The skyrocketing inflation of the last two years is noticeable every time we fill the pantry. How to save on purchases has, therefore, become a daily challenge that forces us to implement savings tricks to fill the cart. It also requires us to use kitchen management strategies to save on purchases and get the most out of food.
And, if that were not enough, all this without giving up a healthy diet. Are we asking for the impossible? Absolutely! Dietitian-nutritionist Belén Rodríguez teaches us how to buy at the best price and organize a healthy and varied weekly menu.
Whenever possible, buy fresh and seasonal produce.
Our first choice should be fresh seasonal products. “It is usually cheaper, it will promote local products and it will also guarantee that the food is in its optimal time of consumption«explains Rodríguez, with a doctorate in Nutrition, a degree in Food Science and Technology and a diploma in Human Nutrition and Dietetics.
Count on canned vegetables
Preserved vegetables are an excellent alternative as pantry background. “Having canned artichokes, beans, spinach… or whatever we like will make it easier for us to prepare meals on those days when we don’t have time.” Additionally, these foods are not as exposed to market price fluctuations.
Take advantage of legumes (dried or preserved)
There is increasing scientific evidence about the role of legumes as a source of protein, fiber and minerals. They are versatile in the kitchen, easy to prepare and, most importantly, more expensive than most foods with quality proteins, such as meat or fish.
If you want to buy them at a good price, Rodríguez suggests buying them dry and cooking them at home. “Taking into account the price per kilogram, it is cheaper to buy dried legumes than preserved ones,” says the expert, a member of the body of academics of the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. To this cost, we would have to add the energy to prepare them, whether it be the gas from the stove or the electricity from the induction or glass-ceramic hob.
In any case, preserved legumes are a quick, reasonably priced and healthy alternative (let’s not forget that Preserved legumes are a minimally processed foodthat is, they only contain the strictly necessary legumes and preservatives).
Frozen, the secret so that you don’t miss a single offer
When dietitians-nutritionists recommend eating fresh produce, it does not mean that it necessarily has to be harvested, fished or slaughtered yesterday. It can be a food – vegetables, meat, fish, fruits… – that we buy frozen, but that requires us to prepare it at home by cooking, sautéing or blending, in the case of fruits.
We can also buy fresh in the supermarket and freeze at home, either raw or once cooked.
The expert claims the value of simple frozen foods. “If the freezing and thawing process is appropriate, the food maintains its properties. We help ourselves save on the shopping cart because we can take advantage of an offer and, if we are not going to consume it immediately, we freeze it.”
Take advantage of daily offers
Supermarkets usually launch every day discounted products for a short period of time. They are ‘hook offers’ that, if we know how to take advantage of them, will allow us to save on each month’s shopping basket. “It is the optimal savings option. The bad thing is that with the pace of life we lead, time is money and we cannot always go shopping every day just to look for the offers,” says Rodríguez.
Checking the offers in the supermarket apps and websites, or in the weekly brochures, whether in paper or digital, will help us find out about the offers and go to the supermarket within easy reach to get a cheap shopping basket.
Also include white labels
The large supermarket chains have their own white brands at the best price. These are good quality products that respond to a general demand, without excessive specificity.
The ‘whimsical’ products are those that make the shopping basket more expensive. In front of them, white brands satisfy the need, without falling into whimor unnecessary purchase.
Shop weekly
“As soon as we have some basic knowledge of nutrition, we can design a weekly menu and go shopping once a week go for all those ingredients,” advises the expert. For this to pay off, it is important to stick to the shopping list and not succumb to temptations. A good tactic is to shop after eating. Without hunger it is more difficult to give free rein to whims.
Take advantage of batch cooking
Buying one day for the entire week does not mean leaving food in the refrigerator or pantry until prepared and then cooking a little each day. The best way to save time and money is cook one day in a row for the whole week or batch cooking. We save money because we take better advantage of the offers, as long as we prepare them early and prevent food from spoiling. But we also save because we take advantage, for example, of turning on the oven to prepare lasagna to prepare some vegetables on the grill. Or we distribute the same sauce on several different plates.
Draw a map of establishments with the best price
Sometimes our reference supermarkets have everything we need, but many other times we will settle the weekly shopping by going to two or more. In these cases – explains the expert – it is key to be clear about what we are going to buy in each one and stick to that list. “We all already know our reference markets and supermarkets, as well as their private labels and those star products that we like the most. You just have to stick to the purchasing plan and this way we will save on weekly spending on food,” she explains.
The car only if it is essential
Traveling by car to a supermarket to do your weekly shopping makes perfect sense. We save time and avoid carrying a pulse with several liters of milk, fruit and drugstore products. However, to buy those specific products that we have forgotten, we can forget about the car and walk, as long as it is close to our home. “Otherwise, the cost of gasoline will have to be taken into account,” he says.
Be flexible with the menu and make smart changes
To take advantage of offers, specific discounts, or simply those market products at the best price, many times we will have to change the menu we had planned for the entire week on the fly. And that – the expert insists – does not mean that our weekly menu stops being healthy. You just have to change a more expensive healthy food for another equally healthy one that is cheaper at that moment.
“There are more and more dietitians-nutritionists who work, not from a strict menu, but from nutritional education. We teach our patients to be flexible with their diet under a varied general pattern. That is, within each food group they can choose between several options,” he adds.
To illustrate this, point to an example that is easy to visualize. “We imagine that they have planned a menu with oily fish for us three days a week and we choose fresh salmon, fried anchovies and canned tuna. We arrive at the supermarket and we have sardines on sale. We can change the anchovies and salmon for sardines that week. And the same with fruits, meat or vegetables. It may be time to eat broccoli today, but if cauliflower is on sale on the day of purchase, we can change,” explains the expert.
In the case of non-perishable products, “just take advantage of the offer, store the food in our pantry and include that food in the following week’s plan. An example would be that day when we found a sale on preserved chickpeas with the second unit at half price.”
Prevent food waste
Every time we throw away food that we have not consumed or that has spoiled because we bought too much, we are wasting money. In addition, we are wasting food that is increasingly a scarce resource. It is what is known as food waste.
To avoid this, we can resort to the utilization kitchen (croquettes with the remains of cooking, bolognese with remains of meat, roasted apples with those apples with signs of oxidation…). Oh, simply freeze the remains in individual portions to defrost little by little.
The entry 12 tricks to save on groceries and eat healthy was first published in Nutriiendo.
