Tag Archives: budget shopping

Take Action on Nutrition Security

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week released Actions on Nutrition Security, a report highlighting the agency’s commitment to ensuring both nutrition security and food security to support optimal health and well-being for all Americans.

You’re probably familiar with the term food security, but what exactly is nutrition security? USDA puts it in simple terms:

  • Food security is having enough calories.
  • Nutrition security is having the right calories.

This new initiative is especially timely, given the rising costs of food, gas, and other consumer products. As inflation continues, healthy eating on a budget is becoming more and more of a challenge for the typical American family.

You need to teach your clients, employees, and students that healthy eating on a budget is possible. We have tools to help you do this, starting with our Healthy Shopping on a Budget PowerPoint.

The Healthy Shopping on a Budget presentation provides practical information about low-cost choices in each food group. It also includes a collection of recipes that are inexpensive, easy to prepare, and tasty.

To be most effective, you’ll need to modify the Healthy Shopping on a Budget PowerPoint show to take into account your audience and where they live and work.

This will take a little research on your part. Here are some questions to get you started:

Farmers markets:

Supermarkets:

  • Is there a full-service supermarket in the area?
    • If not, do your clients have transportation to a grocery store?
    • If not, are there nearby corner stores or convenience stores that sell healthy items, like fresh produce, at affordable prices?
  • Which stores have the best prices on quality fresh produce?
  • Is there an Aldi nearby?
    • If so, find out when regulars say is the best day to shop there for fresh produce (hint: it’s usually Wednesdays).
    • If so, what items should your clients look for at Aldi? (Here’s one list by a registered dietitian).

Food Assistance:

  • Where can your clients go when they can’t afford to buy food?
  • Are there food pantries that offer fresh produce? Salt-free or no-sugar-added canned foods? Whole grains?
  • Do schools or churches offer free food distribution?
  • Is there a community garden nearby that allows neighbors to share the harvest?
  • Do your clients qualify for programs like Meals on Wheels?

Answering these questions are key to being able to educate people about healthy eating on a budget.

You’ll find an infographic that summarizes USDA’s new nutrition security initiative here.

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

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Rising Food Costs? There’s an App for That!

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Food prices are rising and they’re expected to keep going up next year. Teach your clients or students how to get the most nutrition bang for the buck with this one-two approach:

  1. Use our Healthy Shopping on a Budget PowerPoint show to put on a class or webinar that will prove that healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive. Key points you’ll cover include:
    • The best deals in each food group.
    • How to avoid expensive food traps.
    • Meal planning to save money and reduce food waste.
    • Shopping and budget tips.
    • The secret to saving money AND eating healthy food: go for the least processed foods!
  1. Introduce the Shop Simple with MyPlate app, a new tool from MyPlate.gov that puts money-saving strategies as close as your mobile phone, computer, or tablet. This app will reinforce what you’ve taught your clients or students (and be there for them when you can’t be!). Just click to find:
    • Budget-friendly food choices by food group.
    • Practical tips on food storage and how to get the best price.
    • Serving ideas, recipes, and nutrition information.
    • Planning, shopping, and meal prep tips.

Another great feature of the Shop Simple with MyPlate app — you can enter your zip code to find local retailers that accept SNAP benefits and participate in additional incentive programs that help stretch food dollars.

The list of retailers includes supermarkets, farmer’s markets, and convenience stores. Be sure to talk to your clients or students about the difference in price and healthy food options typically offered at convenience/corner stores!

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

 

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Food Shopping During a Pandemic

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You may not be able to take your clients on a supermarket tour, but we have the next best thing. Use our 6 Grocery Shopping PowerPoint Tour Guides to hold virtual food shopping workshops.

This kit contains PowerPoint shopping lessons for every audience:

With COVID-19, people will have questions about food shopping. Below are teaching tips for two topics people are most concerned with right now — budget and safety.

Healthy shopping on a budget during COVID-19: Many people who have never needed food assistance now find themselves in need. Be ready to help them find and use resources such as —

Safe shopping during COVID-19: 

  • It’s safer to shop online for curbside pickup or delivery, but some people don’t like the idea of a stranger picking out their fresh produce or meat. What to do?
    • Remind folks that most stores have trained employees to choose well. If you’re not satisfied, plan a short shopping trip to purchase the fresh items on your list. For everything else, use pickup or delivery.
    • Shop farmer’s markets, roadside stands, and smaller specialty stores for fresh produce, as long as safety protocols are followed. This way you can choose your fresh items without having to walk through large, crowded supermarkets.
    • If you’re a senior or have a high-risk condition, take advantage of early shopping hours specifically for you. Stores will be cleaner and less crowded.
  • People worry about getting coronavirus from touching items in the store, but they really need to be concerned with high touch surfaces like shopping carts, door knobs, and credit card machines. Keep your hands off of your face while shopping, use hand sanitizer when you leave the store, then wash your hands when you get home and again after putting away groceries.
  • Check out these resources from FDA: Shopping for food during the COVID-19 pandemic (article) and 12 Tips for Grocery Shopping During the Pandemic (video).

