One question that would at a certain point have troubled most people. With the current state of the country’s economy, one would truly respond in affirmative to the question; Does Eating Healthy Cost A Lot of Money?
I remember being at the market the other day with my sister trying to get the ingredients for stew preparation. We came home with just few stuffs, like we had been robbed of our money and we had to beg for the little we bought.
Some would say, “I can’t afford it, let me just stick to my capacity”. The average Nigerian does a job with minimal pay. Most individuals get too many calories from refined grains, solid fats and added sugars, and do not eat enough fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Here are few tips to eating healthy with less expenditure:
- Substituting food products: Try substituting natural food products for processed foods as this helps saves more. For example, you could opt for products like crayfish and fresh veggies instead of canned fish and vegetable products. Besides their cost, they also provide the full nutrient required of them.
- Making use of available items in the right way: It’s quite amazing how with little food products available, an individual could still come up with a very healthy meal. Try as much as possible to maximize the available food product.
- Incorporate fruits into your meals: Since most fruits are less expensive and packed with rattling health benefits, they should be incorporated into your diet. Seasonal fruits too are recommended.
- Having a properly planned meal: Proper planning is the key to proper nutritioning, and proper nutritioning is one key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It could start with just a food time-table. (According to the individual’s capacity). Proper planning would also ensure you avoid meal repetition.
- Ensure you feed on all classes of food available: With just a little amount of money, an individual can still ensure that he/she feeds on all the available classes of food as they come in different sources. Ensure your food time-table is constructed in a way that you feed on different classes of food everyday.
- Try food preservation: Food preservation helps in the storage of food as it saves the stress of regular food preparation. There are several means of food preservation. Though most individuals don’t like eating a certain for so long. You could therefore try preserving different type of meal at once. The most common means of food preservation is refrigerating.
- Food Storage: This also helps in storing raw food products in either larger or smaller quantities. It aids in reducing the number of times you visit the grocery store and making you less prone to increased food stuff purchase.
- Reduce visits to fast foods: Some individuals think that apart from the stress it saves, fast foods are less expensive. This truly is a lie. Most fast foods outlets are quite more expensive and most times do not meet to your desired requirement.
Though cost has been one possible barrier to eating healthy, however, both healthy and less healthy diets are available at low and high cost depending on the individual.
Nigerians face variety of challenges when trying to eat a healthy diet, but the total amount a consumer spends on food is not the primary barrier to healthy eating.
