This is a guest post by Nadia Jones
It’s no secret that a healthy diet can affect your quality of life. It’s true that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats will always provide more nutrition than any meal you’d find in a drive-through or a takeout restaurant. The problem is (and always has been) that it can be quite expensive to maintain a healthy diet.
Keeping food costs low while simultaneously getting all the necessary nutrients and minerals is such a challenging task that you could almost make it a fulltime job. Cheap and healthy food, enough to sustain a person for every meal of the day, is quite hard to come by. It’s an issue as endemic to seniors as it is to the rest of the U.S. population.
You might not be able to afford (or want) to eat whole grain couscous with roasted root vegetables every day, but you can make small and meaningful changes to your daily diet without much strain on your wallet.
Be responsible about your shopping
While this tip might seem like a given for price-conscious shoppers, it should be repeated when shopping for (relatively) healthy groceries. When it comes to nutrition, cheapest isn’t necessarily the best, but that doesn’t mean that you need to go for the top shelf item every time. You certainly don’t need to shop for solely organic produce or artisanal meats in lieu of your typical items because most grocery stores will offer quality meats and produce.
The real culprit in grocery stores is the prepackaged foods, those with ingredients lists a mile long. When you’re buying anything from bread to crackers to fruit juice, you should be very wary of the additives and nutritional contents within. It only takes a moment or two to check the nutrition facts on the back of a food item, and you’ll only help yourself by becoming a more health conscious shopper. To help your efforts, Megastores like Wal-Mart are starting to label certain foods as healthful according to their own standards so that shoppers can be more decisive about nutritional purchases.
Seafood and nuts for your heart health
February is American Heart Month, and in the spirit of heart health I feel I should mention a few cheap dietary choices. For instance, fish is among the most heart healthy meats you can eat. They’re rich in omega 3 fatty acids and essential oils that aid in the growth and maintenance of brain cells and overall cell development. Fattier fish like tuna, salmon, and sardines are the best seafood to eat for omega 3 fatty acids, and the consumption of these foods only twice or so a week will make a big difference in your entire health, particularly for your brain and heart. And you don’t have to spend much for a filet of fish twice a week; in fact it would cost you significantly less to do so than going out to eat the same cut of fish at a restaurant. Raw nuts like almonds are also a great and healthy snack to sub in for typical salty snack fare. Nuts are rich in electrolytes like magnesium, phosphorous and manganese that promote cell growth and keep your nervous system robust.
Drink tea
Perhaps the cheapest tweak to your diet is the inclusion of tea as your go-to drink. Any type of brewed tea is good for the body because of the complete absence of any additives or sugars. Fresher tea leaves will yield more nutrients (and better flavor), but if you can’t find fresh and loose leaf tea, simple bagged tea will do the trick. If you’re a relative newcomer to tea, try green tea first. The studies affirming the positive benefits of green tea’s antioxidants are legion, while some studies have even suggested that the drink works against carcinogens. A recent study out of Japan followed the lives of thousands of Japanese seniors over the course of three years to examine how tea affected their overall health. The results showed that seniors who drank at least 5 cups did not experience much deterioration in their health, and they were less likely to experience new physical challenges to their daily routines.
In other words, a box of tea is less than 5 dollars and it’s proven to benefit senior health, so why are you drinking that diet soda?
Author Bio:
Nadia Jones blogs at online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving and movie related topics. You can reach her at [email protected].
