A common question I get is, “How can you afford to eat healthy food on a budget?”. Many people want to make the change to nourishing and healthy food, but they feel they can’t make the leap into healthy cooking for the simple reason that they can’t afford it.
There are many things to say and many things to share about. I could talk about doing your best, the real cost of food, supporting small farmers, and making life style changes to make buying better food possible, and I will get to those aspects soon. But I would like this upcoming carnival-happening on Friday- to focus on recipes that make nourishing food possible on a budget. I would love for you to be a part of it!
Most of us are feeling the economy pinch and we are no exception. Not only with the economy, but especially with Joel having school to pay for while only working part time, budgeting is especially hard for us right now. But real food is still important to us, and so therefore we choose to use frugal and nourishing recipes to feed our family.
This Thursday our panel will be sharing their tips for how to feed your family nourishing food on a budget. On Friday, it’s your turn. Shares tips, shares recipes, share it all! Let’s join forces and share our knowledge. I hope that we can all benefit and learn from each other as we share what has worked for us.
For those of you who haven’t done a carnival before, check out the last one, Nourishing Chocolate Recipes to get an idea of how it works.
Two comments in answer to some questions asked last time. If you would like to highlight an old post, simply do a new post on March 6th, sharing about the carnival (you are welcome to use my photo), and link in that new post to one or as many old recipes and posts as you like! That way your readers will get the benefit of being directed to the carnival so that they can read everyone else’s entries. That would be great.
Or, even better, share a new recipe and/or tips!
I look forward to hearing what your frugal and healthy recipes are in your household! And thank you in advance for sharing.
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Hello — Would you be able to post a good Japanese natto recipe? I used to eat it often, but always bought it ready made. It was always tasty and satisfying to me and since is such a nutrient dense food (enzymes, Vit K) I would like to eat it again on a regular basis but can only do so if I make it, otherwise it just isn’t affordable (plus there are no Asian food stores near to where I live). If not, could you recommend a good source to find one? I am looking around on line and am feel a little intimmidated since I have never made this before. Respectfully,
Loree,
I have never made Natto. I think that it would be a very long fermenting process and you would need to find a source for the bacteria to make it with. My mother in law was able to find one brand at a local asian store that didn’t have bad ingredients in it, but I haven’t looked for it on the internet yet. It seemed like Dr. Mercola recommended a natto brand. Have you checked his recommendations out?
Nice! I think there’s a common misperception that nourishing foods are expensive. When good kitchen management coupled with in-season purchases can really help to maintain a tight budget.
I am very excited about this! My biggest problem with switching to more NT type eating is that my husband is unwilling to increase our grocery budget to accomodate the changes. So I will be excited to get some new, frugal recipes. My goal is to reduce costs elsewhere in order to incorporate some of the more expensive foods with the same overall budget. I hope that when we all notice the benefits of the changes I have made, we will be willing to spend additional dollars to continue!
I was also hoping that you would post some of your everyday, no fuss recipes using beans sometime. My whole family loves beans, but I have so few recipes for using them – and they’re definitely frugal!
Johanna,
I’ll be joining the carnival with a recipe, but I have a 20-page document of mostly bean meals that I typed for a friend who had to eat beans 3x/day to combat PCOS! I could email it to you if you drop me a line at kitchenstew @ gmail.com (remove the spaces).
We’ve been eating beans so often this winter! Between that and the chicken stock from NT, I almost always have a pot on the stove. And we haven’t been sick since October…hmmm. ???
We’ve been trying to squeak by on freelance assignments since my husband was laid-off last November. I have found that feeding my (larger than average) family these more nourishing foods has almost doubled my food expenses. Hubby is about ready to shoot me. This carnival couldn’t have come at a better time! Thanks, Kimi!
I’m really excited for this as well. My husband and I just (as in 10 mins ago) had a conversation about finding extra income so we could afford to make these changes!
I hate to be a dark cloud, so I’ll keep my comment brief. (Even though this subject is near and dear to me…and as a writer, I get my words wholesale.)
