many of you shared the biggest difficulties you've encountered while
trying to eat healthy and several people mentioned the money
factor, this idea that eating healthy is expensive and of course everybody is
struggling these days. i'm broke, i'm broke. but the truth is
some of the best foods are good for the body and the
pocket so let's look at nine key tips to eat cheap and healthy and at
the end we're gonna ask how much a meal would cost if we put
all of it together so get ready for some major savings
tip number one is be flexible i have people messaging me from uruguay
saying kale is really hard to find here or it's
really expensive, what do we do? don't eat it. eat your local greens and
save your green i'm spending time in portugal right now
kale is hard to find here so i eat portuguese cabbage which is
really good and it's dirt cheap. you don't need to
replicate someone's exact plate from instagram or youtube, it's
about the general principle, not the minutiae. the famous blue zones
where people live to very old ages and where there are a lot of
centenarians span asian, european, central and north american
cultures so the exact foods they eat vary
enormously. okinawans eat a lot of purple sweet potato,
costa ricans eat a lot of rice and beans and the greeks and sardinians eat a
classic mediterranean diet with a lot of vegetables and legumes, but despite these
local differences the pattern is very similar
across, lots of unprocessed plants, they're physically active
low stress and socially engaged. blue zone centenarians aren't running around
stressing out about kale they eat what they have locally. there
are no magical foods, the magic is in the overall pattern. so
don't sweat the details. focus on the big picture and save your
money. and speaking of legumes, that's tip number two. at around a dollar
a pound, you really can't go wrong with beans,
lentils and chickpeas. they're a concentrated source of protein,
iron, fiber and they're dirt cheap. legumes are almost too good to be true. a lot of
people write and say "i want to eat healthier but i don't want
to eliminate all the meat". totally doable. and here's some evidence:
researchers had people replace meat with beans and lentils only a couple days a
week same calories, same total amount of
protein across and they were still eating meat on the
other days. after two months, their cholesterol, their triglycerides,
their glucose and their insulin were all lower. so diet is not all or nothing,
black and white, even a partial change can pay some
dividends. okay, what about prices? average cost of a
pound of beans or lentils in the US is $1.45. ground beef is
around four bucks, regular steak is a little over six, if
you go to sirloin, it's more. matching for same amount of
protein, red meat is about four to five times more expensive than
beans. now, chicken is somewhere in the middle,
chicken breast is around twice as expensive as beans and if you choose
cheaper chicken parts you might be able to get even closer
the other thing to bear in mind are imitation meats. a lot of people think
that if they cut back on meat they gotta eat a lot of veggie burgers
and processed soy but the truth is those products can cost
as much or more than meat and they're not your best health bet
anyway. overall, beans and lentils deliver the biggest
health bang for your buck. okay but this video is about the ka-ching
so let's lower those prices some more. tip number three is bulk. we said the
national average for beans and lentils is about $1.45 a pound
forget that. how about half that price? lentils
at 72 cents if you buy them in bulk. red lentils, even cheaper
64 cents a pound. next they're going to be paying us to get it off their hands
i feel like a used car salesman. come on down
by the way, i don't get a penny from any of the links of this video, it's all just
googled. how about some grains? barley, 87 cents a
pound. one of the best sources of soluble fiber,
lowers your cholesterol, dirt cheap. here's oats,
90 cents a pound. that's 22 cents a cup. breakfast of champions for
22 cents. and this was all a quick google search, it's not like i went to the deep
web. in fact maybe you can beat that price. if
you know a place that sells it even cheaper
definitely link it below and feel free to gloat. even fancier foods you can buy
in bulk. in fact sometimes there the difference
is even more dramatic. here's flaxseed at a dollar a pound
grind it in the mixer, sprinkle over your oatmeal,
there's your ALA, there's your omega-3s. one tablespoon comes down to less than
two cents. add to the bowl of oatmeal, you got
breakfast for 24 cents. you can pay with a quarter and still get
change. you can get your flax seeds and your
organic goji berries at whole foods and leave your entire
paycheck there or you can do this and get it
almost for free. now, obviously bulk is easier for dry goods like legumes and
grains because they last forever but even
vegetables and meats you can buy in bulk and freeze and
that's tip number four. we covered in a previous video how
frozen vegetables aren't any worse than fresh and may even be superior
here's frozen mixed veggies, a dollar a pound. broccoli, a dollar
thirty a pound. corn for a dollar, spinach for a dollar
thirty. it's even cheaper if you consider there's no waste
how often do you buy vegetables and you put them in the back of the fridge
and you kind of forget about them and later they're brown
or they're moldy or they're old and you throw some away? that's money down the
drain. that's the beauty of frozen, it preserves
the nutrients, it lasts forever and it's zero waste. i'm not against
fresh, i'm just saying frozen is fine too and if it saves you
some hard earned ka-ching, do it. now, all of those are right off of
the walmart website and that's tip number five. being careful
about where we shop can save big bucks. now, that sounds kind of
obvious but we often get in a rut of going to the same place over and over
and we don't even remember why anymore. here in this neighborhood within a one
block radius i can find the same fruit at three times the price. massive
difference. when i used to live in LA one of the
tricks was to go to hispanic supermarkets, they had
crazy low prices. local farmers markets and fairs are great options too
cheap and local. or we can go to whole foods and give the cashier our car keys
to cover the groceries. i like this whole foods bashing thing
let's keep going. whole foods is not gonna sponsor this video
all right, tip number six: forget the organic produce
this is a bit controversial because organic has a reputation for being
healthier and more environmentally conscious but
is it? very few long-term studies have been published and the results
haven't been consistent so the jury is still out
on whether organic delivers any actual health benefits. the environmental
picture is similar. greenhouse gas emissions are
pretty much a tie between organic and conventionally raised
and for things like land use and acidification which are other
environmental concerns, organic may actually perform worse. this
isn't me saying definitely don't buy organic,
it's me saying if money's a problem don't sweat it
organic is probably not a huge factor. okay, what if money is not a problem?
