Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. It's going to be just me today. It's a solo episode and we're going to be talking about eating well on a budget. Everything to do with the cost of living and average costs of food shops in the UK. I've used ONS data, that's the Office of National Statistic data, to look at the average costs and I think it'll be really interesting for you, no matter what household you're in, whether you live alone, whether you live with a partner, whether you have a family. I think it's a really interesting look into what other people are spending on their food shops. We also talk a bit about what healthy means and how we can actually achieve that on a budget. And I've got some experience of doing that both in clinic, but also for things like TV shows, the thrifty cooking in the Doctor's Kitchen show and the recent BBC budget exercise I did as well at the end of last year. We're going to talk about what I personally do before the shop, at the shop and during the week. Some of my favourite budget-friendly ingredients and also what not I believe, what you not, what you should not be cutting corners on. And also, we dive a little bit into proteins. I think there are legitimate concerns about lowering animal-based proteins in one's diet, particularly as we know that they are less bioavailable and less digestible than plant-based proteins. I think I helped to mitigate some of those concerns, but I think it's really important that we have an honest discussion about that. As we should also be having honest discussions about the quality of foods and the different processing that they go through. So frozen versus fresh is something that I think is again a concern that a lot of people have. Can you achieve a healthy diet with frozen? We talk a little bit about the differences that occur when you handle different types of produce differently. And also how you can potentially save thousands of pounds per year on your food bill, depending on the household that you live in as well. Remember, you can check out the budget meal plan. There's a link to that in the podcast description or on YouTube if you're watching this. And the links to the BBC iPlayer show, Thrifty Cooking in the Doctor's Kitchen. You can get the recipes wherever you are in the world, just look around on the BBC Food website. And if you are an app subscriber, which is on Apple, we are working on Android, and if you are an Android waiting, if you want to get on the wait list, there's a link in the newsletter, the eat listen read newsletter. But if you do have the app, then pull it out right now, search budget meals on the app and you'll get a selection of all the budget meals. And there's also in the search function there as well, just right at the top, you can check budget meals right there. Remember, you can check this out on YouTube. We're going to be doing a lot more content on YouTube over the next couple of months and when we move into our studio, we're going to be doing a lot more cooking material for YouTube. And you can subscribe to the newsletters, eat, listen and read, and also seasonal Sundays, a new newsletter that we're pushing out every Sunday where we dive into a seasonal ingredient and we talk about the history of it, the nutritional qualities of it and how you can use it in your cooking.
Dr Rupy: Okay, so we are going to be talking about budget meals, cooking on a budget, reducing your weekly shop, but I do want to acknowledge the cost of living crisis. Now, I want to start by saying that this is not a cure for poverty. This isn't a suggestion that if you eat this way, then you're magically going to pull yourself out of financial worries. It's definitely not a suggestion that this is all you need to do to fix whatever financial issues you have and be more mindful of your eating habits. There are pretty insidious things going on within our economy that are compounded by the rising costs of fuel and energy that are putting people in very, very dire and difficult situations. Essentially, if you think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is this famous five-tier model, actually, I think there's more than five tiers now, but it comprises at the base, the foundation of physiological needs, things like food, shelter, and then as you move up, you have things like safety, security, employment, and then you have love, belonging, esteem, self-actualization, which is where you are thinking more on the creative side and the potential of your human experience. A lot of people think of as you go further up Maslow's needs, they're less useful or they're nice to have. Actually, I think there's a blend of all those different elements that you need in your life to have a truly fulfilling experience. But it feels like an attack on those foundational needs for basic survival, essentially. You know, food, shelter, warmth. And this isn't just me saying that. I actually looked at some research commissioned by the Trussell Trust that supports a network of 1300 food banks here in the UK. And they found that over 50% of the 5.7 million people living on universal credit across the UK, for those of you who don't know, universal credit is a benefit scheme for those on low income or in some way entitled to have extra financial help. They found that of those people, they were going without at least one of the absolute essentials that we all need to keep warm, fed