# Balanced diet on a budget



## jlamontagne (23 Dec 2012)

As an 18 year old student I can't have an extravagant diet, and since i've moved out have been mainly using frozen food and ready meals . However, I do want to move onto a good balanced diet, so I feel better in general and improve as a cyclist. I am generally in good health and not overweight so it should be fairly easy to transfer onto a good diet.

What would be good items to have on my weekly shopping list that would keep to my budget?


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## mark st1 (23 Dec 2012)

Salad fish fresh vegetables brown rice noodles white meat chicken turkey (maybe not turkey at this time of year) are all good foods and very affordable even on a budget mate. I just like adding things to bland foods to make them tasty but still healthy. a jar of low fat salad dressing or balsamic vinegar is a must for me plain salad is awful ! a pot of curry powder is always in my cupboard makes tuna and plain chicken more bearable to eat lol 

There is alot of what seem to be Master Chef style cooks on here that can probably give you full menus some of stuff that gets made and posted about sounds delicious.


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## Nearly there (23 Dec 2012)

A can of stella in one hand and a kebab other =balance


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## Rob3rt (23 Dec 2012)

How can we advise you within the constraints of your budget if you do not tell us what your budget is?

TBH, if you don't piss your money away on booze, there is no reason you can not eat a normal healthy diet without cutting corners.


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## mark st1 (23 Dec 2012)

The man is right if you only have enough to buy a pot noodle everyday then your kinda in shoot street.


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## T.M.H.N.E.T (23 Dec 2012)

Rob3rt said:


> How can we advise you within the constraints of your budget if you do not tell us what your budget is?
> 
> TBH, if you don't **** your money away on booze, there is no reason you can not eat a normal healthy diet without cutting corners.


Tis the magic of Health,Fitness & Training


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## Nebulous (23 Dec 2012)

I'm not an 18 year-old student, as will become apparent from my story. I spent 20 years or so buying sandwiches and fizzy juice from shops at lunchtime. Spending about £3.50 a day. Then I started a lifechanging journey, which led to losing 5 stone and a cycling obsession with an ambition to compete. 

You know the single biggest factor in my changed diet, other than willpower? The Spar shop local to my previous job started selling a bag of 5 items of fruit for £1. The main difference I made to my diet was substituting a £1 bag of fruit for my previous sandwiches and Dr Pepper. With that I lost a pound a week for 14 months.

That worked for me, it might not be right for you, but it shows that healthy options can't always be measured by cost.


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## bicyclos (23 Dec 2012)

I make a big pan of curry sauce with everything in except the chicken and bag it up into portions and freeze. All you have to do is cook some chicken fillets and add the sauce, many meals to be had and not just curry. you dont need ready meals, learn to cook and experiment its great and you can do it on a budget........


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## vickster (23 Dec 2012)

Turkey is much cheaper than chicken (unless you buy the really basic battery stuff) and very versatile. Rice and pasta are inexpensive and filling. Potatoes are cheaper if you buy them unwashed. Cook with housemates if you can, will work out much more economical than meals for one


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## Saluki (23 Dec 2012)

For pasta, couscous, noodles etc you can get great deals at www.approvedfood.co.uk if you are not to fussy about sell-by dates as a lot of the items are pretty close to the dates. However, noodles (so I have discovered) don't 'go off' like cheese etc does.

running a fledgling business, I get a lot of stuff from them. I wish that I had know about such companies when I was a student.


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## jlamontagne (23 Dec 2012)

I'm budgeting food at £25-30 a week, thanks for the ideas so far.



Saluki said:


> For pasta, couscous, noodles etc you can get great deals at www.approvedfood.co.uk if you are not to fussy about sell-by dates as a lot of the items are pretty close to the dates. However, noodles (so I have discovered) don't 'go off' like cheese etc does.
> 
> running a fledgling business, I get a lot of stuff from them. I wish that I had know about such companies when I was a student.


 
How have I not heard of this before, it's great


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## adamangler (24 Dec 2012)

Protein is the expensive part, carbs are cheap, oats, brown rice, pasta
broccoli, green veg are grat, take a multi vit and say a fish oil tab each day

cottage cheese and potatoes is a good cheap meal, as are various beans

i buy the really cheap bags of frozen chicken and have that with rice and broccoli with a bit of olive oil.

Dont disregard quality fats, olive oil, flax seed etc..lot of cals and better for you than lot of refined carbs.