North Americans spend less per capita on food than any other industrialized nation. (This while -mostly- putting crap in their shopping baskets.) When I hear the complaint ‘I can’t afford to eat better!’, I want to add ‘…with my priorities being what they are, with my life designed as it is.’
The ‘economic downturn’ should be an opportunity to re-examine our values. Not just in how we deal with debt…but in how we see what’s important to us. Anyone remember the old computer axiom ‘Garbage in, garbage out’? We have severe health issues right in front of us, and much/most of these can be attributable to what we put in our mouths. So if this is true, does it still stand that “I can’t afford to eat ‘better’?”
Really; can we afford *not* to…?
In Ohio I woke up to 9 degrees outside with winds so the dried navy beans I have been sprouting for 3 days will be a nice warm soup by tonight. This was my first dry bean sprouting and I was amazed that it worked!! The recipe for my soup was just stuff I had onhand. I used chicken broth I had made that was in the freezer, 1 organic onion, 1 organic jalepeno, and 2 cloves of organic garlic all chopped and softened in raw milk butter. I added a small piece of ham(3oz. cut up). They are cooking now and already smell yummy. I am trying to cut back on my salt but I will add some celtic later to taste. I have recently started converting my diet to the NT diet and it is very expensive. I am finally getting to the point where I just need to get 1 item a week to add to my kitchen stock for the basics. I am divorced with grown children so I can’t imagine how hard it is to do with small ones. Later on this week I am going to make a roasted chicken legs with potatoes and kale. If it is good I will submit that. I will be converting(to NT) that recipe from one that I found in Food And Wine magazine. A question what are the thougts on cornbread? Is there an NT way to make that?
I think the “healthy food is too expensive” excuse is code for “I don’t know how/don’t have time to cook”.
I remember as a kid my mom and aunts would buy several hundred dollars worth of junk food that would last a week. It was supposed to last the month.
I cook all of our meals from scratch and it is so much cheaper than buying junk. It’s an ongoing competition with myself to try to make things I used to buy. If I’m craving chocolate cake, then I go ahead and make it. Sushi is super easy and cheap. It helps to have a fully stocked pantry with all the dry goods you need to make what you like. When I see people loading up on what they think is cheap, junk food I have no idea how they can afford it.
Here even though our produce isn’t very good it’s still cheaper to buy fresh than canned/frozen.
I would like to make yogurt, buttermilk & kifer. Can I use raw milk to do this? I went to Fermented Treasures and they say that they don’t recommend using raw milk. I understand this may just be a ‘disclaimer’, do you know if it is ok to make these items using raw milk? It seems it should be fine, there was a time that all milk was raw, right? Do you have any recipes you can share?
Thanks for your help. Your sight is one I go to most days.
Kathy,
Yes there is actually! I haven’t tried it myself, but am going to be experimenting with soaking corn (with lime). I will post my results as soon as i have something to share. 🙂
Jeannie,
I think that you can easily make kefir with raw milk (that’s what I always did using a kefir grain). Buttermilk made the traditional way is simply the by-product of making butter, so I am not sure about the process that FT has you use. With yogurt, I think that some people do think that you should start with boiled milk (or perhaps it was that you could start with raw milk but the yogurt making process involves heating the milk?). Anyway, all to say, most things can be made with raw milk. You could email them and ask why they say that. I’ve gotten good responses to questions from them in the past. 🙂
I make sour cream, buttermilk, kefir, and yogurt from raw milk. I do heat the milk for yogurt to about 180 degrees and I use an organic greek yogurt to start it because it makes it thick and creamy like I like it. My first batch of yogurt with the raw milk was not heated but it turned out to be too runny and more of a consistency of an egg custard which is not my favorite texture.
Jeannie…I make muy yogurt using raw milk. I warm it but keep it below 115 so as to not kill the good stuff. Lots of people debate over boiling the milk. My daughters don’t care about the consistency (it is certainly runnier than store-bought). If they did I would try another starter culture that apparently makes a thicker yogurt. Gives me a great source of weigh. Oh and FYI any product you culture at home won’t be as thick as store bought since it doesn’t have all the thickeners in it. Good luck!