Cooking for yourself saves a lot of money and you will eat better too. When you cook for yourself you control what goes into the food.

• Healthier - omits tons of salt, sugar and fat in fast foods 
• No preservatives or chemical flavorings like in prepared foods.
• Freshly cooked food tastes better.
• Cheaper - recipes make enough for a few nights and to share. No one likes to eat the same thing every night so make two or three meals and then sit back and reap the rewards for the rest of the week.
• The key to success is organization.

Planning a Menu

Never go to the store without a list because that will encourage impulse buying. Before you can make a list you have to decide what you are cooking and when.

1. Create a calendar and put down options for eat every night of the week (and mark in nights you plan to go out or entertain). Don’t worry it’s not as rigid as it seems – you can switch it around – but the schedule helps you decide what to buy.
2. Be as detailed as you like: I usually make a list with my dinner menu all week because we aren’t home for lunch and breakfast is pretty much the same four or five items every week. You know when you are out of yogurt, cereal, milk and eggs – it’s the more complicated meals you need to think about.
3. If you like to pack a lunch you’ll want to include lunch items too or consider taking leftover dinner in small plastic containers.

Create a menu then make a shopping list!

Making a List

Once you have your calendar set up you can make your list.

• When you are making new things consult the recipe to make sure you get all the ingredients you need.
• You will need to go through the ingredients of everything on your menu and take inventory in your kitchen. If you don’t have it, put it on the list.
• This sounds way more tedious than it is to do it and eventually it becomes part of your routine. In our house we have a list going all the time and we just keep adding to it as we run out of things during the week so it’s almost finished when we are ready to go to the store.

How Much Do I Buy?

Once you have your menu and list you are ready to head to the store.

• Only buy as much as you need. There are lots of stores that try to trick you into buying more – i.e. 2 for 1 “sales”. Unless you know you will be eating lots of that food or it doesn’t spoil (i.e. pasta, rice, beans, peanut butter) don’t buy extra. The lower price often holds for one as well as two and you don’t save money if you waste food.
• Those math skills you thought you’d never use after high school come in really handy at the grocery store. For instance, when buying lunch meat for sandwiches my general rule is 1/8 pound or 2 ounces of meat (2-3 slices) per sandwich. A big hungry person might use more and a petite person or someone watching their weight might use less but that’s an average amount.
• Most people like to add a slice of cheese or two to a sandwich. I usually buy another half pound of cheese during the week cause it comes in handy for breakfast and snacking too. If you are eating sandwiches all week you don’t want the same kind every day – so maybe you buy 1/4 to 1/3 pound of 2 different kinds of meat, some cheese and peanut butter and jelly.
• Peanut butter also goes well with fruit and it makes a mean satay sauce (see recipe under party food).  You might also want to consider making egg salad and tuna salad which is cheaper and better for you than processed meats (link to recipe under salads).   

Organic and Local

In the past several years, books like “Fast Food Nation,” “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” and “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and documentaries such as “Food Inc.”, “King Corn,” “Fresh,“ The Future of Food,” and “Super Size Me” have put a spotlight on how the quality of our food supply has deteriorated since the end of World War II.

What they are all trying to say is that corporations have industrialized  our food supply, destroyed diversity and put us at risk for all kinds of diseases.

Organizations such as Slow Food (promoting good, clean and fair food) and others are trying to reverse this dangerous trend. I encourage you to educate yourselves about these movements and whenever possible to buy local and organic foods and support family farmers because their food could literally save your life.

I know organic foods can be more expensive, and when you are pinching pennies it is hard to justify the extra cost, but there are ways to do it cheaper.

1. You can save money, energy and support your local economy by buying directly from farmers at farmers markets.
2. Natural food markets tend to have smaller mark ups as well.
3. Not all produce is equal.  Some varieties carry more pesticides than others.  The Environmental Working Group has created a handy list of the most (“the dirty dozen”)and least (“the clean 15”)polluted produce. You can download their buying guide onto your phone or print out the list and take it to the store with you.

Besides buying local and organic there are lots of ways to get involved in the healthy food movement. If you would like to know more about some of these organizations promoting healthier and better tasting food here are some links:

Slow Food

Food and Water Watch

Center for Food Safety

True Food Now

National Family Farm Coalition

Sustainable Table

Local Harvest

Food Routes

The healthy food community is very inclusive. If you get involved in your local organizations you will make a lot of new like minded friends and eat really well!

Watch this for tips on how to pick fresh produce!

Storing Food

You just spent a lot of your precious cash on groceries and you are saying to yourself this stuff better not go bad before I get around to cooking it. So here are a few pointers.

• Foods that are raw will perish more quickly than foods that are cooked.
• Try to cook all the fresh stuff earlier in the week and leave the recipes that include canned or frozen items till the end of the week.
• Don’t wash produce until you are ready to eat it. It goes bad faster once you put it in water.
• Store fruits and vegetables separately-- veggies like more humidity than fruits -- store in seperate drawers. 

Refrigerator

The following go straight into the refrigerator:

• Apples, oranges, grapes, berries, watermelon
• Lettuces, cucumbers, peppers, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower
• Herbs, spinach, asparagus, beets, zucchini, eggplant   
• Radishes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, cabbage, leeks

Freezer

Freezing will preserve vitamins in foods that you don't plan to eat right away:

• Raw meat or fish that you aren't going to cook within the next day or two.  (Be sure it hasn't been frozen before-- you can't freeze twice). 
• Frozen desserts like ice cream, frozen veggies, pizza (put these away first so they don't defrost.)
• Cooked food that you want to save 

On the counter in bowls

• Tomatoes, lemons, limes
• Onions, garlic, shallots 
• Potatoes, pumpkin, winter squashes

Leave out until ripe and then refrigerate

• Avocado
• Peaches, Pears, Plums, Melon (not watermelon)
• Pineapple

*If you pass your local market on the way home every single day consider buying food at shorter intervals.