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## Sara_H (24 Dec 2012)

jlamontagne said:


> As an 18 year old student I can't have an extravagant diet, and since i've moved out have been mainly using frozen food and ready meals . However, I do want to move onto a good balanced diet, so I feel better in general and improve as a cyclist. I am generally in good health and not overweight so it should be fairly easy to transfer onto a good diet.
> 
> What would be good items to have on my weekl
> 
> ...


I have a fab cook book called The Vegetarian Student Cookbook. It's fantastic for tasty, quick, easy meals on a budget. there's a non veggie version, but eating veggie is lots cheaper.


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## T.M.H.N.E.T (24 Dec 2012)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Feed-Zo...0767/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356353918&sr=8-1

Full of stuff to make and lots of it uses leftovers from other stuff to make more stuff,from the stuff leftover from making the stuff.

There figure that out


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## Rob3rt (24 Dec 2012)

£25-30 a week to feed one person is not a particularly tight budget!


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## Hacienda71 (24 Dec 2012)

Add a few herbs and things that would appear bland can be transformed. Oregano, Thyme, Basil and Garlic are all great when combined with Pastas and tomatoes be that tinned or Passata.


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## lulubel (24 Dec 2012)

Saluki said:


> FHowever, noodles (so I have discovered) don't 'go off' like cheese etc does.


 
Cheese doesn't go off. It matures.


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## snorri (24 Dec 2012)

Perhaps look into your local library or second hand book shop and look for some books on basic meal preparation and cookery.
I usually cook something and divide it into portions which can be frozen until required. I find this much more tasty than bought ready made frozen meals, and as I've cooked them, I know exactly what I'm eating.


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## Cubist (24 Dec 2012)

Buy plenty of fresh veg from your local market. Forget supermarket veg, it's all overpriced. Go to a decent market greengrocers and stock up , late Saturday afternoon was favourite when we were students, could get a sackful of all sorts for a quid or so. What's more, you'll be buying stuff that's in season here, not flown in from Kenya or Patagonia, so your carbon conscience can be salved as well. 

Cheap mince. Can be extremely versatile, but you'll need cheap tinned tomatoes and beans to turn it into tasty meals (Shepherds pie, curry, chilli, spag bol, lasagne... all good if made with fresh ingredients) Supermarket smart price etc etc are usually visually inferior to premium range, but just as good if used in dishes. Similarly, basic range bread and so on are perfectly serviceable. Pittas for example are a bit smaller or misshapen... perfectly edible though. 

Ready made and processed foods are simply not good value for money. You need to get a repertoire of cheap and filling dishes under your belt, like cauliflower cheese with pasta and bacon, costs around two quid to make and will do at least two meals. 

If you like I can rustle up a few cheap and easy recipes for you, and I'm sure others would contribute.

Here's a basic list of "store-cupboard" ingredients to start you off:

Mixed herbs (buy the refills, not the jars!)
OXO or supermarket stock cubes
Garlic
Tinned tomatoes
Small bag of plain flour
Pasta. Variety is the key!
Jar of curry paste (not cook in sauce!) 
Olive oil/ vegetable oil. Olive can be the cheapest you can find..... extra-virgin is for salad dressing!
Salt and black pepper
Kidney beans
Chilli powder 
Curry powder


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## vickster (24 Dec 2012)

Leeds has an excellent market if I recall down by vicar lane (I was a student there in the 90s)


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## redcard (25 Dec 2012)

Cubist said:


> Buy plenty of fresh veg from your local market. Forget supermarket veg, it's all overpriced. Go to a decent market greengrocers and stock up , late Saturday afternoon was favourite when we were students, could get a sackful of all sorts for a quid or so. What's more, you'll be buying stuff that's in season here, not flown in from Kenya or Patagonia, so your carbon conscience can be salved as well.
> 
> Cheap mince. Can be extremely versatile, but you'll need cheap tinned tomatoes and beans to turn it into tasty meals (Shepherds pie, curry, chilli, spag bol, lasagne... all good if made with fresh ingredients) Supermarket smart price etc etc are usually visually inferior to premium range, but just as good if used in dishes. Similarly, basic range bread and so on are perfectly serviceable. Pittas for example are a bit smaller or misshapen... perfectly edible though.
> 
> ...



This is the sort of thing they should be teaching on schools.


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## Monsieur Remings (25 Dec 2012)

I'm one of those who thinks that food is more about knowledge and not necessarily budget. You can eat very healthily on the budget you describe - the war generation were on rations and there was no option to eat more crap, because it wasn't available anyway.

