Eating a well balanced and wholesome diet is important for our wellbeing and it can be done without digging a deep hole in our pockets. Especially in these times of financial distress, it becomes more important to plan, shop for and prepare foods and meals in a budget wise manner.
Listed below are some resources that will offer help.
Online Resources and Articles:
- This video from Consumer Reports will help you shop smart for foods with health benefits.
- Save big bucks on your food shopping with this video from Consumer Reports.
- This link from the USDA’s website Choose My Plate offers useful tips like creating a grocery game plan, shopping smart and preparing easy healthy meals
- Here is useful information on food planning during the pandemic.
Books and Ebooks to borrow from the Library:
Affordable Paleo Cooking with your Instant Pot: Quick Clean Meals on a Budget by Jennifer Robbins
Robbins shows you how to use easy-to-find, less expensive ingredients to create amazingly flavorful, healthy meals in half the time with your Instant Pot® or other multifunction cooker. These recipes make healthy eating easy and attainable on any budget, any night of the week.
Budget Cooking For One – Vegetarian: Vegetarian Dishes by Penelope R. Oates
Part 1 of the Budget Cooking for One series
This will provide you with some ideas for quick, cheap, nutritious and tasty vegetarian dishes for one as well as stimulate your imagination so you can invent your own.
Budget Recipes For One ~ Single Serving Desserts by Karen Connell
Part of the Budget Cooking for One series
Documents quick and easy recipes for different types of desserts from baked to frozen, cakes and sweets to hot puddings that even a novice cook will easily be able to replicate.
Cook Once, Eat all Week: 26 Weeks of Gluten-free, Affordable Meal Prep to Preserve Your Time & Sanity by Cassy Joy Garcia
This book includes twenty-six weeks’ worth of dinners each centered around one protein, one vegetable, and one starch. From those basic components, Garcia shows you how to put together three varied and flavorful dishes that will seem anything but repetitive.
Cooking On A Budget: A Short Read on Simple Strategies & Solutions that Work for Saving Money & Eating Healthy: Eat Healthy & Save Money by Ash Mahoney (Audiobook)
Are you thinking about eating healthy, but not sure how to save money? Would you like to begin healthy eating all while you budget like a pro? Then, Cooking on a Budget is for you!
Delicious Food On A Budget by Angela Oranye
A comprehensive book of recipes of divergent food designed to eat healthily on a budget.
Eating Well on a Budget: Amazing Meals for Less than $3 a Serving by Jessie Price
This book shows you how to make nutritious dinners that everyone in the family will love and get them on the table quickly without spending more–in most instances–than $3 a person. It costs out the ingredients, tells readers how to get the most nutrition bang for their buck, and even shows them where to splurge and where to save.
Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day by Leanne Brown
Created for people who have to watch every dollar—but particularly those living on the U.S. food stamp allotment of $4.00 a day—this is a cookbook filled with delicious, healthful recipes backed by ideas that will make everyone who uses it a better cook. The more than 100 recipes maximize every ingredient and teach economical cooking methods. Plus there are tips on shopping smartly and the minimal equipment needed to cook successfully.
How to Feed Yourself: 100 Fast, Cheap, and Reliable Recipes for Cooking When You Don’t Know What You’re DoingOffers healthy, simple, and affordable recipes for everyday meals, including such dishes as all-day breakfast tacos, curry chicken salad, beef chili ramen, loaded shrimp nachos, Mediterranean toast, easy fried rice, and bacon-wrapped dates.
Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals by Jamie Oliver
British chef Jamie’s approximately 100 recipes support his eat-better crusade by encouraging the trying of mix-and-matching ingredients, especially when fashioning the basics of, say, an omelet or a salad.
100 Days of Real Food on a Budget: Simple Tips and Tasty Recipes to Help You Cut Out Processed Food Without Breaking the Bank by Lisa Leake
Leake shares practical secrets for saving money in the kitchen: learning to plan ahead, getting the best deals on staple items, knowing what to make versus what to buy, growing your own herbs, and even reducing waste — which is currently twenty percent of all food purchased. This full-color cookbook includes shopping lists and prices for each recipe.
Secrets of Great Second Meals: Flexible Modern Recipes that Value Time and Limit Waste by Sara Dickerman
Learn to cook smarter, save time and money and enjoy great meals crafted from leftovers in a practical and creative cookbook that teaches readers to plan and prepare great “second meals.”
Simply Ming One-pot Meals: Quick, Healthy & Affordable Recipes by Ming Tsai & Arthur Boehm
Chef Tsai believes there are four basic needs in everyday cooking today: taste, healthfulness, simplicity, and affordability. So, in this groundbreaking cookbook, he tackles all four while offering 85 recipes for one-pot cooking.
Supermarket Healthy: Recipes and Know-how for Eating Well Without Spending A Lot by Melissa D’Arabian
Food Network personality Melissa d’Arabian shows you how to make healthy meals for your whole family and still save lots of money and time, in a cookbook with 120 new dishes.
Traditional Meals for the Frugal Family: Delicious, Nourishing Recipes for Lessby Shannon Stonger
The recipes in this book are focused on unprocessed ingredients, pastured animal products and frugal foods that people have thrived on for generations. Find tips and tricks for cutting down on costs while prioritizing nutrient density per dollar. Follow easy directions for sprouting or soaking grains and legumes to unlock their full nutritional value, then use them in yummy meals like A Better Kefir-Chia Soaked Granola or Soaked Gluten-Free Artisan Bread. Learn to tactfully utilize more expensive produce, with foolproof recipes like higher-protein, lower-cost Stretched-Out Guacamole.
The 12-week Diabetes Cookbook: Your Super Simple Plan for Organizing, Budgeting, and Cooking Amazing Dinners by Linda Gassenheimer
Looking for a way to organize all your meals for a week? With The Budget-Conscious Diabetes Meal Planner, weeknight meals will be quick and easy. It is a plan for one-stop shopping with recipes for the week to create great dinners your whole family will love. Includes money saving tips and complete recipes with nutritional analysis for each day of the week. The book also lists complete recipes, shopping lists, helpful hints and meal countdowns for each weekday, and Sunday meals for a month, plus, the projected costs of each meal.
Resources for Food Assistance
- Community Food Bank of NJ
- Hunger Free America
- Meals on Wheels
- NJ 211 Food Programs and Community Resources
- NJ Snap Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
-Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian