EAT MORE, SPEND LESS! - Jamie Lynn

People say that it is too expensive to eat healthy. My response is, “It is too expensive not to.”  Have you compared the cost of high quality food to doctors bills, pharmaceuticals, supplements, and the price of disease?  How about lost work hours do to feeling poorly?

Aside from keeping you fundamentally healthy, eating healthier foods will satisfy you and therefore you will not feel the need to eat again in 15 minutes after you have just finished dinner.  Cheap, packaged and processed foods may fill you up for the moment, but then you’ll be looking in the frig in less than 15 minutes, often times reaching for sugar or salt foods to satisfy your cravings from the insulin ride resulting from all the crap in the packaged foods.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Buy your staple foods in bulk
• Get involved in a food coop or buying club (Azure Standard in the NW part of the country)
• When fruits and veggies go on sale, stock up and freeze
• avoid buying ‘healthy’ packaged/refined foods from the health food store!  just because the label says ‘organic’ does not mean a packaged food is better for you!  There is little difference between an organic potato chip and a conventional one.
• Buy winter storage veggies directly from your local farmers: potatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash
• Store bulk veggies in a cool dark place
• Buy local GRASS FED ORGANIC beef by the ½ or whole and freeze, same with local raised chickens
• stop buying bottled water and invest in a quality water filter and bring your water with you

Yes, organic foods cost more.  Here is a list of the top contaminated foods that MUST be purchased organic:

Apples                        Peaches            potatoes            spinach

Cherries            yams                        bell peppers            strawberries

Grapes            cucumbers            carrots            celery

Less contaminated foods that relatively safe if they are NOT organic:

Avocado            mango            onion                        banana

Pineapple            blueberries            plums                        broccoli

Whenever possible, I personally will purchase organic, it just tastes better. Try doing a taste test, bananas are a great place to start, or apples.    See what you think.

Eating healthy does not have to be expensive, nor does it have to be hard. Yes, it does take some planning ahead, but make it FUN!!  Enjoy getting healthy, enjoy watching your family thrive.

[Via http://genesistransformation.wordpress.com]