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Cheap and Healthy: 15 Nutritious Foods for About $2
How do you eat a nutritious diet while keeping your grocery budget low? The good news is that cheap food isn't necessarily unhealthy food. You can cut food costs by eating more meals at home, and by making sure they feature some of the healthiest foods from your supermarket - foods like whole grains, vegetables, and beans. Luckily, many of these foods cost less than $2 per package.
A 2-pound bag of brown rice, for example, sells for less than $2 and cooks up into about 20 side servings -- that's just 10 cents a serving. Talk about nutrition on the cheap! Check out the list below for more examples.
Prices may vary based on the store, location, and time of year.
1. Brown Rice
Great for: Side dishes, rice salads, fried rice, casseroles, soups, and stews.
What's a serving? 1/4cup dry rice.
Price per serving: 10 cents. A 2-pound bag costs about $1.99 (on sale) and contains 20 servings.
Nutrition info per serving: 170 calories, 2 grams fiber, and 4 grams protein.
2. Whole-Wheat or Multigrain Pasta
Great for: Hot and cold pasta dishes.
What's a serving? 2 ounces of dried pasta. A serving for most people translates into about 2 ounces of dried pasta, which means you get about 7 servings in one of these boxes or bags.
Price per serving? About 28 cents. You can get a 13-16 ounce box or bag of dried pasta for about $1.79 to $1.99 (on sale)
Nutrition info per serving: About 190 calories, 9 grams protein, and 4 grams fiber.
3. 100% Whole-Wheat Bread
Great for: Hot and cold sandwiches, bread stuffing, bread pudding, and breakfast strata.
What's a serving? 2 slices. Labels usually list a serving as 1 slice of bread (about 40 grams per slice) but for our purposes, we'll use the amount you'd use to make a sandwich: 2 slices.
Price per serving: About 31 cents. You can get a 24-ounce loaf of whole-wheat bread for about $1.99 (on sale). Each loaf has about 17 slices, or 8 servings of 2 slices each.
Nutrition info per serving (2 slices): About 180 calories, 8 grams protein, and 6 grams fiber.
4. Whole-Wheat Flour (stone-ground)
Great for: Breakfast recipes like pancakes and waffles, plusall baking recipes (use half whole wheat flour and half white flour), including breads, muffins, cakes, and cookies.
What's a serving? 1/2 cup.
Price per serving: About 6 cents. A 5-pound bag of whole-wheat flour, which sells for about $1.99 to $2.50, contains about 37 servings (1/2 cup each) of flour.
Nutrition info per serving: 180 calories, 8 grams protein, and 7 grams fiber (1.2 of which is soluble fiber).
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Functional Foods: Types and Benefits
Functional foods contain additives that go above and beyond meeting your basic nutritional needs.
