The Low-Cost Healthy Eating Checklist: What to Do and What to Skip

Eating to the Eatwell Guide on a constrained budget. Most healthy-eating advice quietly assumes money and time, and the cheapest foods in a supermarket include several of the most nutritious.

Key takeaways

• Frozen vegetables: nutritionally comparable to fresh, often cheaper
• Tinned fish with bones: a source of protein, omega-3 and calcium
• Most useful single change: Buy frozen vegetables and fruit, which also waste less.
• Commonest mistake: Assuming fresh is always better than frozen or tinned.
• See a doctor if any of the signs under "When to speak to a doctor" below apply to you.

Do

• Buy frozen vegetables and fruit, which also waste less
• Use pulses to replace part of the meat in dishes you already cook
• Check eligibility for Healthy Start if you are pregnant or have young children
• Cook in batches, which cuts both cost and energy use

Do not

• Assuming fresh is always better than frozen or tinned
• Paying for branded staples where own-brand is identical
• Buying perishables you will not use in time

The numbers behind the list

Those two lists follow from the published figures here.

If you change one thing

Buy frozen vegetables and fruit, which also waste less. If you only change one thing, make it that.

Where to go next

• Low-Cost Healthy Eating for Beginners: Where to Start
• Answers to the Common Questions on Low-Cost Healthy Eating
• Low-Cost Healthy Eating — the reference entry
• The Evidence on Reducing Food Waste, Without the Hype
• What the Guidance Really Says About Cooking Methods

When to speak to a doctor

If you are struggling to afford food, speak to your GP practice about social prescribing and local support, and check eligibility for Healthy Start. Unintentional weight loss should always be assessed by a GP rather than attributed to diet alone.

Where this comes from

• NHS — The Eatwell Guide
• NHS — Healthy Start

How this page was put together

Every figure, recommendation and warning above is taken from the guidance named in Where this comes from. Nothing on this page is inferred, summarised or generalised beyond what those bodies publish: where they give a number, it is their number, and where they are silent, so are we. Pages are rebuilt whenever the underlying record changes. Sign-off by a named clinician, where it has happened, is shown at the top of the page along with the date.

Medical disclaimer

This article is general information, not medical advice. It cannot account for your own history, medication or circumstances. Always speak to a GP, pharmacist or another qualified health professional before making changes that affect your treatment, and never delay seeking medical advice because of something you have read here. In an emergency, call 999.