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Bill Klaproth: With a relentless focus on excellence in health care, Pullman Regional Hospital presents the Health Podcast.

Many people are taking a closer look at their budget nowadays and wondering how to trim the food budget. So how can you accomplish that? But still continue to eat healthy on a budget? Let's find out what Leah Haak Beck, a registered dietician with nutrition therapy at Pullman Regional Hospital.

Leah, thank you so much for your time. So first off, what are some basic tips for people trying to eat healthy on a tight budget? So let's go over a couple of these. How about meal planning?

Leah Haak Beck: Yes, absolutely. Meal planning is one of the top things I actually talk about with clients or patients. And it's so great because it actually takes a lot of the guesswork out of your meals during the week. So one of the ways that this can help you save money, is it really minimizes waste, which is essentially throwing away your money. I don't know how many times I've had really good intentions, purchased a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially fresh ones and then before I could even use them, they were slimy in my fridge. So if I have planned to use for those, then I can use them before they spoil and keep that money in my pocket and not throw it in the garbage can.

Host: Yeah. That's a good idea.

Leah: Yeah. So I usually recommend whatever works best for them. So maybe they plan for the week or maybe they plan for two weeks. I even have some folks who plan for the whole month. So it just kind of depends on what works best for you, but planning can really make a big difference in making use of those items that you do buy. So you're not just buying off the cuff or a bit randomly and things can kind of get forgotten.

Host: Right. So meal planning is at the top of the list. It's really important to try to sit down and be disciplined to do that. Okay. So let's turn to low cost produce.

Leah: Yes. So produce is one of those items that can be spendy depending on what things you're buying. So purchasing things in season is a great way to get higher quality and better tasting fruits and vegetables from lower costs. Sometimes, things like local farmer's markets can be a great place to, produce and support your local farmers. But say it's winter time and things are not in season. And you can imagine that the, fruits and vegetables don't always taste as good when they're not in season. So that's when something like a frozen or even a canned, fruit or vegetable can come in handy. Fruits and vegetables that have been canned or frozen are actually pretty similar nutritionally. And in some cases more nutritious than fresh, they're able to be picked at the peak of freshness and ripeness, when the produce has the most nutrition and it's preserved through that canning process or the freezing process. So that's a great way to, get less expensive things when they're not in season. And that being said, checking things out when they're on sale is also a great way to stock up on those fresh fruits and veggies.

Host: Right. A good way to stock up and still eat healthy on a budget. So how about this one which I'm sure we've all had trouble with at some time or another sticking to a grocery list.

Leah: Yes, absolutely. This is one of the most challenging things for me, especially as a food lover, I love to just browse the grocery aisles and see what's new and interesting. However, it can be very tempting to grab things that are not on our list that maybe we don't need. So really having a plan, having that list and sticking to it can really help you stay on budget rather than, you know, grabbing those miscellaneous items and next thing you know, you spent 20 heck you could easily spend $50 extra on things that you might not even eat. And the amount of time you have before they go bad, or they just are not really necessary because you've already planned your meals right. So it's really important to try to stick to that.

Host: Yeah, that is so true. And then another one I know people struggle with me too. Don't go shopping when you're hungry, right?

Leah: Oh my gosh. Yes. when you're hungry, everything looks good. Right? So it's really easy. you know, ooh, that looks really good. I'm going to grab some of that too, and it can make it a lot harder to stick to your grocery list, and to stay on budget. So absolutely going, maybe after you've eaten a meal or a snack to kind of balance your blood sugars, and get you in a good state of mind for that budget friendly shopping.

Host: Right. And then what about eating out? That can be a budget killer as well. Tell us your thoughts on that.

Leah: Yeah. So restaurant, are extremely expensive compared to what you can make at home. I'm sure, you know, feeding a family at a restaurant you can easily spend over a hundred dollars depending on what type of restaurant you're going to. Whereas, if you're shopping for groceries, you could easily feed your family for a week or more depending on what kind of items you're buying and how savvy of a shopper you are. So restaurants really can be a budget killer. But eating at restaurants is a part of life, right? And there's not always time or maybe you just want to eat out for fun. That's something that you can budget for. So maybe you have that in your overall budget, as far as your food budget goes and you allocate a certain amount of money to eating out so you can still enjoy and have fun. but keep it in check. Or have some sort of parameters that you want to stick to when it comes to eating out.

Right. So you can still eat out, but plan for it and budget it in. So that's good advice. Alright, so let's talk about proteins now. Proteins can be very spendy. How should we buy proteins on a budget?

Leah: Yes, beans and lentils are excellent ways to stretch out your budget. I love to use things like black beans, pinto beans, lentils, in my recipes, sometimes in place of an animal protein, or you could do it in addition, you could, reduce the animal protein to maybe half and then replace the other half with those beans or lentils so that you can still get adequate protein in your meal, but you've reduced the cost quite a bit, and that can really help stretch out your meat budget as well for your family. Things like eggs are also great. Eggs are quite an expensive and really a nutrition powerhouse. So eggs are an excellent way to get some more protein on a budget as well.

Host: Good thoughts on how to buy proteins on a budget. So now let's flip to produce, are there nutritional differences between frozen and fresh produce and how should we buy fresh or frozen produce on a budget? I know you touched on that briefly before, but maybe you can go a little bit more in depth on that.

Leah: Yes. When a fruit or vegetable is in season, that is when they're going to be the most nutritious and their most tasty, and least expensive. So there's kind of a win, win, win there. However, when they're not, buying something that's been frozen or, even cans can actually have very, very similar nutrition, if not better than what you can find from fresh at the time. So like I was saying, if it's something is out of season, frozen is going to be your best bet that they're frozen when they're the most nutritious, and, you're going to get the best nutrition and cost savings bang for your buck. Some canned products actually have more nutrition than fresh. For example, fresh tomatoes, wonderful. However, when the tomato is canned, and cooked a bit, it actually, helps our body to absorb the nutrients from the tomato better. So in that case, the canned tomatoes are more nutritious.

Host: Hmm. I did not know that. So it sounds like when it comes to produce think frozen, that may be the better bet.

Leah: Yes, frozen is kind of my secret weapon as well. Even if things are in season, if you need to be planning out a little bit longer term, so maybe you're planning for the month for your groceries and a month worth of fresh fruit is not gonna last in the fridge. It's going to get Swami before then. So sometimes I might recommend, to have kind of a mixture of some fresh and some frozen produce so that once you get towards the end, you still got that available but it's got a much longer shelf life.

Host: So again, it sounds like frozen is the way to go. No one likes slimy produce or vegetables, right? Yuck. Yeah. So if you could wrap this up for us, Leah, we would appreciate it. Any final thoughts or tips for eating healthy on a budget?

Leah: Yeah, I do have a couple of other ideas to share. So one tip I like to share is to check out the generic brands, really anything you might compare it on the back of the box and sometimes the ingredients are the same. And in fact, some generic products are actually produced in the same factories, the same production facilities, and they just have a different label. So they're the exact same product. So you can do a little bit of sleuthing there, by checking out, the backs of the containers and seeing what's in it. And a lot of times it’s either very similar or the same thing. So generic products can be a great way to save money when you're on a budget.

Host: So there's another useful tip. Don't forget about generic. That's another good way to eat healthy on a budget. Leah, this has really been informative. Thank you so much for your time.

Leah: Yeah. Thank you so much. It was fun to talk about.

Host: That’s Leah Haak Beck, and to learn more about healthy eating on a budget and providers and services at Pullman Regional Hospital, please visit pullmanregional.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is the Health Podcast from Pullman Regional Hospital. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.