and clothed, which in one of the richest economies in the world, it's pretty, I mean, shocking. And everything that I hear from other people involved in food charities is that the pandemic was the tip of the iceberg and actually it's continued since and getting worse. More research again from the same source, one in three had been unable to afford adequate food. And what they mean by adequate food is that there was more than one day in the previous month that they'd been unable to eat, which again is pretty harrowing. So this is why I don't want to suggest to belittle or understate the wider issues in society when I'm doing an episode on the podcast about budget food. But at the same time, I want to help where possible because I feel that some of the tips could certainly help ease any pressures that people are currently experiencing. And I hope it's going to be generally useful for you. And perhaps there's a realization that you can eat better without having to opt into what is seen as a premium lifestyle. So there you go, there's my virtue signalling over. Let's park that. Hopefully you appreciate that I'm not trying to wish away any sort of wider issues that are going on. And we're going to go straight into my tips. Actually, before we do, I want to do a little exercise with whoever's listening or watching. How you stack up against the average household spend. Now, with all these different sources of information, you have to realize that when we look at averages, they can be massively skewed by the very poor households and the very rich households. So take everything with a pinch of salt. We also have to use old data. So any of the data that we use for averages on spending are usually a year out. So that's just something to bear in mind. But it wouldn't be, it wouldn't surprise me if most people listening or watching this never really thought about how their weekly shop stacks up against the average household in the UK. And there's going to be some stats for the US listeners as well that I don't have to hand. But I certainly haven't thought about it. It wasn't until this was brought to my attention and I think everyone's been feeling the pinch as well in terms of how much you feel is necessary to spend on groceries. But the average costs of food shops based on the family spending report by the ONS, which for again for the US audience is the Office of National Statistics, they use 2020 to 2022 data. So there are some flaws there. And plus everyone has, everyone has different needs based on their energy requirements, preferences, health needs, etc. So again, you have to bear that in mind. But the a person's average spend on food in the UK per week is £47.50, round up to £50 quid, or around £206 per month, about £200 quid a month. And that includes groceries, takeaways and restaurants with the rough split of two-thirds on groceries, that would be what you buy in your supermarket or convenient store, whatever that might be, and the rest eating out, whether it be via deliveries or restaurants. So a rough rule of thumb is £50 per week per adult, i.e. £200 per month, and that's about two and a half K a year on food. Just out of interest, when I hear that number, I think to myself, maybe and maybe I'm coloured because I understand how low I can get my weekly shop down. I look at that number and I'm like, that's pretty achievable to eat really well on a budget. And that's because I've sort of developed the skills, and I'm sounding like Liam Neeson here in Taken, but I've developed unique skills to be able to source out good quality food. I have these sort of health reflexes where I go into a supermarket and I can, you know, immediately find myself eating good and sourcing good quality products. And you can put me in any environment, whether it's a food desert or on the road or an airport, and I'll figure out how to make a healthy meal. I've done that with friends actually when we've been travelling together and they're pretty amazed at how I can actually source things and put things together. I'm like, oh, this is really good high quality fats and this is good fibre and this is actually a better source of protein. So I have that sort of skill set. So when I look at those numbers, I'm like, okay, I can do this. And actually, the budget meal plan that we have linked to in the podcast show notes and on the newsletter, if you get the eat listen read newsletter, we've got a budget meal planner there that shows you how you can eat really well for around £20, £25 per week with the rest with the extra, if you're part of the average spend, you can spend on whatever else that brings you comfort, whether it's a takeaway or eating out or something special like that. Looking at the same report, the average weekly food bill for two adults in a single household is about £100, with £74 spent on the weekly food shop and £28 spent on food out. And then an average family of four, which I think is going to be particularly interesting for people. So a typical family of four, two adults, two younger children would spend around £178 each week on food, with £130 on the weekly shop and £50 on restaurant and takeaway meals, which makes, well, actually not using those same numbers, but in the same report they said the average monthly, total monthly food bill for a family of four in the UK is £771. So round that up to about £800 quid. So over the year, that actually corresponds