How do I eat healthy on a budget?


How do I eat healthy on a budget?

HUNTINGTON, WV (WOWK) – As we get closer to summer and the world starts opening up again, many people are looking to get fit and in shape in an affordable way.

“Summer is getting closer and people want to look good so they can wear their short pants and hit the beach and it’s harder in the summer than in the winter, self-consciously, to stay fit,” says resident Scotty Gaspard.

Another resident, Neil Oftuf, says he can imagine people want to get fit for outdoor activities, but even more “…there’s just a general pressure to be fit the whole year.”

A study done by PlutusFoundation.org found that one reason people tend not to eat healthy is food cost.

The study shows that unhealthy food is generally “…about $1.50 cheaper per day than healthy food.”
Jessica Walden, a Registered Dietician at St. Mary’s, says there are tricks to overcome the high prices of some of the fresh fruits and vegetables.

“You want to go into the fresh produce area and you can find things that are marked down because they have to be sold before a certain date, right? They go bad,”

Jessica Walden, Registered Dietician

Walden also explains a person’s environment could be a contributing factor as to why someone might find healthy eating a challenge.

Walden says we “…are just eating what we know. How we know to prepare food, or maybe we don’t know how to prepare food because it hasn’t really been prepared in our home as we’ve grown up. So we’re use to just eating out, having someone else prepare our food for us.”

One resident, Breece Ferrell, seemed to agree with Walden. “West Virginia has been known as kind of a food dessert. And so it can be hard for a lot of people to find access to health food,” says Ferrell.

Walden says there are many affordable ways to get healthy. One is by simply logging onto myplate.gov to get unbiased information and guidance on what foods to eat. She also says you can check out apps that give you nutritional value of the foods you’re eating or try just logging your day-to-day meals.

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