Eating health food has become a trend in the past couple decades, but while it’s good for your body, many are put off by the high prices on health foods one finds when shopping in one’s local grocery store. Although it may have a good effect on your body, the exorbitant prices of organic food items at supermarkets can have a nasty effect on your wallet. There must be a way to eat healthy for a lower price, you think. Well, there is.
The first necessity is to stay away from the supermarket. Stores that specialize in health food are lower priced, better stocked, and the employees usually know more information about health food than would your typical supermarket clerk, leaving them able to guide you in the direction best suited for your health situation. Farmers’ markets, gourmet delis, and community agricultural programs are some other excellent ways to find cheaper prices on food that’s good for both your body and your taste buds.
A few simple tips can lead you in the right direction when deciding where and when to purchase healthy, organic food.
1. Shop at farmers’ markets. Why should you eat fruit that’s been boxed and tossed inside of truck to be driven across country, when you can buy fresh products just harvested by farmers in your own area?
2. Research! You have more options than you realize. Simply type ‘health food’ into a search engine and you will be inundated with countless directories of health food stores, specialty stores, organic food markets and so on, and can easily locate the one or more that are located nearest you.
3. Buy a share or half-share in a community supported agriculture program, or CSA. For around $350, you can receive boxes of fresh fruit weekly for the 25 week growing season–some freshly picked the morning you receive it! How tempting is that?
4. The best prices are in-season. But what to do when the growing season is over? Freeze the produce! It stays yummy and can be pulled out and thawed for consumption year round, and it’s much cheaper than forking over the higher prices for organic food when the pickings are slim.
5. Buy in bulk. Do the math. For things like nuts and lentils, buying in bulk can be a great way to save. So long as you have a dry, cool area to store them in, just buy a bunch that can last you for months rather than buying individual batches at a much higher cost. But always calculate the price–sometimes, the savings aren’t worth the hassle.
6. Join your local co-op. A food co-op is a business owned by members which provides products such as groceries to its members at a discount. Joining one is usually pretty easy–just sign on and pay your dues, and if you volunteer for the co-op you can get even more discounts. Most of the food from co-ops is organic, from local family farms.
Now that you’re on your way to purchasing health foods at a price closer to reasonable (although health food prices rarely come within pennies of conventional food prices outside of California), make sure you have a diet plan and know which health foods you should eat to best compliment your body. A little bit of planning can go a long way in terms of how you feel.
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