How to buy the Most Nutritious Foods for Your Dollar

As consumers, we all search for getting the most for our dollar. The question, are we looking for quantity or quality? By quality, we mean the greatest nutritional content that we get for our money.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. What Might Be Some Of The Most Perfect Examples?
   
   If I were to choose, my answers would be the simple banana. Why? Because the average cost (here in the U.S. anyway) gives a half pound serving for about 25 cents. It comes packed with a good portion of the Potassium you will need for the day. It is probably one of the most easily digestible foods available just about anywhere. It is quoted by some of the top nutritionists as being able to reverse and possibly even cure stomach ulcers.

2. Of course, for the cereal lover, we cannot forget the simple and unprocessed Oatmeal, which is packed with both soluble and insoluble fiber, Iron and Poly and Monounsaturated fats. It also contains no sugar or Sodium. The cost: about 25 cents per serving, including the milk. One can purchase the highly sweetened and grossly overly processed more popular brand of cereal and quadruple your breakfast costs. This cereal, when poured into our bowl, looks so good, but product marketing can visually overwhelm the senses. It can also overwhelm the shopper’s pocketbook. Of course, the highly processed cereal tastes fabulous. It looks perfect. It may contain the absolutely perfect amount of sweetener for our taste, or at least the average taste. It is highly fortified for that extra cost. It also cost huge sums of money to reach this state of perfection and of course, we pay for this extras processing.

3. What I Learnt From Mom’s Ways.
   
   It is hard to forget the simple meals at home as I grew up. I think of the times when I helped my mom carry chicken wings home from a local restaurant that were packed in 20 lb. Bags. We each carried one bag. It was quite a trek to and from the restaurant, using our foot mobile. The restaurant charged my mom 25 cents a bag. The restaurant normally threw them out as waste at the time, so we both made out. Needless to say, the family ate a lot of chicken wings. Talk about fat content! Of course, at about 1 cent per pound, who cared? Of course, supermarkets now know the value of chicken wings as a delicacy and the price has gone up slightly since then.

4. Well, my mom, we hope will turn 101 years on her next birthday, has no known life threatening disease and never visited a doctor or took any prescription drugs. She also ate eggs for breakfast every morning since I can remember. Of course, she no longer tells me to eat all my dinner.
   The egg, we are told is probably the most perfect protein source known to man and contains nutrients and compounds not found in any other food. The main one is a sulfur compound, the disease fighter. Properly fed chickens contain very high amounts of Omega 3 oil, considered by some experts as the “Oil of Life”. With the cost of the egg at around 20 cents each (and sometimes less), it can be easily considered 1,000 fold, pound for pound on nutrition level return on your shopping dollar.

[Kallicat]

on 3/30/2009 I love bananas! Nice tips for finding nutritious and economical foods.

[athome]

on 3/24/2009 Good tip I love just plain ole oatmeal 5