How eating fresh produce can save you money and improve your health

My eyes practically bulge out of my head every time I push my shopping cart around the grocery store's produce section.

$4.00 for a package of clementine "cuties"?

$1.25 for a pound of apples?

One million dollars for a pint of raspberries? (that's what it feels like anyway)

But this is nothing compared to junk food prices:

$5.00 for a package of cookies?

$4.00 for a quart of good ice cream?

$1.25 for a bag of candy?

This week's tip for eating healthy on a budget is to avoid pre-packaged snack foods.

Food companies work hard to make us think we need packaged snack foods. They tell us that prepackaged foods are easy, affordable and fun (and they are!). Food companies market "healthy" packaged snack food as the key to eating well.

For example:

fruit snacks with real fruit juice vs. fruit snacks with corn syrup

less salt potato chipsvs. full salt potato chips

high protein granola bars vs. regular granola bars

And the list goes on.

Some of these options ARE definitely healthier! But the real way to eat healthy and save money is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks instead of pre-packaged snack foods.

Buying fruits + veggies will save you money in 3 ways

1. They cost less than chips and candy

2. You'll eat less, so you'll spend less on food overall

3. You'll be healthier, which saves money on medical and dental bills

Don't believe me?

Check out the numbers below (prices obtained from walmart.com on April 5, 2023):

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Fruit Snacks: $7.98 for 40 pouches,

25 cents per pouch

Clementines: $3.98 for 3 pounds:

19 cents per clementine

Apples: about $1.00 for 1 pound:

25 cents per quarter apple (which is about the same volume as 1 pkg fruit snacks)

1/2 banana: 13 cents (about the same volume as 1 pkg of fruit snacks)

Health bonus of fresh fruits + veggies: fiber + cancer-fighting phytochemicals and vitamins! Also, fruits and veggies do not cause tooth decay (cavities)!

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Reeses Peanut Butter Cup: $1.24

(only 1.5 ounces of food!)

1/2 Apple with 2 Tablespoons peanut butter (9 oz total!): $0.60

1/2 cup oatmeal with peanut butter + chocolate chips: $0.40 (it's really yummy I promise!)

Health bonus of apple + peanut butter: fiber, protein and healthy fats keep you full, so you'll eat less later. Plus apples are full of vitamins and peanut butter has iron and zinc!

Health bonus of oatmeal: fiber, protein and healthy fats are very satisfying and curb appetite later in the day. Oatmeal is a good source of zinc, iron and B-vitamins for energy!

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1 cup of Gummy Candy: $1.25

1 cup of Grapes (when in season): $0.35

1 cup of cherries (when in season): $0.50

1 cup of apple slices: $0.50

Health bonus of fresh fruit: fiber + vitamins and phytochemicals to help your digestive system. Major health benefit: fruit does not cause tooth decay like candy does! Buy less candy and save money at the dentist!

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Great Value Veggie Straws: $2.74 for 7oz, or 40 cents per serving

Bag of baby carrots: $2.44 or 25 cents per serving

Bag of sugar snap peas: 2.88 or 58 cents per serving

Bag of celery: $1.84 or 20 cents per serving

Health bonus of fresh veggies: No salt or unhealthy fats in fresh vegetables! Plus vegetables are full of vitamins and minerals kids need for growing!

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Potato chips: $3.68 for 8 ounces

Cucumber slices:$0.78 for 8 ounces

Roasted potatoes: $0.50 for 8 ounces

Baby carrots: $0.90 for 8 ounces

Even low-salt chips have a lot of added salt! Roast your own potatoes or carrots if you are craving a crunchy salty snack!

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3 Tubes gogurt simply: $0.30

The same amount of plain yogurt: $0.16

Health bonus of plain yogurt: No added sugars. Kids should limit their sugar intake to 25 grams per day. Even gogurt simple (which is lower in sugar than regular gogurt) has 5 grams of sugar per tube. Plain yogurt has none.

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Granola Bars: $3.84/package, 16 cents per bar

Banana Oat Cookies: $2.72, 11 cents per cookie

Health bonus of homemade oatmeal cookies: 1 cookie has 5 grams healthy fats, 1.5 grams fiber, 3 grams protein and only 2.7 grams added sugar. Granola bars have 0 grams of fiber and 8 grams of added sugar!

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And the biggest money saver is: WATER!

12 oz water = FREE

12 oz soda = 33 cents (for the Walmart brand)

12 oz sparkling water = 35-40 cents (sugar-free and artificial sweetener free, a much healthier choice than soda if you crave the fizz!!!)

If you drink 1 can per day, you spend $130 a year on soda!

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Eating healthy can be more expensive (I'm looking at you, fresh raspberry pints), but it doesn't have to be.

When you choose fresh in-season produce instead of packaged snack food, you'll save yourself a ton of money at the grocery store (and improve your health!).

Did this article encourage you to eat healthier? Send me an email to let me know: nicolebuhlerRD@gmail.com

See you next week with my final tip on how to save money and eat healthier!

Easy ways to save money and eat healthier at breakfast!

