Eating cheaply ideas from Zonya

Zonya Foco, is a Registered Dietician with some great ideas about living a healthier lifestyle.

Here's a link to some of her ideas about "Eating Right When the Budget is Tight."

Healthy Food Hierarchy

Pursing a healthy lifestyle ain't easy. One of the hardest things for me is eating healthily. It's especially difficult to eat healthily on a budget.

I'm a big advocate of eating as healthily as you can within the constraints you're given. Something's got to change about my lifestyle and about yours if we're going to eat better. Usually the biggest challenges are time, taste, and money.

So here's my work-in-progress hierarchy of eating better

1. Eat food from home as often as possible - brown bagging is your friend!
2. Eat at home as often as possible - less temptation, especially if you keep a "clean kitchen" with little or no junk food
3. Eat food you made yourself - the more control you have over your food, the less your food will be infiltrated by mysterious fat, sugar, preservatives, and other nasty junk
4. Eat food you made yourself from scratch - get away from stuff that came from a box
5. Eat with others as often as possible - not every meal needs to be a social event, but eating with others helps us stay connected to family, friends, and neighbors
6. Eat a wide variety of food, especially fruits and veggies
7. Eat more meatless meals - I personally eat a lot of meatless meals, but I like my steaks rare. I'm not going full vegetarian or vegan anytime soon. But maybe try limiting yourself and say, "I'll eat vegetarian/vegan until dinner" or "I'll eat meat 3-4 days a week instead of every day." You'll save money and diversify your diet.
8. Eat organic produce if you can, but really focus on eating any produce - be it fresh, frozen, dried, or canned with as little salt and preservatives as possible.
9. Try a new food multiple times before you give up on it. - It often takes 10 times before our brain gets over the novelty of a new experience before it can process enough to see if it really likes it. If something turns your stomach, don't force yourself. But if you're just not thrilled about it, try it 10 times and/or try it 10 different ways. As a kid I couldn't stand cooked tomatoes but I loved them raw on sandwiches or in salads.

Any other ideas to add?

I made Stir Fried Cabbage with Cumin Seeds for dinner tonight with some leftover purple cabbage.  Turned out much better than I feared.

I was able to way down on the oil by using a non-stick cast iron skillet and an oil sprayer.  Usually I use non-stick cooking spray, but occasionally it doesn't work as well as just a bit of oil.  I was able to use maybe 2 tablespoons of oil instead of the recommended 6.

The glories of milk

I'm African American and I'm not lactose intolerant yet.   Later onset intolerance happened to my uncle and I think it's happening to my Dad.  But, I'm not a big milk drinker.  Ice cream and cheese-yes, yogurt-yes, but not so much the liquid milk.

Growing up I'd have a bowl of cereal every morning and wonder if I could put anything other than cow's milk in the bowl.  I actually love eating oatmeal in the morning because I can get my bowl of cereal and not worry about soaking something in milk.  These days, when I go on a cold cereal jag, I'll often use soy milk.

Anyway, I was catching up on some podcasts while walking Lika and heard an interview on Fresh Air with food historian Anne Mendelson talking about artisanal milk - nonhomogonized, batch pasteurized and all that.

Very interesting.  And I agree with her on the organic stuff - it's a word that has no official meaning in most states.  It can be helpful with some items, but only if you're using a specific organic standard.

Michael Pollan and Stephen Colbert

I can't embed this video with two guys I dig, so

here's a link.