Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Healthy and Cheap Dinners

A complaint arises often at many of the forums I frequent: healthy food is too expensive. This, according to too many people, is why they are obese.

I know this is mean, but it needs to be said: you get obese from eating too much and exercising too little. Period. You could be a thin (and very unhealthy) person who lives on Cheetos, as long as you are eating less than 1500 calories a day of the orange poison and going for regular walks.

I always argue that it is far cheaper to eat healthy, but no one will engage. Perhaps because they know I'm right?

Here are a few super cheap, super healthy main dishes that cost less than 25 cents a serving to make:

Homemade vegetarian chili with homemade cornbread
Homemade falafel on homemade pita bread
Cajun red beans and rice
Black bean tacos
Omelets
Chinese fried rice (with egg in it for protein)
Homemade minestrone
Lentil and rice casserole

This is just offhand--I'm sure I can think of more if you need more. You would need a veggie with these, but I hope the family in question is eating vegetables with their meals already. Produce is generally cheap because there's always something on sale. Plus, you can grow your own, which is more than I can say for Cheetos.

4 comments:

Heather Solos said...

Not only that, but damaged produce is awesome for soups and stews. The produce dude at my grocery store is super sweet, if I wasn't married, with 342 kids, and didn't feel 234987 years old, I just might have a crush.
As it is, it's just nice to have someone to say hi to on my weekly grocery trek. I feel like a traitor when I go to Walmart instead.
Anyhow, I bet he'll let me take pics of damaged produce for the site.

Burbanmom said...

Totally agree with you. If you can't come away from your local farm stand with a healthy dinner for less than the cost of a Happy Meal, then you ain't lookin'.

GreenStyleMom said...

I hate when people say healthy food is too expensive (or too difficult to make!). Rebecca Blood did a really good spinoff blog last summer about eating organic on a food stamp budget. And The Green Mommy just restarted her blog on healthy eating. She is going to be focusing on eating inexpensively. Check it out.

Emily the Great and Terrible said...

I will be checking out the Green Mommy blog. I love finding kindred spirits! I am definitely interested in the organic on a food stamp budget menu, also. The last time I checked out the food stamp allotments, my family was spending almost half as much and we eat so well. Maybe too well; I'm always trying to cut out meat and fat.