If you ask my son for his top 3 favorite foods, he'll probably say: Candy! Ice cream! and....OATMEAL!

My son as a baby loving his blueberry oatmeal

This week's money-saving grocery tip is: Eat oatmeal instead of cold cereal.

Here's what we will cover in this blog post:

1) How Oatmeal Saves Money on Breakfast

2) How Oatmeal Saves Money on Lunch

3) Why You Can Eat An Entire Box of Cereal and Still Feel Hungry

4) Cheap + Easy Recipes to Try

5) How to Choose a healthier cereal

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

One serving of oatmeal is only 12 cents less than cold cereal. That equates to savings of $40 a year if you choose oatmeal instead of store-brand cold cereal every day (see chart below)

40$ doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up over time! That's $3,200 in savings for a family of four over 20 years.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

That calculation was done comparing Great Value Toasted O's (Walmart brand Cheerios) and Great Value 42 oz quick oats. If you compare name-brand cereal, or if you buy oats in bulk, you'll save even more money! See the chart below:

Name Brand Sugar Cereal	Great Value Toasted O's	Great Value Oatmeal
36 cents per serving (1+1/2 cups)	25 cents per serving (1+1/2 cups)	13 cents per serving (1/2 cup)
cost per year: $131	cost per year: $90	cost per year: $50
cost for 4 people for 20 years: $10,480	​cost for 4 people for 20 years: $7,200	cost for 4 people for 20 years: $4,000

If you usually buy name-brand cereal, choosing oatmeal instead will save $6,000 dollars over 20 years. But, like a cheesy infomercial host, I'm going to say "the money savings don't stop there."

How oatmeal helps you spend less on lunch

Oatmeal also helps you eat less later in the day. When you eat less, you spend less.

Oatmeal is scientifically proven to keep you full.

Scientists studied oatmeal and Cheerios to see which would keep people full longer.

Study participants were given equal amounts of oatmeal or Cheerios. After one hour, the oatmeal eaters were still full. Oatmeal also helped people eat less at lunch.(2)

A different research study had the same findings, but with cornflakes instead of Cheerios. (3).

Oatmeal is more filling than cold cereal.

I occasionally buy cold cereal for fun, but not very often.

Why?

My kids eat an entire box in one sitting and then ask for a snack an hour later. Cold cereal doesn't fill us up or keep us full.

Why Can You Eat an Entire Box of Cereal and Still Feel Hungry?

Oatmeal and Great Value Toasted O's have similar amounts of fat, protein and fiber.

1/2 cup instant oatmeal	1/2 cup great value toasted oats
​3 grams fat (all healthy fats)	3 grams fat (1 g saturated fat)
4 grams fiber	3 grams fiber
5 grams protein	5 grams protein
0 grams added sugar	0 grams added sugar

If they are almost the same, why doesn't cereal keep you full?

The oatmeal in cold cereal is cooked, mixed and ground before it's baked into O-shapes.

In other words, it's highly processed.

Highly processed fiber doesn't fill up your stomach.

Researchers in the "cereal vs. oatmeal" studies think that a tummy full of "instant oatmeal fiber" empties slower than a stomach full of "cold cereal fiber."

This means you stay full longer if you eat oatmeal because the oatmeal literally fills up your stomach longer.

None of this matters if you don't like oatmeal.

You might be thinking "I don't care if oatmeal is cheap and filling because I don't like oatmeal."

I get that.

When I was a kid I'd rather go hungry than eat oatmeal. We ate oatmeal a lot and I went hungry often. I hated everything about oatmeal: the smell, the bland taste, the feel of globby lumps between my teeth.

I didn't give oatmeal a second chance until I was an adult. A friend suggested that I try 2-minute microwave oatmeal with frozen berries. Fifteen years later, I eat oatmeal with berries almost every morning.

Food preferences can change.

Adding frozen berries makes oatmeal just as expensive as cereal. But berries and oatmeal are 1,000 times more nutritious than cold cereal....and much more filling!

I make also this 2-minute peanut butter oatmeal recipe for my family almost every day.

Peanut butter adds 11 cents per serving, but a kid who eats a bowl of peanut butter oatmeal is NOT going to ask for food until lunchtime.

Oatmeal cooked in milk with 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter = 20g protein, 15 grams of healthy fat and only 4 grams of added sugar (kids only need 13g of protein/day!).

Sometimes I experiment with overnight oatmeal or baked oatmeal recipes from this website: https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/breakfast/oats/

Autumn Fruit and Nut Oatmeal from Budgetbytes.com

My point here is: do not give up on oatmeal. It's cheap, nutritious and filling. Give oatmeal a chance, it might become one of your favorite foods too.

Still not convinced?

It is 100% okay to love cold cereal.

If you have to choose between skipping breakfast.....or having cold cereal.....please eat cold cereal!

If you are going to buy cold cereal, look for whole grain varieties with 3+ grams of fiber and less than 5 grams of added sugars. They are healthier and less expensive than sugar cereals!