to £9,250. And this made me realize a couple of things. And I've done this doing TV shows that I did with Prue Leith, Cook Clever Waste Less, and also the thrifty cooking shows that I've done on the BBC. Food is not just one of the biggest health decisions that we all make every day and every week. It's actually one of the biggest financial decisions we make as well. And if using these tips that I'm going to go through with you today could save you 15 or 20% on your food bill, hopefully more, that's a saving of almost £2,000 across the year. And so it's a big chunk. It's a really big chunk. So I don't want to belittle the things I'm saying as well because I really feel that they could really make an impact. So there's a lot to think about. I also want to say like, particularly if you are the manager of the household, you know, you're responsible for the food shop, whether you're a single parent household, all these different things, it can be a real challenge to navigate that shopping cart. You are balancing taste, appearance, cost, health habits, convenience, you know, there's the cultural elements to it as well, there's the sustainability if you're a bit more conscious or ethic-minded as we're all being told that we have to be. There's also how you contend with advertising. It's really difficult to balance the needs of your family as well. You know, if you've got a child or a dependent that has a particular preference for certain things, or they're a fussy eater, or your partner is, you know, I'm assuming there's one person, but it could very well be collective decision making when it comes to the weekly shop. But, you know, they might have their own need states as well. So it's a really difficult challenge. So do go easy on yourself. But there are ways in which we can make it slightly better. And hopefully some of the tips today will get you there. It is actually something that we're working on with the app as well. One of the things that we are trying to build is a way in which not only do we educate you on the benefits of food by doing a deep dive into nutrition science and the research and the history and all that kind of stuff, but a way in which we can auto-generate a meal plan based for you, all the people in your household, that takes into account health needs, dietary preferences, taste preferences, budget constraints, all these different elements should be in the click of a couple of buttons. And we should be able to take that headache away from families or individuals and be able to integrate that meal plan, however many meals you need, whether it's just Monday, Thursday or Friday, or maybe just lunches or whatever it might be, integrate that into a unified shopping experience. So it makes the whole, it makes the whole goal of eating well every day that much simpler. And we have the technology today to be able to do that. So we are working on that as well. So if you're an app subscriber, thank you so much for the support because it is allowing us to to chase these ambitions. So go easy on yourself in the meantime. I'm here to simplify things. You can have the best of all worlds with healthy, budget-friendly and delicious meals. And I also want to say it doesn't need to be boring or expensive. It should be, for me, cooking should be fun, it should be tasty, affordable, there shouldn't be a barrier because of price. And this is something I think we should all lean into because food is one of the biggest sources of pleasure. We're hardwired to love food. I talked about this in my in my last book, Dr Rupy Cooks. The pleasure centres that we have in our brain light up with food. And that's why, you know, unfortunately we have big food that is that knows this very well and and can and is purposely trying to light them up for the wrong reasons. But food is something that we universally enjoy. It's how we celebrate, it's how we share cultures, it's how we meet, it's how we interact. And I don't want to take that away from food just because of budget or health. So that's something I want to get clear. What do we mean by healthy? So a quick segue into the principles of healthy eating. You know that I weave in these principles of healthy eating, whatever cookbook I do, whether it's on the app, whether it's on Instagram, whether it's on, you know, any sort of social media, the cooking videos that I've got on YouTube. They are woven through all the products that we create and the recipes that we create at Doctor's Kitchen. Very quickly, they're going to be plant-focused and rich in fibres. Universally, the eating patterns that are high fibre are associated repeatedly with better health outcomes and lower risk of disease. The long-term studies we have, the short-term studies we have, fantastic evidence base around the more plants in your diet, the higher fibre in your diet, the better health outcomes. So this is what we rely on. Yes, there are instances where there are different types of diets that might be more appropriate, particularly in therapeutic instances and scenarios. So I don't want to suggest that health is just one thing for everyone. I think we all have different need states, but as a very basic principle, a foundational principle, most people would benefit from more plants and more fibre in their diet. Secondly, whole, so minimally processed, skin on, whole grain, those sorts of things. That's because food, whole food contains complex