How can you get a healthy diet on a tight budget? Here are 7 tips from experts

So, if you find your budget struggling to keep up with these surges in food costs, how can you maintain a healthy diet without breaking the bank?

NationalWorld has sought the best advice from food and nutrition experts.

Even before the cost of living crisis ran out of households, the wealthiest households in the UK struggled to afford a healthy diet.

For the wealthiest one-fifth household, this figure was 7%. This is a 1% decrease from the 2020 report.

The report also states that healthier foods are almost three times more expensive than unhealthy foods, and 20% of children in the least disadvantaged households are up to 4-6 years old compared to the top one-fifth. The wealthiest family found that they are almost twice as likely to become obese.

With higher costs of living, Sarah Coe, a nutritionist at the British Nutrition Foundation, says the poorest people are likely to get worse when it comes to access to healthy foods.

“The number of households experiencing food poverty in the UK continues to grow, meaning that more people do not have access to nutritious foods and instead rely on cheaper, more energy-dense and less nutritious foods. doing.”

MsCoe and Professor Alex Johnstone of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen both offer tips for a healthy diet on a budget.

But it also helps find low-cost options that apply to all major food groups, says Sarah Ko.

“For a healthy and balanced diet, fruits and vegetables from a variety of sources, fiber-rich foods, proteins from a variety of sources, especially beans, peas, lentils, some dairy products and fortifications. “Fats that contain alternatives, and some” healthy “unsaturated fats,” she says.

“Valuable choices in staple food supermarkets such as bread, potatoes, rice and pasta are generally worth the money,” she says.

“These high-fiber varieties, especially whole-wheat bread, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, and potatoes with skin, can be useful foods that form the basis of the diet.”

Most food and beverage items found in British supermarkets have nutrition labels on their packaging.

This label may take the form of a traffic light. It shows the weight of food or beverage items for sensitive food groups such as saturated fats, sugar and salt.

“The green color-coded section of the front of pack label on the traffic light means it’s a healthier product compared to the red label,” says Professor John Stone.

If the food packaging does not have a signal label, be aware that categories such as cakes, biscuits, and sugared beverages are generally high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS foods).

“These are not needed and should be consumed less frequently and in smaller quantities,” says Sarah Ko.

“Eating too much fat and sugar-rich, energy-dense foods increases the risk of obesity and can lead to additional health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.”

Professor John Stone said: “Canned and frozen vegetables can be more nutritious than old and overcooked vegetables.”

She adds to Sarah Ko: “Fruits and vegetables are often cheaper to buy in cans or frozen, and are counted as five per day.

“If you buy canned fruits and vegetables, they should be placed in natural juice or water without added salt or sugar.

“If you want to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, look for varieties offered in supermarkets every week.

“Some supermarkets also sell’eccentric’fruits and vegetables that have the same nutritional value but different shapes and sizes, so they tend to be a little cheaper. “

Fruits and vegetables aren’t the only things that are cheap and healthy when in cans, says Sarah Ko.

“Great protein sources include canned beans such as kidney beans, chickpeas, and lentils, which are also rich in fiber,” she says.

“Canned oily fish such as frozen fish and sardines and salmon can be cheaper than buying fresh fish. Oily fish are high in omega 3 fats that help keep your heart healthy. In addition, frozen and canned varieties are easy to prepare and have a long shelf life.

According to Ko, if you’re buying frozen, buy items that are “no additional ingredients such as bread crumbs or batters.”

According to Professor John Stone, scratch cooking is a cheaper way to get your nutrition.

“It’s cheaper to prepare a meal from scratch than to buy a cooked meal,” she says, to buy ingredients such as vegetables and meat fillets.

“This requires a plan to buy the right materials and the ability to budget for gas and electricity.”

One of the measures it recommends is to go to the local food market.

The produce on the market is not only locally sourced, but also usually cost effective.

But if you can’t fit into one, large supermarkets often have a wider range of cheaper produce.