Eat, drink and be merry… On a budget!

Photo by Bradmays via Wikimedia

Kesha Dorisma/Staff Writer

Eating healthy is an important activity that many people have chosen to neglect while instead, choosing to opt for whatever food options are the quickest, most convenient, or the tastiest and more often than not this means opting for foods that are high in fat and empty calories and low in nutritional value.

Eating healthy is not just important to get a nice body but most importantly it should be done for the sake of taking care of one’s body and providing it with all the nutrients that it needs in order to live a long, healthy life.

There is a common misconception that eating healthy means having to spend a lot of money on food. Those who think that eating healthy is too expensive and assert that their wishes to eat healthy is prohibited by lack of funds are ill-informed. I have found that I, as a healthy eater spend less money on food than my friends who choose to buy junk foods such as chips, cookies, ice cream and soda.

If you’re trying to eat healthy on the budget of a college student then there are a few things that one should keep in mind. Among these things is that one should skip the “organic” products at the market. In the food industry there is no set definition or criteria for the word organic. That means that companies can claim that their product is organic according to their own measures. For that reason one should ditch the idea that organic is any better than the “inorganic” products and save those couple of bucks.

Another thing worth noting about eating healthy on a budget is that there is nothing wrong with canned or frozen foods. Produce often take the biggest portion of one’s budget when shopping with a healthy grocery list but that cost could easily be cut down in half or maybe even 3 quarters simply by choosing canned or frozen goods instead. Now, it goes without saying that canned and frozen foods are not as delicious as fresh ones but they are certainly just as nutritious.

Eating out has to be the ultimate deal breaker for eating healthy on a budget. If you want to save money while still eating healthy, you are going to learn how to prepare you own foods. Eating out is expensive period and if you are looking for healthy options they are usually even more expensive. You may be the social outcast among your group of friends when you start to deny all their lunch invitations but the money you will save will hopefully make it worth it. Not only can you make the same meal for half the price that you would pay at a restaurant but you would also have leftovers that you can eat for a couple days after.

Despite popular beliefs eating healthy is not too expensive at all as long as you are willing to put the time and effort but it can certainly be done on the budget of any average college student.