6 Cheap Healthy Food Alternatives To Expensive Foods

Sometimes, we don’t even realize how marketing tricks affect our daily lives. We let ourselves be guided by words such as GMO-free, vitamins, fat-free, antioxidants, and so on. Online influencers, friends, and even doctors nudge us toward more pricey products. Today, Cook It would like to share with you 6 cheap healthy food alternatives to expensive foods.

If you choose to buy any of the more high-priced products because you love their taste or texture, we encourage you to continue to do so. However, if you don’t fancy them but try to incorporate them into your diet anyway due to their nutritional advantages, you may find this list helpful. Without further ado, here are more budget-friendly alternatives to pricey foods.

6 Cheap Healthy Food Alternatives To Expensive Foods

1. Grapefruit

While on a weight-loss diet, many people opt for grapefruit as a treat or a snack. Supposedly, there are a lot of vitamins and elements that stimulate metabolism. However, there is still a lot of sugar in the fruit. It can be part of a healthy weight loss plan because it is nutritious, not because of any magical fat-burning properties.

If you aren’t a fan of grapefruit, substitute it for sauerkraut. It has the same amount of vitamins but fewer calories.

2. Avocado

Avocado prices have boomed in the last decade. Nevertheless, it is a very trendy food. Those who exercise regularly like to buy them due to their potassium content, which helps replace the electrolytes they lose while working out. Moreover, avocados provide healthy fats for repairing muscle and B vitamins to jump-start metabolism.

Seeds, nuts, and vegetable oil also contain healthy fats, whereas beets and legumes are an excellent source of potassium.

3. Vegetable Milk

Nowadays, every store has a wide selection of vegetable milk from various nuts, seeds, and legumes. It is a necessary product for people with lactose intolerance or lactose maldigestion.

However, everyone else may want to consider avoiding the trendy drink. It has less calcium and vitamin D than regular milk, and it also contains a lot of sugar for taste.

4. Smoothies

Smoothie is an incredibly delicious and healthy beverage if you make it yourself. Unfortunately, many versions you may stumble upon when out and about will contain added sugar. Moreover, you receive less fiber from juice-based smoothies because juicing removes all fibrous materials, leaving only the liquid of the fruits.

Therefore, when on the go, consider opting for whole fresh fruit instead of a smoothie.

5. Cane Sugar

Despite popular belief, cane sugar is not healthier than white sugar — it has the same chemical structure and number of calories. Therefore, you don’t have to buy cane sugar. To avoid overpaying, consider either sticking with white sugar or avoid sugar altogether.

6. Spinach

The myth that spinach contains a tremendous amount of iron is due to a typo. In 1880, a German chemist named Erich von Wolf printed the iron content of spinach as “35 grams,” instead of just “3.5 grams.” Researchers failed to find the error for more than 50 years, and the myth stuck. Some people still think that spinach contains as much iron as red meat.

You can swap spinach for good old regular cabbage. It is just as beneficial, but it costs much less.

Sneaky marketing tricks tend to get you hooked, so consider double-checking any information that prods you to spend money. Even ours!

Valerie

I am an English major with a love of languages and fiction, and with an incurable travel bug. In my free time, I read fantasy, drink copious amounts of coffee, and like to go see movies. Culinary art means everything to me. My main hypostasis is the taster, though. The music school has taught me to appreciate the symphony of airy meringues, to create harmonious overtures of light snacks, hard rock of meat, fish, and vegetables on the grill. Choir classes have accustomed me to hear and feel the people nearby and create perfect harmonies of sounds.