How To Feed Your Family Healthy Meals on a Tight Budget

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Sure, junk food offers lots of calories for not much money. But you can create your own "happy" meals that are tasty, nutritious, and inexpensive.

To complete this How-To you will need:

Oatmeal
Evaporated or powdered milk
Frozen and canned vegetables
Seasonal fruits
Bananas
Apples
Air popper and corn kernels
Nuts
Inexpensive cuts of meat
Peanut butter
Eggs
Chunk light tuna
Beans
Brown rice
Baking skills
A Crock-Pot

Step 1: Start with hot cereal

Start the day with a hot cereal; they're much cheaper than cold cereals. Oatmeal is a nutritional winner and very inexpensive if you buy a container of plain, old-fashioned oatmeal.

Step 2: Stretch your milk

Stretch your milk dollars by diluting a can of evaporated milk or some powdered milk with water to create whole milk.

Step 3: Stock up on frozen veggies

Stock up on frozen vegetables when they go on sale. Unless your produce was just picked, it's just as healthy — or even more so — to eat the frozen stuff, which locks in the nutrients.

Tip: Canned vegetables are another cheap alternative to fresh, but rinse them before eating because many are loaded with salt.

Step 4: Eat fruits in season

Limit your fruit purchases to whatever is in season, the exception being bananas and apples. The former are relatively inexpensive year-round, and the latter are low in calories, high in fiber, and may reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer.

Step 5: Snack happy

Enjoy healthy snacks without spending a fortune by air popping corn kernels and buying nutritious nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, and peanuts. Buy in bulk.

Step 6: Limit meat consumption

Only eat meat two or three times a week, and make cheap meats as tender and tasty as pricier cuts by marinating them overnight or slow-cooking them in a Crock-Pot.

Step 7: Eat alternative proteins

Make the most of alternative sources of protein, like peanut butter, eggs, chunk light tuna (which is not only the cheapest kind of tuna, but also contains the least mercury), and beans.

Tip: Buy bagged beans in bulk — the kind you soak overnight. They're cheaper and healthier than canned beans, which are high in sodium.

Step 8: Eat brown rice

Eat brown rice. It's a bit pricier than white, but much better for you and still a nutritional bargain.

Step 9: Indulge in dessert

Indulge in desserts by making them from scratch using nutritious ingredients that you have on hand. Bake your own oatmeal and peanut butter cookies; mash and freeze overripe bananas for "ice cream"; bake bruised apples with a little honey.

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[wemusttry]

Hahaha! Im looking at an ad at the top right corner advertising taco bell's shrimp tacos. It says "Warning to customers with shrimp allergies: Shrimp products contain shrimp. LOL

[epicpup]

wtf is up with howcast and peanut butter???

[jbaraglia]

Terrible advice. You guys need to study nutrition before telling everyone what to eat. 60% of the cows in the U.S. carry the leukemia virus, are sick from antibiotics & are injected with hormones. Dairy is not good for you & evaporated milk in a can is even worse!

[glitterbear27]

Step 1. Ramen.

[BamBabyBrenda]

I followed this and now I'm really sick >.>

[RenGrayson]

@answerOfstupids ^_^ no prob. compared to walnuts, pecans have a slightly sweeter, buttery taste, especially if they're fresh nuts. when nuts are rancid or moldy, they taste kinda bitter. walnuts are a lot higher in omega-3.

to get the best benefits from them, eat nuts & seeds "raw" (or unroasted). the roasting process makes them rancid, removes their good qualities, and makes 'em kinda damaging to your body. you can compare their nutritional content at nutritiondata(dot)com.

[answerOfstupids]

@RenGrayson lol thanks for telling me the name of that thing, which according to some dictionary is "similar to a walnut". I do remember tasting something bitter in a different way once at this specialized shop, but it looked like walnut.

[RenGrayson]

@answerOfstupids those are pecans... they're not the same as walnuts -- different taste, texture, and different shell. google them. they can usually be found in grocery stores sold whole (in the shell) this time of year, so maybe you can do a comparison

[answerOfstupids]

what is after walnuts, isnt that the same thing also....o_o

[BuKuTyyy]

BULL SHIT id better take an arrow in my knee

[Simanachue]

Holla! Have you tried cleverous 402 diet (search on google)? Ive heard some incredible things about it and my cooworker lost a lot of weight with it.