People love to make excuses when faced with challenge and discomfort – it’s human nature. Some humans won’t, but most of us will.
One excuse that gets thrown around is how it costs a fortune to eat well.
If you’re going to sit on the internet all day thinking you need the latest cute protein powder, superfood powder and coffee with butter or cold brewed in a cute glass bottle then yes, your healthy eating budget could probably buy you a small island.
So let’s break this down with some basics on why eating healthy is not more expensive (and how it can actually save you money).
Cut the Crap.
If you’re choosing healthy eating as a goal, then consider this – it’s not about what you need to buy, it’s also about what habits need addressing. Daily latte @$5 – that’s $35 right there you just saved. One bottle of wine might now last you 2 weeks – there’s another saving of let’s say $10 a week. Boom I just found you $45 for healthy food!
Eat in Season
You’ve heard this right? It’s pretty old advice. Things in season are literally falling off the trees and pushing their own roots out of gardens – that’s why they’re cheap, it’s the basic law of demand and supply. If you want to eat Strawberries in winter, then of course your food bill will be higher than if you went for the oranges. Frozen fruit and veg are fair game also – eat them if it helps out your budget.
Swapsies
Go and knock on doors of people with Citrus trees overflowing and ask if you can have some! And if you’re the type of person who needs to pay them back, offer to wash their windows or something (BONUS you get an arm workout AND free fruit!). What friends or family do you know with overflowing gardens? Do you have friends who fish or get their own home-kill?
Hot tip – Vitamin C is REALLY important for fat loss and stress – go and hit up those citrus trees!
Don’t buy in Bulk
This is the total opposite to what you’ve been told. Here’s the supermarket secret no one realizes – all brands within a product category get their chance with the discount tag. So that means this week Tuna Brand A will be on discount and next week Tuna Brand B.
Instead of buying 10 x Brand A and then not having enough cash for … let’s say an extra broccoli why don’t you just buy 5x Brand A (and the broccoli) and then next week buy 5x Brand B.
This strategy requires you not to be a brand snob.
Go for the cheaper alternative of the original thing
Sweet potato is good for us and should be a staple on your shopping list, but hey what happens when it’s $6/kg and WHITE potatoes are on special for $2? I say buy the white potatoes.
But BREN!! Potatoes are BAD for us!
So is stressing out about food and your budget and making excuses about eating healthy due to cost.
Too many potatoes, eating JUST potatoes, consuming potatoes as chips and putting shit all over your potatoes is bad. One freaking boiled, mashed or roast spud with your vegetables (that you can now afford) and some lean protein along with your healthy exercise is NOT bad. Ok. It’s a good cost effective carbohydrate along with rice and potato is a good source of potassium.
Be a discerning organic shopper
Organic costs more – but not every item of food you eat needs to be organic. You have this thing called a Liver – sure we give it a rough time, but it can still handle a couple of pesticides from a few foods. It might be that you choose to go organic on leafy things with a large surface area and non-organic on things like bananas/avocadoes with tougher skins. It’s up to you, but you do not need to be 100% organic. Hit up your local farmers markets also for cheaper organic produce and grass fed meats.
And finally, here’s a short list of Internet-Guru-Foods that cost a lot and their “We used to do it this way” cheaper alternatives.
- Cacao Powder – you can swap this for a good cocoa powder
- Powdered Anything – a pack of powdered greens/beetroot/sachi inchi or whatever can be quite costly. Just eat a really good diet including fruit and veg, a multivitamin 2-3x a day and address the areas of life that are depleting nutrients (stress is the biggie). You can also get cheaper liquid mineral formulas that can last 1-2 months – just add them to your water! Also consider a frozen spinach cube in your shakes also! Doesn’t need to be powdered to be green!
- Flash Fat Incinerator Protein Powder – Look for a nice basic supplement with no bells and whistles – we’ll leave that shit to the muscle heads.
- Goji Berries (and any other super-berry) – a cheaper option is to eat a varied diet rich in colours / red cabbage, beetroot normal berries etc.
- Bulletproof coffee / Paleo whatevers – Discover what your ancestors really ate and save a ton of money. Fruit, vegetables (grasses/roots), meat, nuts, seeds – that was it. Then we learned agriculture and we had grains and legumes. So that’s the basics of food. I don’t recall cavemen milking a passing yak and churning it into butter on the off chance they’d arrive across a Coffee Plant with a vision of making buttered coffee.
My point, eat food – not Guru-ised products and you’ll save a shit ton. Plan your healthy changes around what you can manage – just because someone on the Internet tells you that x, y, z is the best thing to do it doesn’t meant they have a clue about your situation – you need to realize that, they don’t know you, they are handing out broad blanket advice – it is up to you to be selective about the food advice you choose to fit your situation.
Now we’ve cleared that barrier away and made it easier to eat healthy and lose weight, we’d love to see you on our 28-Day Transformation challenge – Click here for more details