Cheap food: it’s ubiquitous and a lot of it is downright awful for you. I’m talking about the stuff that makes your mouth water when you are hungry in the evenings. I’m talking about those delicious fatty, white-bread fumes wafting out of the fast food stores. Yum, cheap food.
However, we all know that the cheap food isn’t really all that cheap. It takes a toll on your health. You need fiber, you need fresh fruits and vegetables, you need whole grains. You can do this on the cheap too – it just takes some planning.
One of the most important elements of a home is a well-stocked pantry. But how can you stock your pantry without breaking the bank? While it’s possible to have a pantry full of gourmet items, it’s perfectly possible to have a full pantry without going into debt to achieve it.
What can you stock in your low-cost pantry? Store beans, peas and lentils. Store these in bulk and dried if at all possible, since the canned versions are much more expensive. Soak beans and lentils before you use them and they are much easier to cook.
Store whole grain flours and bake with them or store whole grain bread bought on sale. Place the bread in the freezer. If you get bread on sale, stock up but don’t get too much. It can go bad. If you’re baking, look to wonderful books like Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for ideas on how you can appear to be the perfect bread-maker without spending hours doing so.
Stock up on seasonal vegetables and fruit and store them in the freezer. Since freezing keeps most of the nutrients intact, turn to it before canning if possible. Blanch the vegetables beforehand if required. Berries like raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries are very easy to prepare and relatively inexpensive when bought from the farm in season. However, they are terribly expensive to buy in the winter.
Remember to rotate the items in your pantry. As you shop, buy something extra from the pantry and use something extra from the pantry that week. That way, your pantry is always full and nothing in it goes bad.