Oats for the morning - porridge is great and a £1 or so pack will easily last a week. You just need milk and honey or sugar to add. Fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables for a start - don't pay over the odds for something out of season. Fish - Mackerel is cheap but contains all the right oils, so too Sardines. Salmon is more expensive but every once in a while, eh? Pasta - cheap as chips, potatoes, rice (buy in bulk if you can). Eat less meat but good quality again, when you can afford it - roast a chicken yourself and keep what you don't eat for sandwiches and boil the carcass with vegetables to make soup. Beetroot is a sports food (look it up) and onion and garlic are good for the blood. Most seasonal green vegetables are invariably cheap and stacked with good stuff - if you really want to go for it, drink the water you've boiled/steamed them in (once cooled down obviously).

If you can, put aside a small amount to buy herbs, spices, stocks etc which will make your cooking more flavoursome, adventurous and worthwhile - if you buy these things all at once they're bloody expensive but worth doing in the longer run. Cooking is great fun, never a rigmarole, so learn to enjoy it and learn as much as you can about nutritious foods - and you may be surprised to learn that they're not all ridiculously expensive. On the other foot, some of the most nutritiously worthless foods and luxuries cost the Earth.


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## Stonepark (25 Dec 2012)

Find your local game keeper (take up beating) and ask about getting some pheasant/rabbit, both only fetch 20p to 40p each (offer a £1 a brace to keeper) from the game dealers and you get about 2lb of meat on both about as cheap as you can get.


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## vickster (25 Dec 2012)

just watch your teeth on the shot!!


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## The Jogger (25 Dec 2012)

Buy fresh food in places like Lidl and Aldi


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## jlamontagne (27 Dec 2012)

Cubist said:


> Mixed herbs (buy the refills, not the jars!)
> OXO or supermarket stock cubes
> Garlic
> Tinned tomatoes
> ...


 
Thanks for this, will be getting the rest of the stuff on this that I don't have yet 



vickster said:


> Leeds has an excellent market if I recall down by vicar lane (I was a student there in the 90s)


 
Yes it does, I'm going to be buying my fruit and veg from there from now on now i've seen the prices!



redcard said:


> This is the sort of thing they should be teaching on schools.


 
Ironically, I studied GCSE food technology at high school and got an A*, yet it has taught me nothing about proper cooking.

everyone, THANKYOU for your help  someone mentioned that £25 was well enough to feed one person and isn't much of a 'budget' as such, but what I meant was that I haven't been working to a proper budget since moving out and now I want a fixed one. So I quickly made an estimate of the maximum I want to spend, which in hindsight is a plenty to feed one person but I want to keep it as low as possible so I can allocate more money into saving.


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## summerdays (27 Dec 2012)

Tins of beans are good (not just the ones covered in red sauce). There are a whole variety of them out there, or even cheaper are the dried beans but then you have to make sure you soak them and follow any instructions about boiling for a specific time to get rid of the toxins. My favourite would be chick peas.


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## deanE (27 Dec 2012)

Get yourself a slow cooker, about £15 or less in New Year sale. Gets the best out of cheaper meat cuts and ideal for curries, stews, bols, chillis etc. save on fuel bills as well.


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## montage (27 Dec 2012)

I'm also a student in my 3rd year so feel your pain. Buy yourself a garlic crushed for a couple of quid - it will save you hours over the term time. I've never really learnt to cook, just been experimented.

Breakfast is porridge or cereal if I have it - some days after a few hours sleep I just cannot stomach porridge as it takes so long to digest.

Spag Bol:
red onions in, chopped peppers (or any veg), mince and garlic - fry that, and once cooked add half a can or so of chopped tomatoes. Keep your chinese takeaway cartons and fill these up and you have a few meals there. Personally I cook the spaghetti each time rather than reheating. Super cheap but not that much veg, does the job though!

Lemon chicken - best done with a friend to keep costs low:
Fill your deep sided oven tray with chicken - wings work the best, thighs seem to take the longest to cook. crush two cloves of garlic and rub into the chicken (spike the chicken with a fork first so you can rub the garlic in more). Splash cooking oil or olive oil over the chicken, and then squeeze between two and four lemons all over the chicken - you can even place chopped lemon slices over the chicken. Get a couple of red onions, chop into fair chunks and throw these on and around the chicken, just cover it all in a big onion mess. Grab a few peppers, chop them into long slices and put these between the gaps of the chicken. Now your potatoes, cut into thing slices and put them where ever there is room. Boom, all your meal in one tray, and if done right tastes amazing!

