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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookJust wondering some tips from all of you out there. How is it done?? I have found that eating more raw foods is something that can be VERY expensive but does not have to be. I try to watch which stores I shop at. Like Meijer has lettuce for $1.59 a l pound while walmart is $1.38 a head. But meijer has some really good deals else where. I try to get the clearance priced produce and such. But I found recently, that if I spend too much time in clearance, I buy stuff that I do not need and it might even just rot away if I do not know what to do with it or cannot eat it in time. I have found that bananas are like .50 a pound no but on clearance sald between .19 and .25 depending on the store. Though they do not always have a lot of clearance stuff. I am also finding htat sometimes it is cheaper to stay away from clearance too because it is cheaper to buy things like oranges and grapefruits, in the bad rather than in clearance. Also, usually, the stores will ahve bulk and in bags, I weighed limes out once and the bulk limes were cheaper than the ones in the 2 lbs bags for 2 for $4.00
Anyhow, what are some of your guys’ tips?
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hmm, no one has any tips on saving money?
Sprouting is cheap. Eat tops of vegetables – we stupidly discard these nutritious edible parts – like carrot and raddish tops.
...oh and forage. It gets you into nature and it’s so much fun! This website shows edible wild plants: http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
Soon I’ll be gathering dandelion, chicory, pounds of berries, and other wild foods. I had an elderly woman who lives nearby show me the foods that were foraged during WWII. I love foraging!!
The supermarket by my office sells green banana’s for a lot less than their yellow banana’s. I buy those and just wait a few days for them to become edible.
try using sunflower and flax seeds as your primary “nuts/seed” source because they are inexpesnive
Where do you live? You can buy from farmer’s markets, fruit stands, join a food co-op, buy from farms directly. You can also buy nuts, seeds, anything dry online wholesale/in bulk.
I take inspiration from my grandmother who pretty much lived off the land. They had a garden and preserved everything come harvest. Of course, as raw foodists we wouldn’t want to can anything…. but good investments for raw foodists who want to save money are a big freezer and a dehydrator. Of course, grow a garden if you can or forage like Carmentina says and buy in bulk or sales when you can and then freeze or dehydrate what you can’t eat. I mentioned in another thread that I have a hard time getting good greens where I live so when I do get them I buy lots and blend them with a little water and freeze them in ice cube trays for green smoothies. Make fruit roll-ups in your dehydrator with extra fruit… etc. I love dehydrated pineapple for example. I will try to get a good deal on a whole box of pineapples and then dry them… it is like candy that stuff! Also with nuts, buy in bulk and soak and dehydrate them. I would think that they last a long time dehydrated don’t they?
Yes, I try to buy in bulk if I can. I live near Midland, MI. We have a garden and I am just about ready to start seeds which will be ready to transplate in May. I love foraging! I have done some last summer. It was funny to think, when I first started my garden, I did not know much of wild edibles so I just picked a lot of weeds, then later in the year, I did some research and found a lot of what I picked, was good to eat. Green bananas on sale sounds weird.
I tried to buy in bulk as produce goes and it is not very easy. A big box of bananas is the same price per pound as if I bought one pound. I can buy a 48 pound bag of carrots for only pennies less per pound than a three pound bag. Not much of a savings. I did find that I can order carrots from the produce store, but they are not organic, not even California, they are huge Michigan carrots that have cracks and are not the best and might have been sprayed, I dunno…for $13.00 a 50 lbs bag. Thats a savings, but the quality is noticeable.
heres a great thread on the topic at rawfoodtalk , link =
http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=225…
I used to live in Mt. Pleasant, MI. There’s a store called “Rogers Natural Foods” in Edmore.
They don’t have fresh produce, but you can get things in bulk. 5lb of almonds are $20.00, 5 lb cashews are around $15.00 depending on the size of the nuts, etc…
Check it out! I miss that store…
There was an E-book I found on line that has a lot of helpful tips for eating raw frugally. I was very impressed with it and bought it. If you want I can send you the site for it.
I save a ton of money by sprouting my own things like alfalfa. Get to know your favorite food stores and ask them when they get fresh produce in. I find that prices drop just before the next shipment comes in. Also, even though I can’t eat a lot of nuts, I do tend to substitute things like sunflower seends for walnuts. I love walnuts but they’re too pricey for me to use often.
Home sprouting. I’m going to start growing wheatgrass and maybe barleygrass at home for use in smoothies.
Also, foraging. Shazzie has a video on youtube where she goes foraging for greens. It shows the greens she pick pretty clearly, so maybe you can memorize what they look like from the video if you decide to go foraging:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=c1wzs256OK4
Victoria Boutenko also discusses how she saved money on raw foods for her family when their income was very low:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SYSm1lydbcQ
And there’s always dumpster diving…don’t laugh, I’m considering it myself…
Buy fruits and veg in season and do not waste anything. Use stems, leaves and all! I also agree with Alix1962 about sprouting. Sprouts are cheap to grow and are very satisfying!
Hello. Am pretty new to raw. I will be finishing up a MC next week and will be needing to some shopping. Live in Northwest Indiana and would love to know if any has found any good places to shop at reasonable prices. Like shgadwa I shop at Meijer and a local grocery store chain. Found one decent health food store, but a little ways away.
pamparred-I would like to know the site you found the e-book on if ya don’t mind. Any information would be helpful. Thanks
Here are a few recent threads that talk about saving money…
http://www.goneraw.com/forums/3/topics/2733
http://www.goneraw.com/forums/3/topics/2694
http://www.goneraw.com/forums/3/topics/2519
Whoa on the carrot tops, I have heard they are toxic! I will check into this for you!
40in8, the health benifits of wheatgrass are better on an empty stomach you shouldn’t mix it with anything! So a shot of it first thing in the morning. Don’t worry, it tastes like really sweet, sweet peas! It’s good!!
Carrot tops ARE NOT toxic! Just extremely high in potassium as well as many other detoxifying vitamins and minerals.
Oh, I had been told not to juice the tops because of toxicity!
Latching onto the words “as cheap as possible”, foraging certainly would qualify.
Assuming you’re American, in the summer, we’ve got blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, paw-paws, persimmons. In the fall, walnuts, pine nuts, hickory nuts, even acorns are edible after leeching the tannin. Plants are trickier because of idenfification, but two common, easy-to-identify “weeds”, dandelion and purslane were actually colonial foodcrops that people just forgot about. Dandelion is vitamin-packed, purslane contains a type of long-chain omega-3 that is rare in plants. Again, they’re weeds, so it’s not hard to grow them in a garden.
You’ll just have to study. There are really only a handful of plants in America that will mean certain, immediate death. Others will make you very sick, but you won’t be dead. Once you learn, garlic grows wild, onions grow wild, asparagus, fennel, not to mention all the plants that the Indians cultivated that never made it to our tables. There’s also a ton of non-obvious stuff. For example, under the brown bark, pine cambium is actually edible and it was actually a pretty common practice to eat it in different cultures. (The word “Adirondack” means “people who eat trees”).