structures within the skins of food, for example, they contain beneficial compounds. That's actually where plants concentrate the phytonutrients I always bang on about. And when we reduce, on the flip side, when we reduce ultra-processed foods, that's where we're actually having a benefit on our gut as well, and we're actually removing some of the elements of our diet that are detrimental to our overall health. Thirdly, colourful, so diverse range of whole foods each week, that means we're feeding our gut microbiota, this population of microbes that live in our large intestine, an abundance of different substrate that allows them to thrive. And the aim of the game is to keep your gut microbes happy. So colourful, diverse range of food, you know, there's this studies that are getting a lot of attention around 30 different plants a week. We can smash through that in a in a day of eating Doctor's Kitchen recipes. You'll smash through 30 different plants a day. And I think that also, just a slight note on that, the 30 plants a day, I think is a really good guide, but I think the dose of food is quite important as well. And when I say dose, I mean the actual raw amount. And when you look at some other studies, you'll find that we need close to 800 grams of fruit and vegetables every single day. I actually include nuts and seeds in that as well. But a portion is 80 grams of like a squash or a broccoli or whatever it might be. So we need 10 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Sounds like a lot, but when you include things like onions and fennel and all the sort of aromats that we put at the base of foods, it is really achievable. And again, something that you'll smash through if you use Doctor's Kitchen recipes every day because all of our recipes tend to have a minimum of three portions of fruit and vegetables per serving. And fourthly, quality fats. Fats have been demonized for many years. A lot of people are coming around to this understanding that nuts, seeds, good quality oils that have been cold pressed and minimally processed have an abundance of anti-inflammatory chemicals in them, plant chemicals that support gut health, immune health and a lot more. So that's basically what we mean by health, but I appreciate that health means different things for different people, but as a as a general rule of thumb, these are the things that we're going to go for when we're planning our shop, when we're planning the meals that we're going to make, and and also is woven through all the Doctor's Kitchen recipes as well. When you break down your diet through the lens of these different principles, it can be affordable. And I've shown that many, many times again. We do have to be cognizant of the fact that people have different constraints like fuel and preferences and health needs, but it can be affordable for sure. It does have a reputation of being boring or bland, but food is not just an important part of health. Like I said, it's a pleasurable experience that is sensory, aesthetic, communal, cultural. These are the key things that we should get across whenever we create recipes, but also when we think about healthy food. So if you think about healthy food as something that is punitive or solitary or something that you ought to do, automatically your mindset goes to a place where you're like, I don't want to do it. And willpower only get you so far. And actually you want to reframe that completely, the fact that you get to enjoy these foods, you get to enjoy this rich diverse array of recipes. You are feeding your body the right things that are going to make you fire on all cylinders, that are going to get you energized, that are going to fuel your workouts or your work or your cognitive abilities, it's going to improve all these different things and you're going to feel healthier and happier in yourself. This is the mindset you need to sort of dive into when it comes to healthy eating. So these are, you know, these are things that I think I'm lucky to have grown up with. Because the other element I think is useful to imagine is when you are budget constrained, I'm not saying that everyone is budget constrained, actually people blow a lot of money on their food. exorbitant amount of money on food, whether it's eating out or eating at home. But when you're budget constrained, if you put that constraint on you, I feel that it develops and pushes the boundaries of your culinary creativity. So, I mean, that was certainly my experience when I created budget recipes for BBC Food. You can find it on, regardless of where you're listening to this around the world, you can find the BBC Food recipes on the website, just type in Dr. Rupy budget BBC Food, for example. I'll put the link in the in the podcast as well. But based on my experience, like it was really challenging, but it really pushed like how I would use different spices or different flavorings or I could use certain ingredients, like how was I going to change the texture of those and all that kind of stuff, whilst also being time constrained, because I'm aware, you know, if you are budget constrained or you are looking after your household or whatever it might be, you don't have time. You've got so many other pools on your attention and your day, it's impossible to think, okay, well, this person's just going to be able to do a 15 hours of slow cooking or whatever it might be. Like, you