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Nutrition Education in the COVID-19 Era

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What does nutrition and health education look like in the COVID-19 era? People want to know how to …

  • Stay healthy, boost their immune system, and reduce their chance of catching the virus.
  • Prevent or manage chronic diseases, like diabetes, that can lead to serious COVID-19 complications.
  • Save money at the supermarket and cook healthy meals at home.

We have a collection of COVID-19 Era Nutrition Education materials to help you teach these topics. But what about social distancing and people who want to learn in a no-contact setting? The PowerPoint shows in our COVID-19 collection make it easy to offer engaging online workshops that meet your clients’ needs.

Here’s one example of how you could use our shows:

Saving money at the supermarket is a hot topic right now. You could offer a two-part online series that appeals to the broad audience of folks who, pre-COVID, were in the habit of eating out a lot.

Start out by dispelling the myth that healthy food is expensive – our Healthy Eating on a Budget PowerPoint presentation proves it. Your clients will learn:

  • Cost per ounce and nutrition facts for choices from each MyPlate food group.
  • How to plan meals, build a shopping list, and limit food waste.
  • Budget-friendly ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
  • Lots of other money-saving tips.

Since saving money means cooking at home more, the second part of your online series should be our 25 Ingredients Into 15 Fast Healthy Meals PowerPoint show. With real photos of real food, your audience will learn to prepare a week’s worth of low-fat, high-fiber meals. We even provide tips on how to use our recipes for your own cooking demo in case you want to add that to your online workshop.

If this idea for a two-part workshop series doesn’t work for you, just change it up. Maybe split the information into 15-minute sessions. And all of our PowerPoint shows come with downloadable handouts that you can send to clients as a follow-up to what they’ve learned.

If you are planning in-person classes or events, check out our new custom printed face masks! 

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Food, Fears & COVID-19

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COVID-19 has put us all into uncharted territory. Everyone has their own way of dealing with this uncertain time, but it’s safe to say that at some point we all have fears. And many of these fears involve food.

As nutrition and health educators, how can we help? Here are some ideas to get you thinking about how to address some of the common fears so many of us are facing:

Financial fears: Many people are worried about money. They may have lost their job, had hours decreased, or taken a pay cut. We can help by sharing information about healthy eating on a budget:

  • Shop smart: Stretching food dollars is a priority when money is tight. Our Healthy Shopping on a Budget PowerPoint show covers it all.
  • Shop for produce in season to stay safe: Remind folks to buy what’s in “season” for the lowest price. Some items like cabbage, carrots, and potatoes are always in season and very low in cost. Remember to keep potatoes in a paper bag at room temperature for optimum storage life. If items look like they are losing freshness you can cook them and freeze them so you don’t lose them.
  • Pantry raid: Give tips to use up everything in your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer.
  • Protein pro: Talk about more economical protein sources like beans, nuts, seeds, nut butter, low-fat dairy, vegetables, and less-expensive cuts of meat. Beans and lentils are always lower in cost than meat. Chicken thighs are 2.29 per pound while dried beans are $3.49 per pound. BUT one pound of beans will yield 5-6 cups of cooked beans or about 3 pounds. So the beans are a better deal. They are also high in fiber.
  • MyPlate: Focus on filling the plate with budget-friendly choices for each food group. Check out our MyPlate on a Budget tearpad.
  • COVID-19 twist: Acknowledge that some people are wary of buying fresh produce. Try to alleviate these fears by talking about basic food safety, but also provide tips on healthy canned and frozen options. Keep up to date with the FDA news feed on food and COVID-19. Currently, there is no evidence of COVID-19 being transmitted via food. Local news and health departments have all the updates on local laws for shelter in place and using masks. Many stores require masks and for people to stay 6 feet apart. Seniors and those with compromised immune systems can follow special shopping hours or use a delivery service like Instacart.

