Healthy eating on a budget: what to buy and cook when money is tight

Why does healthy food seem so expensive?

When you think of "healthy food", you probably picture the products on the special shelf: exotic seeds, protein bars, gluten-free bread, cold-pressed juices. They really are expensive. But you don't need them to eat well.

The World Health Organization describes a healthy diet in ordinary terms: vegetables, fruit, pulses (lentils, chickpeas, beans), whole grains such as oats and brown rice, little salt and little added sugar. Most of these are among the cheapest foods in the shop.

What usually makes the shopping basket expensive is three things: processed products "with benefits", small portions in nice packaging, and food that goes off in the fridge before you eat it. You can avoid all three.

Which foods are cheap and healthy?

The list below is the base of a cheap kitchen. You don't need all of it. Pick 5–6 foods you enjoy and build your meals around them.

Food	Why it's worth it	How to use it
Lentils, chickpeas, dried beans	protein and fibre, keep for months	soups, stews, salads, hummus
Plain oats	a whole grain, ready in 5 minutes	porridge, pancakes, in meatballs instead of breadcrumbs
Eggs	complete protein, quick to cook	omelette with vegetables, boiled eggs to take to work
Seasonal vegetables	cheaper and tastier in season	tomatoes, peppers and courgettes in summer; cabbage, carrots, beetroot and onions in winter
Frozen vegetables and fruit	don't go off, you take only what you need	spinach, peas, broccoli, berries in porridge
Tinned fish	sardines and mackerel are oily fish	on toast, in salads, in pasta
Potatoes, rice, buckwheat, pasta	a cheap base for dozens of meals	a quarter of the plate, next to vegetables and protein
Plain yoghurt in a large pot	cheaper than small fruit yoghurts	with oats and fruit, or as a salad dressing

The NHS is clear that frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables count towards your 5 A Day just the same, on one condition: tinned ones should be in water or natural juice, with no added salt or sugar. A portion is 80g.

For fish, the NHS recommends at least 2 portions a week, including 1 of oily fish. Tinned sardines, mackerel and herring count here. Tuna, fresh or tinned, doesn't count as oily fish, although it's still a good protein.

How do you compare prices to see what's really cheap?

The price on the pack can mislead you. Look at the price per kilogram, in the small print on the shelf label. A few comparisons usually hold true, however much prices change:

• Dried pulses cost less than tinned ones. Beans and chickpeas grow a lot when cooked, so a one-kilogram bag makes many portions. Tins are still handy on busy evenings.
• Plain oats are much cheaper than breakfast cereals and don't have their added sugar.
• Cabbage, carrots, onions and potatoes are almost always among the cheapest vegetables per kilogram.
• The big pack isn't always cheaper. Check. And if you throw half of it away, you haven't saved anything.

More useful than the price per kilogram is the price per portion. A bag of lentils that makes eight portions can cost the same as one ready meal for a single dinner.

What isn't worth paying extra for?

You pay more for	The cheaper alternative
"superfoods" and exotic seeds	sunflower seeds, walnuts in a large bag, cabbage, carrots
"protein" or "fitness" products	eggs, plain yoghurt, lentils, cottage cheese
pre-washed, pre-cut vegetables	the same vegetables whole, cut by you
small, individually wrapped portions	the big pack, split into boxes at home
fruit juice	whole fruit, which also has the fibre
"gluten-free" products, if you don't have coeliac disease	ordinary wholegrain bread and pasta
fresh berries in winter	frozen berries

There's nothing wrong with the products in the left column. They just don't make you eat more healthily than the ones on the right. If you want to see quickly what's in a product "with benefits", check the back of the pack, as explained in the article on how to read food labels.

How do you batch cook without getting bored of the same food?

Cooking once for three meals is the simplest way to spend less. You use less electricity or gas, you buy bigger packs and you don't order a takeaway on the evening you're tired.

1. Make a base, not a fixed dish. A big pot of lentils cooked with onion and carrot becomes soup on Monday, a stew with rice on Tuesday and a salad with vegetables on Wednesday.
2. Split it into portions straight after cooking. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends putting cooked food in the fridge within one to two hours. Small portions cool faster.
3. Eat leftovers within two days or freeze them, again following the FSA.
4. Keep two or three portions in the freezer for evenings when you don't cook at all. One ready portion means one takeaway less.

Meal ideas you can repeat and how to plan your week are in the article on healthy meal ideas.

What do you do with leftovers so you don't throw money away?

Food thrown away is money thrown away. A few simple moves:

• Vegetables that are starting to go soft go into soup, a stew or an omelette.
• Leftover rice or buckwheat becomes a salad or a pan of vegetables with an egg.
• Stale bread becomes oven-baked croutons, or goes in the freezer slice by slice.
• Overripe bananas go into porridge or pancakes.
• Put what needs eating soon at the front of the fridge, where you can see it.

What meals can you make for healthy eating on a budget?

The meals below use almost only the foods in the first table. The cost is relative, compared with a takeaway or a ready meal.

Meal	What you make it from	Relative cost
Porridge with yoghurt and frozen fruit	oats, plain yoghurt, berries	very low
Lentil and vegetable soup	lentils, carrot, onion, celery, tinned tomatoes	very low, for 3 days
Omelette with frozen spinach and wholemeal bread	eggs, spinach, bread	low
Bean dip or bean stew with cabbage salad	dried beans, onion, cabbage, carrot	very low
Wholewheat pasta with sardines, tomatoes and peas	pasta, a tin of sardines, tomatoes, frozen peas	low
Oven-baked potatoes with chickpeas and seasonal vegetables	potatoes, chickpeas, whatever vegetables are in season	low
Buckwheat pilaf with mushrooms and egg	buckwheat, mushrooms, onion, egg	low

Each meal follows the plate rule: about half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter grains or potatoes.

How does MentorSano help with healthy eating on a budget?

• For free, your daily to-do gives you small habits to tick off that change what you eat: vegetables at lunch, water in the morning, an earlier dinner.
• For free, the short nutrition questionnaire shows you in two or three minutes where to start.
• With the subscription you get a menu for the week, built around your tastes, preferences and schedule, with calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and fibre for every meal. It's normal food that's easy to make.
• The shopping list comes with the menu, by category and with quantities, so you buy what you need for that week's meals.

Start with the free part: create your free MentorSano account, fill in the questionnaire and see which habits suit you. The menu and the list come only if you want them, with the subscription.

What can you change this week?

• Buy a bag of dried lentils or chickpeas and cook a big pot of it at the weekend.
• Put a bag of vegetables and a bag of berries in the freezer. Use them when the fridge is empty.
• Swap one expensive product in your basket for its alternative from the table.
• Check the fridge before you shop and start your list from what needs eating soon. How to write the rest of the list, aisle by aisle, is in the article on the healthy shopping list.