you're just, you're balling, you don't care. okay, settle down jeff bezos
if you want to buy organic just in case, just on the off chance that a health
issue is demonstrated in the future, i don't think that's an unreasonable
position. but whether you're rolling in cash or
hard-strapped, take home message here is make sure you get your fruits and
vegetables. an ocean of evidence indicates the
benefits of eating plant foods far outweighs any potential concerns of
pesticides and organic. and speaking of oceans, tip number seven
is water. americans spend more money on soft
drinks than any other food item. $850 a year for the average household. now if
you're watching this channel you're probably not average when it comes to
food but sodas and juices and other
commercial drinks can add up real fast. we all know water is healthier
but it doesn't taste as good as coke and that's the problem right?
one trick is to put some slices of fruit in your water and refrigerate
the water becomes flavored with the fruit for an easier transition
off of sugary drinks. tea is another healthy option
you can also dip some lemon peel in the water, zap it in the microwave and boom,
lemon tea for free. because the lemon peel was gonna be trash anyway right? you
can have it hot or cold and you can make a whole jug. good for
your health, good for your wealth. okay what about
bottled water? that's cleaner right? so we kind of need
to get it? actually many brands of bottled water
are basically tap water. in many US cities the requirements
for tap water purity are actually stricter than for bottled water. if
you're not sure, if you're worried, you can double check. i once bought some
cheap chemical tests online for some common contaminants like lead,
aluminum, bacteria, stuff like that and i just quickly tested my tap water
in LA and everything looked great, within the recommended margins, so i just kept
drinking it. it's the same here in europe, tap water is highly purified and tightly
controlled. now, i know in some countries that's not the case so
this is going to be a bit location-dependent
also, some people don't like the taste of tap water so one option is to buy a home
filter. probably pays for itself over weeks or
months with what you save from bottled water plus you avoid the plastic
contamination, the BPAs and the environmental impact. i take my
glass water bottle with me everywhere i go. bottled water is an
insane business model, you're selling something that's
essentially free. depending which one you get, you may be paying more for your
bottled water than your gas. how is that possible? the
richest man in china as of last week is a multi-billionaire who sells bottled
water. go figure. all right, seven down, two to go. while
we're on the topic of drinks, tip number eight is make your own milk
for plant milks, i mean. for cow milk it's gonna be a little harder
you're gonna need a bigger kitchen. making plant milk is super easy, even
with my non-existent kitchen skills it worked the first time i tried it
three steps: soak, grind and filter. and the third step is
optional. i'll include some links and some recipes below
almond milk is two to four bucks in the US and if you buy your almonds in bulk
you can make it for $1.50. over a year or more the savings can add
up. and the leftovers that you filter out, that's
almond meal and you can use that to cook. and you avoid all the preservatives and
the artificial stuff in the commercial milk
so that's another 50 cents on our bowl of oatmeal from earlier
if you want to have it with some homemade almond milk. another option is
oat milk, which is even cheaper. okay, we're in the finish line here, tip
number nine is batch cooking. it goes hand in hand with bulk shopping
buy in bulk, batch cook, freeze for the long run. save
time and money. building this habit to cook more at home
saves big cash and can really boost your health. when i
was working long hours in the lab i took all my meals in tupperwares, batch
cooked. probably saved thousands of dollars over the years and
i was in control of what i ate. doesn't mean you can't go to a
restaurant once in a while for a change but
eating out of restaurants on a daily basis can be really tough
on your health and your wealth. all right, time to put all of this together and see
how cheap we can get for a healthy meal. here's this spinach and lentil dhal on
the BBC page. nice and fancy. pass the lentil dhal, please
so, bulk lentils, 72 cents a pound, that's 18
cents per cup. frozen spinach was a dollar 30 per pound
so it comes down to 33 cents per cup. sweet potato is less
than a dollar a pound so even if you eat a whole sweet potato
that's a whopping 30 cents. so we're at 81 cents per person and we
got all our staples. now, we want to add some flavor, we're not
savages. onion, garlic, turmeric, pepper, some olive oil if
you want. let's say those condiments double the
price. it's going to be way less but let's be generous
and say they double the price. that's $1.62
per person for that BBC meal. family of four
dines for $6.48. give me a break with the healthy foods being
expensive, next time you hear that, link this video,
i'm out. here's me shopping and applying some of
these principles in the real world and here's a full day of eating