Stir fry - I lived off these first year:
noodles on the boil, chicken or beef chunks in the frying pan, throw in whatever veg you have - runner beans, mange tout, broccoli, peppers, onions or best of all bean shoots- add sauce when the meat is cooked (soy sauce or whatever stir fry sauce you have)

Pasta bake is another good one, can be saved in the fridge easily.

Jacket potato! eat the skin.

feeling veggie? Thinly chopped potato slices, whatever veg you have, onions, throw into the frying pan. When the potato is nearly cooked add a can of chopped tomatoes and there is your veggie meal. Pretty healthy.

Reduced salmon available? excellent... pepper the salmon and then throw the salmon with the skin on into the frying pan, about mid heat. Skin side down let it cook for a few minutes. The skin will go crispy but the salmon should be fairly cooked. Then do a minute or so on the top, so skin side facing upwards. Fingers crossed it is rare in the middle and ready to go.

Rushed for time at lunch? Ham, bread, butter, beetroot. Ham and beetroot sandwiches are amazingly healthy.

Egg friend rice: cook your rice, then into a frying pan, add frozen peas and an egg - fry.


In general, keep stocked up on chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and potatoes - if you can afford it, peppers, you can do a lot with these.
When you cook pasta/spaghetti, a drop of oil and a pinch of salt doesn't go amiss.


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## montage (27 Dec 2012)

Being a student, chance are you will be drinking a fair bit. If you want to ease off the drinking but still want a social life, pre-drink with stuff you don't really like - you tend not to down it so much then. Gin and tonic with no lemon/lime is healthier than most drinks and isn't something downable. (With lemon and lime it is awesome, but a bit middle class so be careful if you have an socialist types in your flat). I also find the tonic water helps it go to the head quicker, which keep things cheap and makes a bottle last longer - hangovers don't seem so bad either.


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## jlamontagne (27 Dec 2012)

montage said:


> Being a student, chance are you will be drinking a fair bit. If you want to ease off the drinking but still want a social life, pre-drink with stuff you don't really like - you tend not to down it so much then. Gin and tonic with no lemon/lime is healthier than most drinks and isn't something downable. (With lemon and lime it is awesome, but a bit middle class so be careful if you have an socialist types in your flat). I also find the tonic water helps it go to the head quicker, which keep things cheap and makes a bottle last longer - hangovers don't seem so bad either.


 
Thanks a lot for your recipe ideas, I'm looking forward to making lemon chicken because lemons are my favourite fruit and chicken is my favourite meat so that can only go well  I don't drink a lot to be honest, I go out as much as your typical student to the pub and odd nightclub now and again but I don't need to be drunk to have a good time, to the disbelief of many


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## carolonabike (27 Dec 2012)

As others have said, ready meals might seem cheap but in reality are an expensive way to eat. When Mr Carol on a bike and I were poor students we ate a lot of pulses and lentils which are really cheap and versatile. You can substitute these for meat in a lot of recipes, a small quantity go a long way. Chilli, for instance made with kidney amd other beans tastes just as good and you won't notice the absence of meat. A lot of Indian dishes use lentils and of course loads of veg. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash are lovely too.

I have an easy recipe for a lovely roast garlic and sweet potato soup. Drizzle on a bit of oil over a garlic bulb then wrap in foil. Bake in the oven for about 25 mins until soft. While that's in the oven peel a couple of sweet potatos and cut into chunks and saute in a pan with a chopped onion until the onion is soft but not brown (about 10 minutes) Once the garlic is done scrape the cloves out of the skins and add to the pan with half a pint of stock and half a pint of milk and cook for about 30 mins until the potato is soft. Blend until smooth and season with salt and pepper. You may need to add a bit more liquid depending upon how thick you want the soup to be. I like to add some chilli flakes to give it a bit of a kick. Its smooth and creamy and spicy all at the same time.  Don't worry about the amount of garlic, once it's roasted it tastes very different to raw. This will make about 4 or 5 servings and is great for a filling lunch or supper. It freezes well too.


