One of the biggest complaints among those who are attempting to eat healthy is the price. In general, processed foods are cheaper but may end up costing us more in the long run. Since the fuel crunch is causing the prices of almost everything to rise, DivineCaroline has assembled a list of the 20 healthiest foods for under $1. Check out the top 10, inside…
10. Watermelon
You can’t buy a whole watermelon for a buck, but a serving is only 20 cents or so and it has good amounts of Vitamin C, potassium and lycopene.
9. Broccoli
Is low in calories and price. It also a good source of vitamins A and C, potassium and fiber.
8. Garbanzo Beans
They are high in fiber as well as iron, folate and manganese.
7. Bananas
They are high in potassium and contain about 3 grams of fiber in a single banana.
6. Nuts
A good source of essential fatty acids, Vitamin E, and protein. Most nuts, except for pecans and macadamias, are low in cost
5. Apples
A good source of pectin and Vitamin C.
4. Potatoes
Eaten with the skin, potatoes contain a half day’s worth of Vitamin C and have a decent amount of potassium.
3. Kale
This is a dark, leafy green and has a healthy amount of Vitamin C, carotenoids, and calcium.
2. Eggs
You can get a half-dozen eggs for about $1. They are a good source of lutein and zeaxanthin.
1. Oats
Oats are high in fiber and carbohydrates. A dollar can buy you over a week’s worth of oats which you can eat with fruit or bake into cookies.
What are some of your favorite inexpensive health foods?
The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1 [DivineCaroline]
(Photo: Getty)
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I think I agree with some folks that eggs don’t belong on this list. Six eggs are under a dollar? Great! I bet a pint of milk is under a dollar too, so why isn’t milk on this list? Heck, super organic hippie tomatoes are only a dollar is you buy half of one.
Eggs are a fantastic protein. And when I was dead broke (as opposed to moderately broke, like now,) I lived for a long time on fried rice with eggs, with the occasional ramen dinner for variety.
Actually, leftover rice is great, because I throw it into the pan with whatever is still hanging out in the fridge, plus an egg or two, and there’s a fried rice dinner for you.
Rice and beans also make a complete protein.
@VA_White: I thought you wrote “truly pasteurized chickens,” which I thought must have been a terribly painful process.
@Blueoysterjoe: Eggs are a food. Milk is a beverage. When they post the “healthiest beverages under a buck” list, check to see if milk is there.
I’m taking this list to mean “under $1 for one serving” foods. One serving of eggs (two eggs, in my world,) is less than a buck. Last time I checked a dozen eggs were nowhere near $6.
Oats and beans can be bought in bulk and stored, too. My co-op purchases dry goods in addition to fruit and veggies so there’s no added cost the water that goes into canning such things.
The added bonus of watermelon is it’s Viagra like effects – for only a buck! [lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk]
@purplesun: umm… chickpeas = garbanzo beans?
Anyway I thought this article was awesome, not just because of the list, but because it LINKED TO RECIPES in which you can use them! That’s what I really need.
I found fresh snapbeans at Walmart last night for 99cents a pound. They were delicious!
Dried Lentils! Very cheap in bulk. When I was super-poor one of my staples was a single-dish lentil meal made by throwing chopped carrots, pepper and some fresh ginger into a pot of lentils. Half an hour, protein and vitamins and a full belly. Tasty too.
@Front_Towards_Enemy: Our kitteh noms cauliflower and Doritos.
Previous kitteh nommed broccoli, lima beans, and brussels sprouts, among other things.
The quickest and easiest dried bean to cook is black-eyed peas. They take only a little more time than lentils and if they aren’t soaked over night, they still cook quickly.
After I’ve cooked the black-eyed peas I like to saute them in olive oil, onion, garlic, and collard greens. If tomatoes are on sale I add 1 or 2 chopped up after the greens have wilted.
Serve the whole mess over brown rice.
Great with any kind of meat (well, maybe not cat. Definitely chorizo sausages.)