Choose cereal high in fiber and low in "added sugars"

Many cereals have 12 grams of sugar, which is HALF of your child's limit for the day (25 grams).

Cereal	Added Sugar
oatmeal	0 grams (+2 grams with 2T peanut butter)
cheerios	1 gram
great value toasted o's	0 grams
generic rice squares	3 grams
kix	4 grams
corn flakes	4 grams
Lucky Charms	12 grams
Reeses Puffs	12 grams
Frosted Shredded Wheat	12 grams
Frosted Flakes	12 grams

Choose a whole grain, low sugar cereal to save money and eat healthier.

Summary

I hope after reading this article, you'll be inspired to:

1. Pat yourself on the back for eating oatmeal

2. Try oatmeal if you haven't before

3. Choose healthier, lower-cost cereals

Maybe oatmeal will become a favorite food at your house too!

See you next week with another way to save money while eating healthy.

Thanks for reading!

Nicole

References:

1) Prices and nutrition fact labels were referenced from walmart.com on April 5, 2023. The nutritional content of oatmeal was obtained from the USDA Nutrient Analysis Library, which you can access here: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/

2) Rebello, Candida J et al. “Instant Oatmeal Increases Satiety and Reduces Energy Intake Compared to a Ready-to-Eat Oat-Based Breakfast Cereal: A Randomized Crossover Trial.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition vol. 35,1 (2016): 41-9. doi:10.1080/07315724.2015.1032442 Accessed online here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26273900/

3) Rebello, Candida J et al. “The role of meal viscosity and oat β-glucan characteristics in human appetite control: a randomized crossover trial.” Nutrition journal vol. 13 49. 28 May. 2014, doi:10.1186/1475-2891-13-49 Accessed online here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24884934/

4) Geliebter, Allan et al. “Effects of oatmeal and corn flakes cereal breakfasts on satiety, gastric emptying, glucose, and appetite-related hormones.” Annals of nutrition & metabolism vol. 66,2-3 (2015): 93-103. doi:10.1159/000365933 Accessed online here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25612907/

4 easy ways to save money and eat healthier

Do you think that healthy eating is more expensive than unhealthy eating? I sure do!

Look at ground beef: 93% Lean ground beef is about $1.50 more per pound than 80% lean ground beef.

Apples are about $1.00 each. A package of fruit snacks is $0.25.

A loaf of cheap white bread is $1.50, and cheap whole wheat bread is $1.88.

White pasta? $0.98.

Whole wheat pasta? $1.48.

Let's not even discuss organic produce!

So yes, healthy eating is more expensive.

But not always.

Sometimes, healthy eating can be LESS expensive.

And to show you how, I will share one "Cheaper, Healthier Nutrition Choice." every week for the next 3 weeks. We will start this week off with lentils.

Cheaper, Healthier Choice #1: lentils

Lentils are a type of legume (think: bean). There are many different types of lentils (pictured above are green, french, and red!). The most common type is brown. Lentils are a staple food in many other countries.

1 bag of brown lentils costs $1.34 at Walmart. That bag makes 6 cups cooked lentils. An adult serving is about 1 cup. By doing the math you can see that one serving of lentils (1.24/6) equals

22 CENTS!

That 22 cents provides 18 grams of protein, 0 grams fat and 15 grams of fiber. This is by far the least expensive source of protein on the planet.

Compare that to a hamburger patty, which costs about $1.00 (just the patty) and has 20 grams of protein, 12 grams of fat and 0 grams of fiber. The lentils are lower in fat, higher in fiber, and have about the same amount of protein, win-win!

The problem, you may be thinking, is that you don't like lentils.

Or you don't know how to cook them.

Or you don't have time to cook them.

Or, you don't care if they cost less; you like ground beef and it's worth the cost!

I can help you with all those problems during this month's cooking class! We're cooking lentil sloppy joes. Families enrolled in DDI Vantage Early Head Start can sign up for the class by clicking this link: https://forms.gle/zpvrPLmdWaCC9Mfe9

If you aren't enrolled in DDI Vantage Early Head Start, you can still join the class. However, supplies will only be delivered to enrolled Early Head Start participants.

If you love ground beef, I have another idea for you: stretch your meat with lentils. Add 1/2 cup of pre-cooked lentils to 3/4 pound of ground beef and cook it like you normally would for 1 pound of beef in tacos, spaghetti sauce, or meatloaf. This will "stretch" your ground meat. If you liked it okay with 1/2 cup of lentils, try using 1 cup lentils next time with 1/2 pound of ground beef.

You could also try this lentil taco recipe. I've never met someone who didn't at least "tolerate" these tacos.

I'm not going to lie and say that they are better than meat tacos.

Lentil tacos are not better than meat tacos.

I love meat tacos.

But they are cheaper, healthier, and convenient if you want tacos but don't have ground beef.

Let me know what you link about lentils!

Healthy eating can be expensive. But it doesn't have to be.

See you next week with another way to save! Don't forget to sign up for April's cooking class, signups close April 12th https://forms.gle/zpvrPLmdWaCC9Mfe9