Let’s Get Real! With Our Food!

 

With the rising cost of groceries and the rise in food related health issues (obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc.) it is definitely time to rein it in and eat a healthier and much more nutritious diet.  The best way to save money on your grocery bill and to improve your health and nutrition is to purchase only REAL food.  Nothing that is premade, pre-prepared, overly processed or ultra processed which culls out the majority of the grocery store, but don’t despair.  There is still plenty of good stuff to be had.

 

Whole ingredients lead to better eating.  When you are no longer purchasing the garbage foods, which ironically don’t have much in the way of quality or nutrition, you will be amazed at what you can actually afford.  Meat, vegetables, fruit, dairy, eggs, nuts, whole grains, legumes, healthy fats like butter, olive oil, coconut oil and olive oil.  Your food will taste better and you will feel better too and in the process you will save a lot more money.

 

Good food fills us up, gives us sustained energy and keeps us full while ultra processed foods are high in sugar, unhealthy fats and ingredients that don’t appear in nature.  They do not keep us full or satiated for long so we always feel hungry.  We want more and that leads to overeating and consuming too much stuff that our bodies were never designed to eat in the first place.  By ingesting too many carbohydrates plus chemicals, preservatives, additives, dyes and other unnatural ingredients we send our bodies into a tailspin.  Eventually we get sick.

 

For the price of a bag of potato chips you can buy a lot of potatoes.  For the price of a bottle of juice you can buy a lot of fruit.  For the price of a premade entrée you can buy a lot of meat.  For the price of a couple cans of chili you can make an entire crockpot full of delicious nutritious homemade chili.  For the price of a twelve pack of soda you can buy two gallons of whole milk.  Good food costs less money!  It really does.

 

Replace a bag of Cheetos with a block of cheese.  A couple slices of real cheese are far more sustaining than chips.  Replace fruit snacks with fruit – grapes, apples, bananas, plums, etc.  You won’t find the first ingredient in any piece of fruit listed as High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Replace expensive cracker snacks and Lunchables with peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread cut into fourths.  Make your own lunchmeat with slice pan grilled chicken breast, slice ham or canned tuna.  You’ll get far more bang for your buck with less sodium and nitrates.  The possibilities for healthy food exchanges are endless.

 

Need your own copy of the REAL Food Pantry List?  Is it time for you to revamp your pantry and your shopping habits?  How about what you’ve been cooking lately?  Could that use an overhaul too?  Stay tuned as more about that will be coming up very soon!