One activity that I really enjoy doing with groups of people is a local grocery store tour. I enjoy hosting this activity because not only does it provide valuable insight for individuals around nutrition, meal prepping, and new strategies to work with, but it is valuable insight for me as well. I gain insight from how others in varying circumstances purchase food, budget, prepare meals, and their overall relationship and capabilities around food.
Below are a few tips using both a nutrition mindset and a budget mindset. Happy reading!
Plan meals and grocery trips ahead of time
Planning your meals for the week (or any selected period of time) and consequently your grocery list are key to success in grocery shopping. These will help you with the following: you are better in control of your budget, you ensure better nutrient diversity and ingredient rotations, you reduce any anxiety present by knowing ahead of time what you will eat and spend, and it can minimize impulse buys and snacking or overeating.
Having a grocery list and a meal plan, provided that you stick to them, will minimize the number of grocery trips as well as the amount of time that you may spend shopping. When planned ahead of time, it can also prevent you from shopping while you are hungry or stressed- two elements that impact your shopping habits.
Meal planning also allows you to enjoy exploring new recipes or ingredients, which provides access to greater nutrient diversity in your diet. For example, if you bought broccoli and spinach last week, why not try cauliflower and kale this week? Meal planning provides the opportunity to batch cook, because you are better prepared to set time aside for cooking a much larger meal for a few days, or to save in the freezer for later- such a relief to have available on busy or even low-key days.
Practice DIY strategies
The ultimate convenience items found in grocery stores are ready-made food products. Convenient yes, but not necessarily optimal for your health and budget. Buying in bulk and getting dried goods instead of packaged or canned goods will be less expensive, albeit a little more time-consuming. More preparation is involved, such as soaking grains and legumes, making your own granola or energy bars, batch-cooking meals and snacks, making your dips and condiments from scratch. Find a balance of time vs cost that works best for you.
Reduce food waste not only by sticking to a meal plan so as to avoid spoilage, but by reusing your undesirable leftover ingredients rather than throwing them away. For example, take advantage of the stems of kale and broccoli, carrot tops, radish leaves, the hard ends of asparagus and so forth to make a homemade vegetable broth. Store your delicious broth for soups, later! And plenty of foods can grow again, simply by repotting them. Celery ends, green onion, potato, ginger, garlic, and even pineapple! The list is huge, so have fun!
Herbs and spices can be pricey, especially when they are purchased fresh. However, so many culinary herbs and spices are easy to grow from home, whether outside in a garden or balcony, or inside on a window ledge. Invest a bit of time and a few dollars to grow some herbs yourself, year-round, and you can be sure to have tasty and nutrient-packed meals from home.
Keep foods fresher for longer by using adequate storage such as metal or glass containers, beeswax wraps (the eco-friendly version of plastic wrap) and mason jars, as just a few examples. Wrap your fresh herbs and leafy greens in some moistened paper towel or a light fabric to keep them vibrant and healthy for longer. Also, don’t be afraid to freeze ingredients and prepared meals instead of letting them sit indefinitely in the fridge- there are plenty of ingredients that can withstand the cold, generally for up to a month.
Get frugal smart points
If you have the time to do this, shopping around for discounts and price differences can make a positive impact on your wallet. Thankfully, we now have the internet at our disposal to keep track of pricing and sales on various websites or through electronic newsletters and online promotions. Just be careful not to fall into the sales trap of buying things you don’t need simply because they’ve been discounted!
Keeping track of in-season and local produce not only allows you to support local farmers, but it ensures fresher and more nutrient-dense foods at a reasonable price. Purchasing a seasonal food basket (eg. CSA basket) membership is a good budgeting strategy to incorporate into your grocery allowance, and a great way to support healthy foods and growers. Or, check out memberships for participating in a community garden, whether in taking part of the maintenance and upkeep in exchange for food, or by renting out your own little plot to grow your own produce.
Share meals and ingredients with others. Whether that involves cooking together and enjoying dinner together, purchasing a cow to butcher to feed your and other families, or splitting ingredients such as the giant bags of nuts and flour from Costco, there are plenty of ways to reduce costs by sharing larger quantities of food or buying in bulk.
The food industry spends billions trying to convince us that we need this or that food item, in particular processed food products. Junk foods, microwavable dinners, granola bars, energy drinks, on the go snacks, pre-made smoothies, canned soup, the lists goes on. They know that they are way easier to buy, and these products are engineered to tickle our tastebuds and get us hooked. The labels are incredibly sneaky to read, with ambiguous ingredients and it doesn’t help that these products are more expensive in the long run, on our wallet and our health. Be discerning about what you need to nourish yourself, what is feasible within your budget, and what you can let go of that doesn’t serve you.
Understand your own patterns
Our patterns of behaviour will dictate how we consume, from the foods that we eat, to how we eat, to how we spend. Take 5-10 minutes every week to journal your observations of the week’s activities: how you shopped, what you paid for, the things you made, or anything else. It will provide valuable insight and simple motivation to make any changes you feel would push your goals forward.
An example of a common pattern in many of us is that we sometimes feel uninspired to cook, don’t know what to cook, or don’t have the time. Well, not having the time involves some possible lifestyle and scheduling changes- making or procuring healthy meals for yourself, in my opinion, should be a priority. Feeling uninspired? Explore online and in book stores for some recipe blogs, culinary websites, recipe books or magazines that pique your interest and taste buds. Save the recipes you want to try or make again- it could be a fun little project to create your own little recipe book with both new and familiar recipes (I prefer an actual notebook or ringed binder, but electronic formats work too).
Notice as you walk into a grocery store how the store is set up. The most immediate items you will typically find are on-the-go products, snacks and products on sale. Fresh produce and animal products are on the outskirts of the store, as are the frozen products. The inner aisles are canned, dried, boxed, processed goods. There are not any areas of the store that you need to avoid, but pay attention to which areas you shop from the most. This could give you some good hints on where adjustments could be made in your shopping habits for both your budget and your overall health and diet.
Practice flexibility and compromise. Some examples that come to mind are choosing what you feel is more important and feasible to purchase organic, and let go of expectations or judgments that you might have for yourself around not always buying certified organic or whole foods. Or maybe it’s been a stressful week, or your budget is smaller for groceries, and some impulse purchases and poorer dietary choices are made. Sometimes the 80/20 rule needs to be bent a little and it’s okay not to seek perfectionist results. The 80/20 rule is actually just a guideline – life doesn’t always abide by the rules!
Thanks for reading, my spoonie friends! I hope these tips will serve you well.
