Food, Home and Style

Supermarket Shopping, Recession-style

Inflation on a pair of kitten heels or yet another black jacket is annoying, yes. But I find inflation at the supermarket particularly galling. We all need food. And if it’s getting harder to afford eating out, it certainly doesn’t help that it’s getting more expensive to eat at home: The consumer price index for all food in January 2009 was up 5.3% from January 2008.

Still, buying and preparing your own food is the smarter choice. And it may be getting better: Food, like all consumer retail items, is subject to increasing price-cutting competition and the “everyone’s a discounter” trend.

But until food inflation pressures ease — or your organic backyard garden becomes self-sustaining—how can you eat healthy while on the cheap? Put down that mac ‘n’ cheese and frozen pizza. As introduced in our feed yourself challenge, it just takes a bit of adjustment in your meal brain.

Eat on the Edge
Food writer Nina Planck, author of Real Food for Mother and Baby (Bloomsbury, April 2009) and former Greenmarket manager, says, “It’s really simple: You just eat real whole foods instead of processed junk. So, to start, shop around the edges of the supermarket. The nutrition and the good value are around the edges. The highly processed, low-nutrient, high-profit-margin foods are in the middle. Avoid them.”

If your cooking skills aren’t beyond dialing for delivery, don’t panic: Planck says just look for easy-to-prepare items like canned wild Alaskan salmon, eggs and lettuce.

Bulk Up
Heidi Swanson, author of Super Natural Cooking (Celestial Arts) and the hunger-inducing 101cookbooks.com, also recommends checking out the bin sections of stores like Whole Foods: “You can find a huge assortment of inspiring, nutrient-rich, economical ingredients there [at] a fraction of what you might spend in other sections of the market.” As for transforming that into a complete meal, Swanson pairs these bulk items with fresh picks from her local farmer’s market- buying in season is essential to keeping costs down.

Do Like a Dietitian
And Regina Ragone, R.D., food director at Family Circle, has her own cheap-healthy hit list: dry or canned beans and legumes, whole-grain rice and pasta, bananas and produce like carrots and potatoes (sweet potatoes get most of the nutrition attention, but regular ones are good for you, too). As they’re all readily available year-round, these are foods — and eating habits — that can even see you through the better times. (A girl has to dream.)

Eat-by-Color
Another tip is to seek out more brightly colored produce, which tends to offer more antioxidants at a low price. Swanson uses potatoes as an example of “how you can take a culinary staple … make a slightly different decision at the market (buy varietals that are rich in color), and reap nutritional benefits from that choice.” The cost for Peruvian purple potatoes over russets may be a bit higher, but it’s still a cheap choice at around $2 a pound- and you’re saving much more by eliminating $20 on a monthly bottle of vitamins or supplements.

But what about whether to buy that organic and local produce, free-range eggs and grass-fed beef? Planck advises choosing the best version of the whole food you can afford. When faced with a $4 carton of eggs and $10 bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, it may be tempting to just pick the conventional, cheaper versions. But, as Planck points out, “My mother raised us on a poverty income and we ate real food. She used to say, ‘No matter how little money we have, we’ll always buy real butter, pure maple syrup, and olive oil.’”

I’m sure even the most slovenly eaters out there have their secret healthy, cheap ingredients. Peanut butter, apples- what’s yours?

Tags: budgets, eating, shopping, spending