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## montage (27 Dec 2012)

jlamontagne said:


> Thanks a lot for your recipe ideas, I'm looking forward to making lemon chicken because lemons are my favourite fruit and chicken is my favourite meat so that can only go well  I don't drink a lot to be honest, I go out as much as your typical student to the pub and odd nightclub now and again but I don't need to be drunk to have a good time, to the disbelief of many


 
The lemon chicken is so easy as well.... just whack it in the oven and keep an eye on the timer, no need to constantly keep stirring in a frying pan etc


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## jlamontagne (27 Dec 2012)

carolonabike said:


> I have an easy recipe for a lovely roast garlic and sweet potato soup. Drizzle on a bit of oil over a garlic bulb then wrap in foil. Bake in the oven for about 25 mins until soft. While that's in the oven peel a couple of sweet potatos and cut into chunks and saute in a pan with a chopped onion until the onion is soft but not brown (about 10 minutes) Once the garlic is done scrape the cloves out of the skins and add to the pan with half a pint of stock and half a pint of milk and cook for about 30 mins until the potato is soft. Blend until smooth and season with salt and pepper. You may need to add a bit more liquid depending upon how thick you want the soup to be. I like to add some chilli flakes to give it a bit of a kick. Its smooth and creamy and spicy all at the same time.  Don't worry about the amount of garlic, once it's roasted it tastes very different to raw. This will make about 4 or 5 servings and is great for a filling lunch or supper. It freezes well too.


 
I'll be sure to try this out, would be nice to cook up and enjoy with a group of friends


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## mcshroom (27 Dec 2012)

If you have any veg that is starting to go off, then chop the remaining good stuff up into small bits, boil up some red lentils in water for ten minutes and then chuck the veg in, add a stock cube (veg or chicken work well but I'm sure others would too) and cook for 30 mins. This makes a nice filling soup with food that often gets thrown away. If you have a small blender (I use a little hand-held one which was a fiver from Tesco a couple years ago) then even better.

Also works with frozen veg as well.

I'll add another voice for herbs and spices. Morrisons do a very cheap (35p ish) tub of mixed herbs which is quite good (mainly basil, oregano I think). Also places like B&M and Lidl/Aldi do cheap herbs. Also I find a pepper grinder with black peppercorns seems to last for years.

Using a basic sauce made with tinned tomatoes, chopped onion, a small amount of veg-oil, a couple pinches of dried basil and a stock cube of any flavour can make for a decent base for adding any cheap protein you can find, or is nice on it's own (well with pasta/bread/rice).

Also using left over meat pieces chopped up into a tin of mushroom soup and mixed with some onions and a handful of mixed veg (fresh, frozen or tinned) makes a nice meal with a bit of rice or pasta.


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## jlamontagne (27 Dec 2012)

mcshroom said:


> If you have any veg that is starting to go off, then chop the remaining good stuff up into small bits, boil up some red lentils in water for ten minutes and then chuck the veg in, add a stock cube (veg or chicken work well but I'm sure others would too) and cook for 30 mins. This makes a nice filling soup with food that often gets thrown away. If you have a small blender (I use a little hand-held one which was a fiver from Tesco a couple years ago) then even better.


 
Thanks, on the subject of veg (and fruit) that's about to go off...I like to throw it all in a curry  Tonight I made a nice curry that had pineapple in which I had left over from my breakfast, it was very tasty.


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## MoG (28 Dec 2012)

Monsieur Remings said:


> I'm one of those who thinks that food is more about knowledge and not necessarily budget. You can eat very healthily on the budget you describe - the war generation were on rations and there was no option to eat more crap, because it wasn't available anyway.
> 
> Oats for the morning - porridge is great and a £1 or so pack will easily last a week. You just need milk and honey or sugar to add. Fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables for a start - don't pay over the odds for something out of season. Fish - Mackerel is cheap but contains all the right oils, so too Sardines. Salmon is more expensive but every once in a while, eh? Pasta - cheap as chips, potatoes, rice (buy in bulk if you can). Eat less meat but good quality again, when you can afford it - roast a chicken yourself and keep what you don't eat for sandwiches and boil the carcass with vegetables to make soup. Beetroot is a sports food (look it up) and onion and garlic are good for the blood. Most seasonal green vegetables are invariably cheap and stacked with good stuff - if you really want to go for it, drink the water you've boiled/steamed them in (once cooled down obviously).
> 
> If you can, put aside a small amount to buy herbs, spices, stocks etc which will make your cooking more flavoursome, adventurous and worthwhile - if you buy these things all at once they're bloody expensive but worth doing in the longer run. Cooking is great fun, never a rigmarole, so learn to enjoy it and learn as much as you can about nutritious foods - and you may be surprised to learn that they're not all ridiculously expensive. On the other foot, some of the most nutritiously worthless foods and luxuries cost the Earth.


 
+1 for the above. Can I also give a big shout out to a much maligned veg - the humble sprout- all the usuaal green veg benefits, and packed with protein. The frozen sprouts are cheap, and can be microwaved. I also use a lot of chilli flakes sprinkled on my veg/meat - not sure of the nutritional value but they sure add flavour!


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