Eating healthy on budget and living a busy lifestyle

As a college student on a tight budget, I have had to learn how to eat quick and healthy without going broke. It has not been easy, but once I got the hang of it, it was super easy. Everyone knows it is more time efficient and budget friendly to grab a meal off the 99 cent menu at McDonalds, however, that causes that belt around your waist to get tighter and tighter. If it is not affecting the tightness of your belt, it is affecting what is going on inside your body, like increased LDLs and triglycerides and high blood pressure.
So what can you do about it when you only have a certain amount of money to spend on food a week and a limited amount of time to prepare the food?

PLAN!!!!!!! And here is how:

1. Check the newspaper for grocery store sales and write down healthy items that are on sale, so you can see what you can plan your meals with.

2. Plan your meals with the sale items from the grocery store.

3. Always go grocery shopping on full stomach and with a grocery list.

4. If you can use frozen vegetables and fruits instead of fresh vegetables when cooking a meal. It saves you time by not having to prepare the vegetables or fruit and the frozen version cooks a lot faster. Even though it is less expensive to purchase frozen fruits and vegetable, you are not sacrificing quality because they are flash frozen at the peak of ripeness.

5. Choose quick, healthy, and EASY recipes. You can also modify quick recipes (like Rachel Ray’s 30-minute meals) by cutting the oil and fat in half (try to only use canola or olive oil), using low-fat products instead of high fat products (low-fat cheese instead of full fat and chicken breast instead of chicken thigh), and replacing enriched flour products with its 100% whole wheat version.

6. If you do go with fresh fruits and vegetables, make sure you prepare them so you can just grab and go without thinking about it. I like to slice my peppers and cucumbers as soon as I get home from the grocery store. It makes it a lot easy to just grab and go in the morning.

- Alexandra Jasinowski