Weight gain fears: Some folks are worried about gaining weight. They’re working at home and the kitchen is a constant temptation. Stress eating is also an issue. We can help by sharing strategies that promote healthy eating:

  • Shop smart: If you buy the right foods at the supermarket, you’ll have the right foods at home. Our Shopping Smart for Weight Loss PowerPoint show is a great start.
  • Steady is good: Help people realize that even if they’re overweight, it might be smarter to focus on maintaining rather than losing weight during this time.
  • Small is smart: Talk about making small changes that will add up to a healthier diet. And for those who are trying to lose weight, remind them that losing just 5-10% of their body weight is enough to make a difference.
  • Think about drinks: Warn people about sipping on sugary beverages while binge-watching. Some folks might be drinking more alcohol, too, so it can’t hurt to remind them about lower-calorie choices and watching portion sizes.
  • Home chefs: People have more time on their hands, restaurants are closed, and they’re craving comfort foods. Our 25 Ingredients, 15 Meals PowerPoint show can help them get cooking the healthy way, while also saving money!
  • Eating your worries: It happens to the best of us. Our Stress Eating PowerPoint show is full of strategies to help.
  • COVID-19 twist: Some people are highly motivated to make healthy changes during this time. For others, it’s just too overwhelming to add diet to everything else they’re dealing with (kids, work, aging parents at risk). We have to be there for both and for everyone who’s in between.

 

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Carrots!

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Carrots!What should I do with 10 pounds of carrots?

Actually, the first question should be “Why do I have so many carrots?”

The short answer is because I’m frugal. Carrots were on my grocery list; I use carrots frequently and consider them a vegetable staple.  I can’t bear to spend $1 to $1.50 for a pound of carrots at the grocery store when I can get 10 pounds at our big box store for about $6. That’s just $.60 cents a pound — half the price, but a whole lot of carrots.

This large amount of carrots does cause a bit of a problem. Can I use them up while they’re still fresh?

Yes, I admit that there is a certain level of convenience in the bagged, ready-to-eat carrots. It’s no surprise that baby carrots are among the most popular items in the produce aisle, accounting for over 80% of all retail carrot sales.

RIMG4206One pound of carrots equals 3 to 3½ cups of peeled and sliced, chopped, or grated raw carrots. In case you’re counting, one 7-inch-long carrot has only 30 calories. A single cup of grated carrots has 45 calories. And boy, there are lots of nutrients packed into those calories! Few other vegetables or fruits contain as much carotene as carrots, which the body converts to vitamin A. Carrots are also a good source of potassium, fiber, and vitamin C.

But now, back to my 10 pounds of carrots.

Storage of this many carrots can pose a conundrum. It’s best to store carrots in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, unwashed and uncut, until you’re ready to use them. Most references say that carrots will keep for at least two weeks this way. However, I think we’re more inclined to eat our vegetables if they’re ready to use — that’s why baby carrots and pre-cut carrots are so popular (and $2 a pound!). So I left some carrots uncut and sliced some others for easy snacking on the go.

Carrot HummusTo use up my bounty, I turned to the Food and Health Communications recipe files. If you’re ever in the same boat as me, may I recommend the following recipes? They’re great for carrots!

Anyway, I’ve done this before, and after a while my husband finally said, enough is enough, he can’t eat any more carrots. Which is fine, but what do I do with the few that are lingering in the crisper drawer?

Carrots for the FreezerThe answer: I chop or grate them and throw them in the freezer in 1 cup portions. The National Center for Home Food Preservation says that carrots should be blanched before freezing for the best quality and texture. Since I plan to use the frozen carrots in cooked foods, I don’t worry too much about this, but I do try to use them up sooner rather than later. I actually like to have this extra stash in the freezer, ready to go for soups and casseroles when I don’t have fresh carrots available.

I’ve said this many times, a bargain isn’t a bargain if some of it goes to waste. But, in this case, I keep trying to convince myself that even losing a few last carrots would be cheaper than buying fewer at the $1.50 per pound price.  I think I’m still ahead financially, but I admit, I had to work at it!

By Cheryle Jones Syracuse, MS, Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University

Here are a few more cooking and shopping resources from the Nutrition Education Store. We’re here to help you look your very best, right now.

Lighten Up Your Shopping Cart Poster

The Cooking Demo Book

Shop Smart for Diabetes PowerPoint

And here’s a handout that offers a great introduction to carrots, including their nutrient profile, how to cook with them, and how to store them. Enjoy!

Carrots

Sharol Cripe, RDN, LDN, has also sent in a fantastic carrot resource. Visit the Englewood Farmers’ Market homepage to see recipes for roasted carrots and carrots with a Moroccan twist!

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