Proper nutrition for a penny: can a healthy diet be cheap

There is an opinion that proper nutrition is very expensive and difficult, and only those people who have a lot of extra money and free time can afford it.

Let's figure out if PP, as it is also called, is really so expensive? And is it possible to eat "right" for small amounts? You will find the answers below.

Avocado, hummus, blueberries, quinoa, chia, goji berries and acai… All these newfangled pp delicacies make us think that healthy food is incredibly expensive. But why do people forget about such simple and healthy foods as eggs, cottage cheese, buckwheat, bread, vegetables and fruits? After all, all this is also PP, and almost anyone can afford it. At least, the director of the National Medical Research Center for Preventive Medicine, the chief freelance therapist of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Oksana Drapkina, is sure of this.

According to her, proper nutrition actually saves a lot of time and money. Healthy dishes don't involve complicated recipes, so you definitely won't have to stand at the stove for hours. And due to the fact that there are no rare and expensive products among the ingredients, your budget will remain intact. You are more likely to spend a lot more money on unhealthy snacks, snacks and desserts than on porridges with vegetables, meat and cottage cheese.

Drapkina is sure that the main problem of Russians (and not only) is that they eat too few vegetables and fruits. Recall that according to WHO recommendations, you need to eat at least five servings of them per day. In addition, salty foods predominate in the diet of most people, and salt, as is known, is considered one of the main and underestimated risk factors for human health.

As for baby food, Russia has a more favorable situation compared to other countries. Our children do not eat so many chips, crackers and other snacks, even less often they drink sugary drinks and sodas. At the same time, they walk a lot and lead an active lifestyle. All this helps them to avoid the appearance of excess weight, however, statistics show that many children graduate from school with various health problems.

There are also those people who "overdo it", ridding their diet of supposedly harmful products. For example, vegetarians. According to the professor, meat and fish must be present on the table of a person who cares about his health.

Also mandatory foods in the diet are fruits and vegetables. And we are not talking about avocados, pineapples, mangoes and other overseas delicacies. Cabbage, cucumbers, apples and carrots will be enough. But you need to eat them every day!

But you can safely refuse some dairy products. Often, with age, people develop acquired lactase deficiency, which causes them to experience abdominal discomfort or flatulence after drinking milk.

Drapkina advises to consult a doctor before making a diet to get individual recommendations based on studies of glucose levels, blood pressure, cholesterol and other indicators. After the age of 25, a person should take a more careful approach to choosing his diet, if he has a predisposition to fullness, then it is necessary to start monitoring what he eats from childhood.

Also, be sure to familiarize yourself with the basic food pyramid (picture above) and adapt it to your diet. It is recommended that during each meal there are products from at least three different groups in it. For example, it can be porridge (lower tier), vegetables (second tier) and eggs (fourth tier).

As you can see, there are no super-complicated recipes and expensive products! It turns out that healthy eating can really be budget-friendly.