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Hi, my name is Victor Owens and I'm a graduate dietetics student
at Eastern Illinois University.
I'm here today to talk to you about eating healthy
while on a budget.
The first thing you want to do is sit down and figure out
just how much money you have for the month for food.
Once you do that, then divide that by four and this will
tell you how much money you have for the week.
Once you know how much money you have for the week,
you want to make sure that you plan your meal
based on the food guide recomendations.
Okay, now we know how much money we have for the week,
we've based our menu on the food guide pyramid recommendations,
so we're ready to go shopping.
Not quite so fast.
We want to go and get a newspaper and look through
the flyers and pick out the coupons based on our menu.
Those coupons that fit what we're going to be purchasing
are the coupons that we want to get and apply to our menu.
Other coupons we won't really need.
So, now we have our menu, now we've based it on
the recommendations as far as the food guide pyramid so we
make sure we meet all of the recommendations of nutrition.
We're ready to go to the grocery store.
Not quite again.
Make sure everybody that's going to the grocery store is full.
Make sure everybody eats, your wife, your husband,
or your kids are full.
You don't want to go to the grocery store on
an empty stomach because this will defeat our purpose.
Now we're all ready.
Let's go to the grocery store.
We get to the grocery store of your choice, first thing you
want to do is shop the perimeter of the grocery store
at the outer sides of the grocery store.
That's where you're going to get your produce,
your dairy, and your meats.
And also, this will allow you to avoid the middle of
the grocery store where all the junk food and everything is,
we want to avoid that.
Now, you also want to pay close attention to unit price.
Unit price is the price per item cost per ounce.
So if you're in a dilemma between a big bottle
of 64 ounce ketchup and a small bottle,
just look at the unit price.
You can find it on the shelf of most items.
The unit price will let you know that, okay,
the big bottle of ketchup cost 32 cents an ounce
where the little bottle is 8 cents an ounce.
So that's the better deal.
You just buy two or three of the little bottles.
At the same time while paying attention to unit price,
you also want to consider generic items.
A lot of people don't really care for generic items,
so it's basically about preference.
Me, for example, I enjoy flavored rice,
so I buy a lot of flavored rice.
Here recently, I just found out one of my favorite flavored rice
is actually $2.14 a box, where the generic brand
of flavored rice is 78 cents and I've tried the generic
and compared it to the name brand
and I prefer the generic, so like I said that's
a preference, so at least give it consideration.
So now that you've considered generic, you know how to
check the unit price, let's go back to produce.
Now, produce can be very tricky, so when you're shopping for
your produce, one of the things you want to avoid is buying
single items like one apple or one onion or one potato.
Always buy these things in bagfuls.
Buy a bag of apples, a bag of grapefruits,
a bag of potatoes, a bag of onions.
If you buy them by the bagful you'll get your money's worth,
and you won't be back in the store later on in the week
because you need more potatoes or more apples.
Also, along with produce, you want to
consider fresh vegetables.
Fresh vegetables, when they're in season, are great.
Think about it.
You have farmers' markets in this area and everything,
so fresh vegetables in seasons will not cost you a lot,
but fresh vegetables out of season may be very pricey,
so then you consider frozen vegetables.
Frozen vegetables are picked at their peak and they're flash
frozen to hold all the nutrients and when vegetables are
out of season, frozen vegetables can be pretty reasonable.
So you definitely want to consider the frozen vegetables
when buying vegetables when fresh vegetables
are out of season.
Now, still on vegetables, remember we want to eat healthy,
so when you think about canned vegetables, yeah, they can be
very cheap, but they can be high in sodium.
So, you really have to consider if you're going to buy
canned vegetables, try to get canned vegetables
that are low in sodium.
Alright, before we move off of the vegetables and on to my
favorite, the meats, I want to also talk to you about cabbage,
pre-packaged cabbage, lettuce or carrots.
Yeah, they're convenient to buy them pre-packaged and shredded
up and already cut up for you and everything, but you have to
consider that you get less for your money.
They cost more and you're going to get less.
You buy the whole head of cabbage or the whole head
of lettuce and shred it up yourself.
If you like the convenience of the package and everything,
cut it up and put it in a baggie in your refrigerator.
It will give you the same effect.
Alright, let's move on to my favorite which is the meats.
Oh yes, the meats.
What you want to avoid there are marinated meats, skinless,
boneless meats, and already-seasoned meats.
Buy your chicken and skin it and season it yourself.
You'll save yourself money.
When buying beef, get 90% lean beef versus 95% lean beef,
because 90% lean beef, you can fry it up yourself and then
drain the excess fat and you'll save a little bit there.
Now, also, when you're cooking for your family and you cook
big pots of chili or spaghetti or stews and say you cook
a large pot of chili and you have a lot left.
Then what you want to do is bag and freeze the leftovers,
because later on in the week or a week later or a month later,
you can unthaw that chili and say you're having hotdogs for
lunch, you can put the leftover chili over the hotdogs
and you'll have chili dogs.
Or you can use the leftover chili over a baked potato and
you've got all of your money's worth out of that chili.
Now, let's move on to one of the most important things, I think,
in saving money on a budget is eating a couple of meals--
having a couple meals that are meatless, and this can be
as simple as using beans and rice--
cooking beans and rice in one meal.
That's a meatless meal and it's basically pennies per serving.
You will save a lot and you'll still be eating nutritiously.
Another meatless meal would be macaroni and cheese.
Macaroni and cheese is a favorite of a lot of people
and, like I said, it's a meatless meal,
and it's pennies per serving.
I hope these tips have helped you out a lot and remember,
we want to definitely save some of our money and save our
wealth at the same time we don't want to decrease our health.
♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.