To help save money on the weekly groceries, consider adding these five staples to your shopping trolley: eggs, oats, carrots, UHT milk and apples. These foods rate highly on the nutrient-rich foods index and on cost, meaning they represent good value for money when it comes to buying nutritious food.
Loading up on these items helps push more expensive, less nutritious foods out of your trolley. Keeping a supply at your place will also save extra trips to the shops, which saves petrol and time.
1. Eggs
Eggs are extremely good value at around A$6 a dozen (50 cents an egg).
Meat, chicken and fish prices vary from $12 a kilo for mince, $12–$20 a kilo for chicken, to $20–$50 a kilo for steak and fish depending on cut or type. Selecting the cheapest cuts still costs $2–$3 a serve, compared to two eggs at a $1 serve.
When you swap a red meat meal for an eggy dish, this can add up to a big saving. Try our egg recipes on the No Money No Time website, from fritters, to omelettes, or fried rice. These recipes also help use up other items you have in the pantry, fridge and veggie crisper.
Eggs are a good source of protein and also contain choline, lutein and zeaxanthin, vitamins A, B2, B12, D, E and folate, and minerals iron, zinc, iodine and selenium.
For people concerned about eggs raising cholesterol, a recent review of research evidence concluded there wasn’t likely to be any adverse effect on overall disease risk when consuming up to one egg a day.
2. Rolled oats
Rolled oats vary a lot in price from about $2 a kilogram for “own brand”, up to $9 for premium varieties.
Oats are really versatile. For breakfast you can make porridge, overnight oats, DIY muesli or granola.
Oats make a pastry substitute for a quick and easy quiche base. Or blitz them in a food processor and use as a breadcrumb substitute.
For dessert, you can use them to top a comforting apple crumble.
Oats are a wholegrain, meaning they retain every part of the original grain – the germ, bran and outer layers – and hence more fibre and nutrients.
Oats are a rich in beta-glucan, a soluble fibre that helps lower blood cholesterol levels by binding with bile acids in the gut, meaning they can’t be converted into LDL (bad) cholesterol.
They also contain B vitamins of thiamin (b1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), pantothenic acid (B5) and folate (B9), as well as vitamin E and the minerals iron, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.
Related Articles
‘Perfect bodies and perfect lives’: how selfie-editing tools are distorting how young people see themselves
Like many of her peers, Abigail (21) takes a lot of selfies, tweaks them with purpose-made apps, and posts them on social media. But, she says, the selfie-editing apps do more than they were designed for.
Read more
Pathway to purpose
From limited beginnings to limitless dreams - equity in education is giving Arthur Demetriou the chance to change the face of medicine.
Read more
“I thought I was a bad mother”: How telehealth changed a young boy’s life and gave a family hope
“I thought I was a bad mother,” says Marlie Matthews, tearfully. “I tried everything, but Marcus was getting more and more behind. He wasn’t speaking much and when he did, I couldn’t understand him. It was very hard on all of us.”
Read more
Sick of eating the same things? 5 ways to boost your nutrition and keep meals interesting and healthy
Did you start 2025 with a promise to eat better but didn’t quite get there? Or maybe you want to branch out from making the same meal every week or the same lunch for work almost every day?
Read more
Going to the dentist is expensive. Here are 3 things you can do to protect your oral health – and 3 things to avoid
Around one in three Australians delayed their visit to a dentist in the last financial year – or didn’t go at all – due to cost.Given it doesn’t look like dental treatment is being added to Medicare any time soon, what can you do?
Read more
Air is an overlooked source of nutrients - evidence shows we can inhale some vitamins
You know that feeling you get when you take a breath of fresh air in nature? There may be more to it than a simple lack of pollution.
Read more
3. Carrots
It’s hard to get better value than a bag of carrots at about $2.50 a kilo. They last for ages in the fridge and can be eaten raw, as carrot sticks or with carrot dip, or baked to make carrot veggie “chips”.
Try grating carrot as an extra on a salad roll or burger, or mixed into grated cheese to extend it when topping tacos, pasta or pizza, or even a dish like mac and cheese.
Other versatile uses include soup, carrot mash, roasted carrots or, for something sweet, carrot muffins or bliss balls.
Carrots are rich in the carotenoids alpha-carotene and beta-carotene, which get converted into vitamin A in the body and used in antibody production and to maintain healthy functioning of your eyes, skin, lungs and gut.
4. Longlife skim milk
Longlife skim milk costs about $1.60 a litre.
While some fresh varieties are around the same price, the value of longlife milk is that you can keep a store of it in the cupboard, meaning you never run out and it has a long shelf life.
Milk makes great smoothies and is an essential ingredient in dishes from quiche to cauliflower cheese to lemon delicious pudding.
Milk contains protein, calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium and vitamins A, B2 and B12.
Research shows regular milk consumption is associated with a lower risk of developing osteoporosis, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and colon cancer.
5. Apples
A bag of apples costs about $4 or 60 cents an apple and $4–$5 for a large can of stewed apple.
Apples make a portable snack. Add them to porridge, serve with pork, in coleslaw or in apple crumble.
Apples contain dietary fibre and pectin, vitamin B6 and C, and the minerals potassium, calcium, nitrogen, magnesium and traces of zinc, iron and copper.
In observational studies, people who ate more apples had a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and death from any cause.
The cost of living is biting. Here’s how to spend less on meat and dairy https://t.co/KFNfP4uMbE @ConversationEDU
— Laureate Prof Clare Collins AO (@ProfCCollins) April 15, 2024
For easy, tasty, economical meals that are quick to prepare, without too much effort, along with our food budget tips, visit our team’s No Money No Time website.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
