Healthy Eating Shopping List

by: Kathryn Whittaker

Healthy eating starts with careful planning and organization. Since fresh produce has a very limited shelf life, regular grocery shopping is a must. Creating a menu for the week and writing out a shopping list will save you time and money; while helping you stick to healthy recipes. Local health food stores and farmer markets are very money-wise solutions. Plus, frequent visits will allow you expand your culinary horizons as well as mingle with other health-concerned people. Healthy eating means using fresh ingredients and gentle cooking methods without adding any artificial ingredients and fats. Healthy eating requires a lot of cooking, since take-out food often contains too many refined fats and artificial seasonings. However, with modern appliances you will discover that cooking is no longer an annoying chore reserved for special occasions, but an exciting part of everyday life. So which products should we buy when we actually decide to begin eating healthy food? Here’s what your weekly shopping list should include. Vegetables. All vegetables should be eaten young, when they are tender and not coarse. Vegetables are best bought from fresh food markets or seasonal, when they are sold in boxes or baskets. Supermarket vegetables are often genetically modified or have been picked green and ripened in boxes when traveling long distances. Sprouts and brightly colored vegetables contain the most vitamins and antioxidants. Fruits. Again, the trick is to buy seasonal fruit, since exotic fruits have often traveled long distances and ripened in their boxes, not on trees. Local, naturally ripened or, better yet, organic fruit are the best choice for the health-conscious cook.

5 Ways to Save Money on Groceries

Effective Meal Planning Strategies Will Help You Save Money

By Jennifer Wolf

As a single parent working to get by on a tight budget, you need to be careful with every dollar you spend. One of the best ways to cut back on overall spending is to re-examine what you spend on food each week, because that's where a large portion of your monthly income goes. For this reason, it's important to be intentional about planning out your family's meals and learning how to effectively use resources like your grocery store's weekly flier to plan ahead and save money on groceries. Begin saving money on your meals with these cost-effective meal planning tips:

1. Save Money on Groceries By Using Grocery Stores' Weekly Circulars

Arrange your main meals each week around what happens to be on sale at the grocery store. For example, if chicken thighs, pork roast, and breakfast sausage are all on sale, your menus might include chicken fajitas, pulled pork sandwiches, and an egg and sausage casserole. Challenge yourself to save money on groceries by coming up with as many meals as you can using what's on sale. In addition, while you're at it, take note of what snack and breakfast items are on sale, too, and stock up on them while you're there.

2. Plan Your Meals Around the Use of Leftovers

Once you have an idea of what meals you're going to be making during the week, plan them out according to when you anticipate needing leftovers. For example, make a large casserole (or double a recipe) on Monday if you know that you'll be late getting home on Tuesday. This way, you won't be stuck with peanut butter sandwiches, or wind up ordering take-out food on the night you'll be out late. In addition, planning out which days you intend to take leftovers to work in lieu of buying lunch will help you save money on groceries.

3. Develop a System for Organizing Your Recipes

In order to best take advantage of these money-saving strategies, you'll need to have a bank of recipes at your fingertips that you know your children will eat. When all of your recipes come from different sources, though, it can be hard to keep track of them all. One tool that can help is Meal Planner, a free meal planning service from About.com and Campbells. It allows you to search for recipes and save them on a calendar according to when you plan to cook them, and then print them out as you need them.

4. Save Money on Groceries By Planning Meals With Common Ingredients

Organizing a set of most-used recipes will also make it easier for you to lump together meals that have common ingredients. For example, plan on making spinach salad the same week that you make another recipe that calls for croutons, such as Garlic Meatloaf or Swiss Chicken. That way, you're more likely to use up all of the croutons, rather than have them go stale in your pantry. Think of other recipes that your kids love that use slightly less common ingredients, and consider how you can prepare them along with other recipes that call for the same items as a way to save money on groceries.

5. Keep Your Pantry Stocked With Ingredients for Last-Minute Meals

Finally, make sure that you keep your kitchen stocked with items you can use to make last-minute pantry dinners, such as tuna casserole, tortellini pasta, or homemade macaroni and cheese. Prepare them alongside garlic bread and a fresh salad, and you've got a complete meal you can put together at a moment's notice.

Jennifer Wolf
About.com Single Parents

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