I know, I’m always on the bandwagon for organic foods, minimizing your intake of sugar and eating power nutrient rich foods.
I also know that organic foods are often ridiculously expensive.
I also know we’re all crazy busy and we don’t have hours a day to prepare super healthy meals. Sometimes we don’t; even have minutes to satisfy hungry families.
I get it!
But I’m also here to tell you that you can make some basic foods very easily, cheaply and take advantage of some of the healthiest foods ever.
Here are a couple of my favorites: Yogurt and sprouts (not necessarily together):
Yogurt: We’re learning more every day about the health value of fermented foods to help heal the gut lining and prevent a host of chronic diseases. Yogurt is an essential part of that process.
BUT—and this is a big but—most commercially sold yogurt is full of sugar, neutralizing any health benefits at all. On top of that, organic yogurt is expensive—a quart of Stonyfield Farms organic Greek yogurt online is $8.39. Wow! It may be a little less in your supermarket, but that’s out of just about everyone’s reach.
My solution: Make my own. It’s easy.
I buy a half-gallon of organic whole milk for $2.95 at my local Aldi’s. (I love Aldi’s—lots of organic stuff for reasonable prices.)
You’ll need the smallest possible container of organic yogurt for your first run (usually four ounces—a bit of overkill, but you can actually just eat half of it if you like). All you need is two tablespoons. After that, just use your starter from previous batches.
Just gently heat your milk to boiling. Let it cool to baby bottle temperature and stir in the yogurt starter.
Now all you need to do is provide a warm environment for the yogurt culture to multiply.
Put the milk and yogurt in some well-cleaned jars with lids.
Wrap them in a towel and put them in a cooler along with a pan of boiling water. By morning, you’ll have two quarts of organic yogurt. You’ve spent $1.50 a quart and maybe 15 minutes of your time.
No cooler? Just put the towel-wrapped containers and boiling water in your oven without turning it on.
The yogurt will last in your frig for at least a week. Be sure to save a little for your next batch.
Sprouts: I know, there’s a bit of a yuck factor in sprouts for some people and perhaps boredom for others. Both are bit of the reason why sprouts fall off my nutrition radar screen from time to time, but I always come back to them. Read on—I have the solution for that!
Sprouts are incredibly high in nutrients—more even than spinach and kale. They’re high in protein—who knew? Pound for pound, lentil sprouts are a better source of protein than red meat, chicken or fish—and low in calories (less than 60 calories a cup of instantly absorbed protein—with virtually no fat). Plus, all sprouts are excellent sources of vitamins A and C and Omega-3 fatty acids.
Hard to make? Nah! All you need is 1.5 T of seeds, a quart jar and a piece of cheesecloth to tie around the top. Soak the seed overnight, drain off the water, invert your jar in a bowl to catch runoff and rinse them daily for 5 days until you have a full jar of tasty seeds. Kids love to watch them grow. Then store in the frig for a week with a folded dampened paper towel inside to keep them hydrated, but you’ll definitely eat them all before they go bad.
The answer to the boredom factor: I was hooked on alfalfa sprouts for years, but they simply became boring. Now I buy seed blends that include radish, broccoli, lentil, mung bean and alfalfa seeds. They’re a bit tangy and will keep my interest for a long time. The blends are a tiny bit more expensive, but worth it. I buy 1 pound organic mix online for $11.69 (smaller quantities are available if your budget won’t allow you to buy a pound at a time.
That gives me about 10 quarts of seeds for just over a dollar a quart. Huge nutrition for a low price!
These are just healthy foods you can easily make in your kitchen for very little money.
Please share your own low-cost nutrition secrets with me–I’ll publish them here with credit to you.
By the way: A bit of a disclaimer: I don’t get any compensation or discount for Aldi’s or True Leaf market for mentioning their products.