The only nuts I’ve found that were inexpensive were sunflower seeds. And those aren’t nuts… but very tasty sprinkled on salad!
“Mmm. You can really taste the kale!”
Hmm. I’ve eaten half of that list in the last few days. Nice!
Cheap protein: 99 cent brick of tofu at Whole Foods. For being an expensive store, their tofu is far cheaper than anywhere else. Freeze it, wreck it, and put it in chile.
@Cyclokitty: Will definitely try the black-eyed peas/collard greens. Sounds awesome.
This list lost all credibility because it failed to mention “Tofurky.”
@WeAre138: I wish Tofurky only cost $1. That stuff is expensive.
@BytheSea: Please do not ship your Tofu to Chile!
I’ve found good squirrel stew and pigeon pie are pretty cheap (provided you don’t get caught for shooting them.)
@blue_duck: About the happy/sad chickens and their eggs: yes, it can make a difference in taste, nutrition, and safety. Googling will turn up tons – and I’d love to see strong citations – but here’s a quickie from motherearthnews.com:
• 1â„3 less cholesterol
• 1â„4 less saturated fat
• 2â„3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene
Free range chickens are supposed to have ~1/4 the incidence of salmonella as factory chickens.
Of course, there’s disagreement from the large cage growers and their regulators, but I haven’t seen anything more than statements that their eggs are just as good in all ways.
As for taste, it’s largely about breed and diet. Free range chickens tend to have more variety in their diet so the eggs can vary slightly.
We get most of our eggs from a friend that has two dozen hens on their small farm. I think our dog is the biggest beneficiary since “free range” means chicken herding will surely follow.
With the prices going the way they have been, I have found that I can stretch my dollar easiest by eating stir-fry’s for my main meal each day. I get my rice bulk, and buy whatever meat and vegetables are on sale each week. You don’t need much meat to flavor the meal (or you can go vegetarian or add tofu cubes,) and tossing it with some fried garlic, parsley and green onions from my garden, it tastes delicious and costs very little. I can make a head of cauliflower, broccoli, celery, bean sprouts, and a bag of carrots last over a week this way.
Farmers’ markets for fresh veggies. Dried beans etc. when you have time to cook a stew or soup, like pea soup or lentil soup. Overripe bananas are often marked down and it doesn’t take too much in the way of other ingredients to make a smoothie or a couple loaves of banana bread. (Lots of bananas, make both and freeze some of the bread.)
Stretch the veggies and tofu with leftover rice or some noodles (ramen packages for cheap, or chow mein or chow fun for better taste) in stir fry. You can also improve ramen’s nutritional value for not too much money by throwing in some green beans and/or doing egg-drop with a single egg for protein.
@BytheSea:
Tofu is crap by useable protein standards, all soy protein is.
This thread is the most pretentious self-righteous crap I’ve ever read. Its all just Park Slope faux hippies telling the world about how “healthy” they eat.
We are all so proud of you. I’m so happy that you buy broccoli and tofu. And the world is just so utterly impressed that you buy your eggs at the farmers market. Its really a wonder how world peace has managed to elude us with people so morally and ethically righteous out there that even buy their eggs and tofu from a farmers market.
After your all done writing down your healthy shopping list and letting us all know how unbelievably amazing your shit smells like, can you sit down with me and tell me how Obama will change the world and why you love Palestinians?
@reykjavik: Obama will change the world because he will either be the most powerful man in the world, or the runner-up. People that powerful can’t help but shape world policy. And I love Palestinians because I’m a humanist and they’re humans, 99 percent of whom are not psychopathic, superstition-addled, genocidal maniacs. Oh, and I’m Jewish. Stick that up your assorted orifices and light it on fire.
I like the taste of tofu, and I hate the taste of factory-farmed eggs and milk. Why i even bothered to tell you that, I don’t know. My eating habits are my business, unless I’m participating in a peaceful, productive conversation with others of like mind, such as this thread. If you can’t handle the heat of the wok, stay out of the kitchen.
