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Ways to save on food without sacrificing nutrition, taste, and comfort | The Old Farmer's Almanac

Food-Frugal

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Food occupies a unique position in our lives at the confluence of health, comfort, culture, social relationships, geography, and family budget.

In tough economic times, the question becomes how to eat within a tight budget without sacrificing superior nutrition, cultural tradition, great taste, variety, ease of preparation, and deep-down satisfaction.

Incessant food advertising in an aggressive consumer culture makes it especially difficult to stay away from the trendy new food innovations. After all, the latest product promises to make you healthier, smarter, thinner, younger, better-looking, hipper, more lovable, and a better parent. It’ll save time, give you a break, and show your sophistication. And it will cost a lot more, often without offering much nutritional value.

But frugal households can latch on to one burgeoning trend, the movement towards artisanal foods, edibles supposedly made from scratch by human hands rather than cranked out in industrial facilities.

Even if you can afford expensive food, go “frugal-artisanal” for the health, the flavor, and the sheer adventure of it. 

Spices

To Get Started:

  • Make everything from scratch: bread (including flatbreads and pizza doughs), biscuits, and soups. You can add your own healthy ingredients and experiment with herbs and spices. Scratch cooking takes more organizing and learning, but once you commit to it, you’ll find that it doesn’t take that much more time.
  • Make and store your own mixes. Next time you’re making biscuits, bread, or pancakes, make extra, minus the wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients together, add one batch to a sealable bag, label, and freeze. When you’re ready to bake, add eggs, oil, milk, or other wet ingredients to a bag of mix, then bake as usual. For soups, store the dry ingredients, including herbs and spices, in glass or metal containers. 
  • Don’t skimp on fruits and vegetables. Sneak them into every meal. Use them as snacks. People who eat the most produce have more energy, fewer illnesses, and less chronic disease. They manage their weight more easily.
  • Use cheap, nutritious, and suddenly trendy vegetables: kale, collards, cabbage, Swiss chard, carrots, onions, winter squash. Buy fruit in season.fresh_fruit_quarter_width.jpg
  • Sneak more whole grains into your diet. Add a handful of rolled oats into that recipe for meatloaf or fish cakes (rather than bread or cracker crumbs). Toss a handful of brown rice or barley into a long-simmering soup. Microwave a rice pudding for breakfast with leftover brown rice.
  • Eat more legumes: lentilsdry beans, and dried peas. Cheap, incredibly versatile, and nutritious.
  • When the price is right, stock up on nutrient-dense foods that keep well outside the fridge and don’t take much storage space: dry beans, lentils, whole grains, sunflower seeds, unprocessed nuts, peanut butter, onions, garlic, dried fruit. Store in glass or metal containers out of direct sunlight.
  • Save nutrients by making savory broths from vegetable scraps and leftovers that you’d ordinarily throw out. Freeze or use immediately in soups or for cooking rice or other grains.

Be Frugal with Fuel, Too

  • When you have the oven on, fill it up. Cooking a turkey or a roast? Bake bread, biscuits, and/or a casserole at the same time. Roast a pan of vegetables or try an oven-braised cabbage.
  • Soak rice, lentils, beans overnight before cooking.
  • When you make a broth or a big soup, half fill a knee-high sock or nylon stocking with brown rice, barley, or pinto beans; tie it loosely and toss it into the pot for use in another meal.
  • Investigate pressure-cooker and slow cooker cooking. These are real energy savers.
About The Author

Margaret Boyles

Margaret Boyles is a longtime contributor to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. She wrote for UNH Cooperative Extension, managed NH Outside, and contributes to various media covering environmental and human health issues. Read More from Margaret Boyles

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