends it down the drain since 75% of wasted food disappears down America’s garbage disposers).

Waste occurs throughout the food system, of course, from the farm (where less-than-perfect-looking produce is left behind in the field) to supermarkets (which dump tons of food past its sell-by date) to restaurants. But your own kitchen is the best place to start addressing the issue of food waste. As with so many goals, small steps yield powerful results.

“The most important step we can take to trim our home food waste is to shop smarter,” says Bloom. “Most of us buy too many fresh foods, making it difficult to use everything before it goes bad. Planning meals, writing detailed shopping lists and making smaller, more frequent shopping trips can all go a long way toward minimizing this problem.”

With that in mind, here are 5 strategies drawn from Bloom’s book:

Plan ahead. We’ve talked about the beauty of planning meals for a healthier diet. It’s also a key strategy to reduce kitchen waste, says Bloom. Start by planning meals to use up what you already have on hand in the fridge and pantry. If you need to buy ingredients for a specific recipe–especially items you’re not in the habit of using regularly–consider how you can use them up. Extra herbs can go into pesto, leftover buttermilk is great in baked goods or salad dressing, day-old bread is delicious in bread pudding and so forth. As always, make a list and stick to it.

Avoid impulse purchases. From special end-of-aisle promotions to deep discounts on items approaching their sell-by dates, stores are cunningly designed to encourage you to buy more food. True, such promotions can be real money-savers–if you actually use them. Otherwise, it’s money down the drain.

Know your dates. These days, all kinds of food is stamped with a “sell by” or “best by” date (sometimes both), which confuse retailers and consumers alike, says Bloom, and lead to unnecessary waste. “Infant formula and some baby foods are the only items required by federal regulations to carry a ‘best-before’ date,” he notes. Otherwise, dates on food lead many consumers to toss tons–literally, tons–of perfectly good food. Properly stored perishables should be fine for at least a week after their sell-by date; nonperishables have an even longer shelf life. Best-by dates are nothing more than a suggestion from the manufacturer. Don’t be afraid to use your senses–if it looks and smells fine, you’re good to go.

Buy whole food. Supermarket produce departments are filled with chopped, grated and otherwise prepped fresh ingredients, which can be welcome time-savers for busy cooks. But prepping ingredients also hastens deterioration, which shortens their shelf life and leads to waste. Unless you plan to use that whole bag of grated carrots or cubed butternut squash promptly, buy the whole version instead.

Avoid food packaged in bulk. From shrink-wrapped vegetables to prebagged fruit to “value” packs of poultry, the growing trend of prepackaged fresh foods annoys Bloom for two good reasons. 1) When one item in a package goes bad, the whole thing is tossed (stores rarely break up and repackage fresh goods). 2) Shoppers are forced buy more than they want and often end up throwing away the extra.

Instead, shop at venues that allow you to buy only as much you need, whether it’s a farmers’ market that sells loose produce or a store with a full-service butcher and bulk bins so you can buy smaller amounts of dry goods.

Also in this series:
Nourishing Resolutions: Fruit of the Day
Nourishing Resolutions: Plan Ahead in 4 Steps!

Nourishing Resolutions: Plan Ahead in 4 Steps!

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Alison Ashton — No Comments ↓

When life gets hectic — as it so often does — it’s easy to put off this crucial step to eating well: Plan ahead. But isn’t that when you need it the most? We’ve said it before, and we’ll probably say it again: A little advance planning and few minutes of prep work here and there are often the difference between ordering take-out and cooking a delicious nourishing meal.

I know that if I’ve thought ahead a little and shopped smart, it’s usually easier and faster to cook at home than to pick up something to go. Here are 4 simple steps:

Plan Meals for the Week

Chances are, you did some serious meal planning during the holidays. Lia’s tips for feasting without frenzy during the yuletide season are easily adapted for everyday use. I do a modified version of this every weekend, thinking about our schedule for the week ahead and which recipes I want to make. I usually make a more involved meal on Sunday evening, with an eye toward delicious leftovers (i.e., “planned-overs”) I can recycle later in the week. For example, I made batch of Easy All-Purpose Tomato Sauce for pizzas last night with an eye toward using the extra sauce with pasta and veggies later this week.

You don’t have to go so far as mark your calendar, though it can help you remember make-ahead steps along the way. For instance, I jotted a note to remind myself to put the farro on to soak for this 15-Minute Farrotto with Sage and Butternut Squash. And there’s also a note reminding me to marinate the steak for Grass-Fed Beef Bulgogi for tomorrow night (which I’ll stir-fry rather than grill, with some veggies that need to be used up).

Stock the Pantry, Fridge and Freezer

There are ingredients I always keep on hand so I can whip up something delicious at the last minute. If I have whole grain pasta, chicken stock, some bacon, eggs and a little hunk of cheese, I’ve got the makings of carbonara, which I can improvise with whatever veggies we have on hand (if there are none in the crisper, I always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer).

This is a good time of year to reevaluate your pantry, too — get rid of items you’ll never use and restock a healthy pantry. Go ahead and use up that white rice, but replace it with brown; make the switch from white pasta to whole grain.

Shop Smart

Ugh, is there anything worse that stopping by the supermarket after a long day at work? It’s crowded, the lines are long, you’re hungry and then you have to schlep home and cook.

Instead, include shopping in your weekly plan and choose a time that works best with your schedule. My neighbor always hits the store early on a Saturday morning, when it’s uncrowded. This year, I want to visit our neighborhood weekly Friday morning farmers’ market, which is far more convenient (and much less hectic) than the weekend market.

When I have to hit the supermarket, I try to arrange my shopping list according to the store’s layout–grouping all the produce, all the bulk-bin items, all the meat, dairy, cheese, etc.–so I can zip through the store in no time.

Prep (and Cook) Ahead

Doing a few small chores when you have the time–from cleaning farmers’ market greens or chopping squash to cooking a pot of beans or simmering some stock–is painless and sets you up for great meals later in the week. And you don’t always need a lot of time. The prep-ahead step for this farro risotto recipe is as simple as putting the farro in a pot to soak in the morning so it cooks more quickly when you get home in the evening.

Also in this series:
Nourishing Resolutions: Fruit of the Day