The 45 Dollar Menu

You have to sacrifice a lot of your personal time if you want to eat healthy on a budget. I spend my lunch time on Wednesdays shopping for veggies at a grocery store that has a sale; I can't afford skinless chicken breasts, so I have to buy them with skin and bones and remove them and fillet them myself (the bones are used to make chicken stock, which I defat later and freeze); I buy whole eggs and separate the yolk; I can't buy pre-cut salads or anything like that, so I have to wash the greens and put them in tupperware with paper towels; I can't afford the super lean cuts of meat, so I buy bulk meat and remove the fatty parts. So it either takes a ton of money, or a big time commitment to eat decently on a budget.

I've found that as my diet has improved (in particular there is a lot more fresh fruit and veg in there) it's actually become cheaper to buy the food. I'm not sure that I spend any more time in the kitchen - I just get better meals at the end of it.

I feed me and my husband for about $45 a week and we eat TONS of produce, boneless chicken breasts, etc. I shop at Aldi where the markup on the food is a lot less. I get bagged salads for $.80 a bag and 24 oz of salsa for $1.39. You just have to know where to shop and realize that you can't always have gourmet stuff if you're on a budget. Plus, not buying junk food saves me tons of money....a bag of chips is like, $3! I can buy a pound of baby carrots for $.79, so I'm thinking that's a better snack anyway.

Spectra: Wow! That's impressive - I guess you really do have to know the places to go.

Buying healthy food at the supermarket is a lot cheaper per person than it is to buy takeout food or even fast food.

Buy takeout food for a week and eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. See how much you've spent.

Then buy food at the supermarket and cook for breakfast lunch and dinner. The price will be so much less.

You have to look at it as the price per person and how many meals you're getting out of it instead of the full price you pay at the register.

If you did the same thing with fast food or takeout food, you'd be shocked at how much you're paying.

I think good food is worth alot, but forty-five dollars isn't alot for food here. I spend about fifty dollars at a huge discount food and merchandise store and get enough to last about one and a half weeks, that includes very good cut of fresh meats. I just started a diet with online contacts, and I have tracked my intake of calories cholesterol and fats among other things; what I found out was amasing. I have since been able to shape when I take in the most calories and fats according to my activities and when I do almost nothing, so that I burn the most when needed. It's a small price to pay for being so much more healthy. Medical bills are much higher then food bills are!!!.

Am I the only person who's a little disturbed that this person considers ramen noodles "healthy"?

I don't consider this diet to be nutritionally "healthy". The point is, it is extremely difficult to get nutritional variety on a budget. As stated this menu is very high in carbs and sodium. Not something I would eat - but then I spend a lot more $$$ on food.

This is for interest only.

Geez, that is ALOT of sodium. That much sodium can't be good for you. Even half of that stated amount can't be good for you (on a daily basis). My diet consists of high-protein, low-carb, low-fat and low-sodium. I just eat alot of fresh veggies and bagged salads, turkey sandwhiches, skinless/boneless chicken breasts and drink a specific brand of juice (Naked Juice). The veggies are cheap in my area, there is a Market Night that i go to once a week and you can buy a huge bag of whatever (peppers, tomatoes, onions,etc) for $1-$3 a bag. Compare that to grocery store prices! On just food, my weekly spending amounts to about $20 a week. I only cook and feed myself, so stuff that I buy can be stretched a long way.

Miss Maggie doesn't know how to shop then. If that's the best she can do, then she doesn't know much.

I can make up a menu that covers all of the nutritional requirements and still come up cheaper than she does with that menu up there.

I don't think she's making much of a point.

You're looking in the wrong direction.Dieting is cheaper than regular eating because you eat less.

buffalopreacher, that depends on how much you ate for starters. I eat a lot more dieting than I did before, because I eat a lot of vegetables. So the volume of food, the sizes of my plates, are bigger than when I didn't diet.

awesome i think i might try a diet other then the fact that i am a little 49.0 kg but i am a very sporty person so yer i am only in year eight but i am all about eating healthy and xdont want to get anything when i am older like heart attacks. we have to do this reserch in science thats why i am on this sit in da first place and we have to make a biscuit that has 1200 calories, 35-45 g of fat and proteincould u please halp me to make and bake a recipe because i want to get a high mark and i really want to earn my marks!!lo!?!?
yours michelle

A. It's a 45 dollar EMERGENCY menu. But, yes, I think that often people on small, tight grocery budgets are not able to eat as healthily as they'd like - for example: foods high in sugar and other carbs are relatively cheap for the food calories they provide. Fresh and "healthy" food is generally more expensive.

B. I'd like to see someone put up a "healthier" menu for about the same $$. Especially now, when there are a lot of people with tighter budgets. Plus, many staples are still costing significantly MORE! (except milk and other dairy products lately! and potatoes seem to have come down a bit, too.) It's all about "frugality" these days.