Or, as you might put it, if you can’t stand the smell of shit, don’t hang out in the bathroom.
@NigerianScammer: Research. Do it. All the cool kids do.
@speedwell: Obama won’t change shit. Get your head out of your ass. He is as bought and paid for as the rest of them, although possibly not clinically insane like McBomb. You think he will do shit for the Palestinians? Then maybe you didn’t watch him grovelling before AIPAC the day he secured the nomination.
Good for you for rejecting factored farmed horrors. But I really do recommend taking another look at Tofu. It really isn’t nutritionally very sound, it is hard to digest and has hormones similar to Estrogen. Recent research linked heavy tofu consumption to memory decline in later years. Switch to Tempeh. As a six year vegetarian and near vegan, I felt a lot better when I stopped eating all non-fermented soy products.
@reykjavik:
Food is one of the most important political issues of our time. “If you control a population’s food supply, you control that population.” Wrestling control of the food supply from these nasty corporations, and establishing new models that present a viable alternative to the agri-corp, commoditized, sprayed and genetically engineered present that leaves farmers enslaved by the corporations and ultimately crushed, and leaves the consumers with nutritionally more and more empty food. A chronically nutritionally malnourished population is easy to control.
The current situation with Genetically Modified Foods is very similar to the situation with TEL, Ethyl leaded gasoline in the 1920s. It’s a story everyone should know, read up on it. Even though the corporations clearly and unmistakably knew that putting lead in gasoline to raise octane presented an incalculably massive long-term risk to the entire world population, they did it anyway because it was cheap. Lead never goes away, and the atmospheric levels of this toxic metal are still astronomically higher than before this callous and short-sighted decision.
That’s where we are with GMOs. People KNOW it’s bad. The fair, independent research clearly shows possible risks. But the corporations pay for their own research and create a media whitewash, so that people think it’s inconclusive, and want the less expensive choice. Switching to genetically modified crops, with “terminator” seeds that cannot produce new seeds, is the most fundamental switch in our food supply in the last ten thousands years, with extremely shaky evidence of its safety. By opting out of this system, you are making a powerful statement with your time, energy, and wallet.
If you really care about the bigger picture, I highly recommend spending some time on an organic farm getting your hands dirty.
A half – dozen of eggs in NC will cost you $1.89
@Blueoysterjoe: Typical serving size for eggs is maybe 2-3 eggs, no? (I’m thinking about the “three-egg omelets” at restaurants.) So even if a dozen eggs are $4, you get a serving for a buck, which I’d say fits the article.
@zyodei: That’s where we are with GMOs. People KNOW it’s bad. The fair, independent research clearly shows possible risks.
“Clearly shows possible risks”? Everything has “possible risks”–even drinking water can kill you. Sounds to me like the truth is “people think it might be bad”– enough reason to be cautious (and to expect to be warned), but not quite as serious as you make it out to be. (The terminator genes in seeds are reprehensible though, I agree.)
@zyodei: Oh, and I don’t support Obama. I’m actually a Ron Paul Republibertarian. I’m just pointing out that powerful people are powerful, something that should be obvious even to you but apparently isn’t.
Oh, and as for tofu, quit drinking “Doctor” Mercola’s marketing department’s Kool-aid. He has some sort of psycho vendetta against soy, his information is (we’ll be polite and say) “questionable,” and his ethics are (we’ll be polite and say) equally “questionable.” As a woman whose mother died of estrogen-dependent breast cancer, and whose primary physician is a female oncologist with 40 years experience, and who is a five year vegetarian, I am fully aware of the real truth about soy.
What is the truth? Brace yourself: Don’t overdo it (that is, don’t have miso soup with tofu for breakfast with a glass of soymilk, tofu hot dogs for lunch, and a tofu stir fry with soybean sprouts for dinner) and you’ll be fine.
@speedwell:
You don’t think I would make such a statement without researching it do you? You look it up, among proteins, tofu ranks among the lowest with the amount of usable protein. The highest being whey protein.
Kale is some of the worst tasting stuff I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating.