Eating Healthy Cheap

Being cheap conflicts with eating healthy. Healthy foods cost considerably more than their overly processed and/or overly marketed counterparts.  So what do you do if you are cheap or poor yet desire to eat healthy?

 First, remember that HEALTH IS WEALTH. You would be hard pressed to find ANYONE who would trade in their vitality for such relatively small monetary incentives. Would you take a 30$ a month stipend for an accelerated rate of brain degeneration and progressive hardening of the arteries? I think not. It's hard to enjoy life when receiving dialysis for your kidney, popping X amount of pills to treat all of your conditions, being so overweight with such a low work capacity that you can't enjoy the simple pleasures in life such as a walk on a nice day etc...

The truth is that most health problems (yes even those "genetic" and "age" related ones) can be attributed to diet and lifestyle (EAT, SLEEP, EXERCISE). Such diseases as Type II diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure, heart disease, CANCER(s), arthritis, heart attack, stroke, atherosclerosis, hypertriglyceridimia, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, iron deficiency anemia,GERD, celiac disease and too many others to name. Eating a lower calorie, well planned "paleo" diet will diminish your risk of ALL of the above. Cancer drugs can be pretty damn expensive eyy??

Check out this article. It is a good template for eating healthy without being a nutrition nazi like myself. 

I especially like his recommendation for eating fat. Yes the dreaded "F" word. Like the man says, fat does not make you fat, excess calories do. Don't avoid fat, avoid excess calories besides, it's cheaper too.

 I like to think in terms of price per calorie. At 9 calories per gram, fat  is often much cheaper than carbs and protein each at 4 calories per gram. So if we want healthy fats, we can get cheap, healthy fat from... 

Avocado (250-300 calories for 1$ at produce junction) 

Coconut (Nearly 1000 calories total milk + meat for ~$1.50 at produce junction)

Eggs ((80 calories x 12 eggs for 2.69 (200mg Omega 3 per egg) at Trader Joe's)

 Nuts (Trader Joe's is reasonable and have many unsalted varieties)

85/15 Grassfed Organic Beef (~1000 calories for 5.99 at Martindales)

Sardines!! (180 calories for 1.29 @ TJ's)

Herring!! (350 calories for 2.29 @ TJ's) 

These are my main sources of fat in my diet. ** It is very important to watch intake of omega 3 vs. omega 6 fats. But this will be a separate blog topic, I'll try not to digress.

Protein! All proteins are not created equal. Vegetable proteins are incomplete and crap, animal proteins are complete and superior. Whey protein is also a cheap source  of complete protein and I like to use it post workout or when animal proteins are out of the question (During a 3 hour lecture, though I have eaten animals in class:) Costs of livestock protein can be correlated with how much crap (grains, fat extracts, their own body parts, soy, etc...) they have to feed the animals. This is why Chicken is the cheapest source of animal protein. Chickens make good use of their calories and can roughly put on one pound of mass for every 2 pounds of feed. Pigs which will cost you more than chickens put on one pound of mass for roughly every 4-5 pounds of feed. And Cattle put on one pound of mass for every 7 pounds of feed. Don't quote me on these #'s as they are from The Omnivores Dilemma.

Back to eating healthy cheap. Extra freezer space is a great idea. It can be very expensive and time consuming to habitually have fresh fruits and vegetables. Rather, buying in bulk and freezing fruits, vegetables and meats can save big $$ at the store and at the pump while saving time. We have an extra freezer at my place that gets regular use.

The Three Basic Needs

Elementary school taught me that the three basic needs in life were food, shelter, and clothing. I've always had a problem with this as clothing is necessitated by society and the fact that man successfully inhabited land far from our more equatorial roots, and shelter is simply something that facilitates sleep. It is my contention that our three basic needs are food, exercise and sleep, thus the fittest individual will generally eat better, exercise better and sleep better than their peers. 

It is indisputable that food is a basic need. Without food the most one can expect to live is a few weeks and if we consider water as food, only a few days. Food should be viewed as a drug. Anything we ingest effects our homeostasis either making us more healthy, or less healthy. 

Sleep is vital to our survival. The longest documented case without sleep was 11 days (1). Without sleep our central nervous system cannot function optimally and eventually will fail altogether. Again, we can use sleep to promote health by taking advantage of its restorative properties. 

It's hard to say how long one can last without exercise but not hard to realize that without it your physical capacity will be akin to that of Stephen Hawking, and that's just no way to live. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. A human without any form of exercise is like Michael Jackson, dead. A human whose form of exercise is walking from the car to the desk job and back to the car is like Siskel and Ebert, half-dead. 

My goal is to help illuminate those interested in improving their health on the three things I study most, eating, exercising and sleeping. Stay tuned for such updates.

1.) ^ Thangham CV (October 2007). "What happens when you stay awake for eleven days?". Digital Journal.

About Bryan Stell

Upon creating this site, I was a 22 year-old college student finishing my degree in Exercise Physiology (7/17/09) with minors in nutrition and coaching. West Chester University PA is my Alma Mater. I currently work in a sleep lab as a Polysomnographic Technologist and am studying for my RPGST (Registered Polysomnographic Technician. Essentially, I study three things, diets, exercise and sleep, thus, Eat, Sleep, Exercise.