know, you need to, I need to be cognizant of the different pools on people's time as well. The other reason why I feel I've developed sort of a budget mindset is because my parents when they were working super hard during their 20s and 30s and saving a lot of money. I hope they don't mind me talking about this, but anyway, they really lent into the thrifty mindset. My mom was telling me like, you know, she was working in finance and my dad was starting his his own thing, his business and working a whole bunch of different jobs as well. And they would literally like buy a massive bag of lentils and a massive bag of whole wheat flour or atta. And that that like they could get that back in the day for like so, so cheap. So, but they would cook everything from scratch. They would never really eat out apart from like, you know, on special occasions. They would my mom was super flexible and this comes into some of my suggestions as well. Super flexible about whatever she could find, whether it was like fresh herbs or whatever looked good at the market, whatever was cheap at the market. And they ate well. They ate really well. When I when I look back at what they would be eating, which would be a lot of whole foods, dal, what we would describe today as peasant-like food or farmer food, which is actually very healthy. It was, it hit all the principles of healthy eating. It was plant-focused, it was rich in fibre, it was diverse, it was colourful, they had some really good quality fats in there. So it, you know, that kind of experience, that kind of those kind of stories have definitely influenced my belief in that you can do this. And whenever they would go to like, you know, for a date night or whatever it might be, they would just go to like a really cheap Indian vegetarian restaurant. I think it was, I think it's called Diwanas. I haven't been there in years, but I'm pretty sure it's still going. And you can get like a thali for like a fiver or something. I don't think I'm exaggerating that. I think it probably gone up by now, but it was super cheap and I think it's still cheap. So definitely look out for those restaurants when you're looking to splurge, particularly the vegetarian ones because they're awesome. So let's dive into some of these low-cost tips or as I like to describe them as heuristics or like rules of thumb. And I've gathered a ton of them from conversations with people, working with various charities like Made in Hackney for example, they're like an amazing plant-based charity based in East London. They also did like a whole bunch of work with food banks and delivery of food parcels during the pandemic and even post-pandemic as well. This is also from my own research for doing all the stuff with BBC Food and also creating the budget meal planner and all the other sort of budget constraints that we put on ourselves when we're creating certain recipes that you'll find on the app and on the website. I would categorize these into before you shop, at the shop, and during the week. So before you head to the shops, got some tips, at the shops, you've got to be like, you've got to be nimble because I'll explain why, but supermarkets are out there to get you, and during the week. So this is where the flexibility comes into it. All right. When you go to the shops, plan. I know it's so boring and it's, you know, it's probably eye roll for a lot of you if, you know, you're you're confident cooks or whatever, but without a plan, plan to fail. That's what I say. The simple act of meal planning has been shown to save you money, right? You're more likely to stick to a fixed budget, you're less likely to veer away from what your plan of attack was, and it gives you a strategy of how you can actually save your money and you can actually budget for that week. Okay, this is what we're going to be eating and these are the ingredients we're going to go for. You can do a bit of homework online, but if you prefer or find that the supermarkets are cheaper or the international stores or wherever you do your shopping is cheaper, then you just go there and do your research. But I remember actually when I was doing the budget meal plan at the mid-mid last year, end of last year, I would go to all the different supermarkets with my little pen and and notebook and and literally just write down all the prices for all the different ingredients that I wanted to to go through. And actually, the beeb actually helped me come up with an Excel sheet with all the different supermarkets and they would plug in the prices of like peas and eggs and all that kind of stuff and we would come up with an average of what the average cost of all those different ingredients were. Depending on where you are in the country, the locality, the access to farmers markets, local markets, all that kind of stuff, it's definitely going to be different, but these are some heuristics. So I did look in the literature to find out if there was if there were studies that demonstrate the the impact of meal planning on your finances. And there isn't much. And I did come across one study that I wanted to talk about, not because of what it concluded or didn't conclude, but actually what you need to look out for, okay? So there was a cross-sectional study that aimed to investigate the association of meal planning and diet quality, including adherence to nutritional guidelines, good end point, food variety and weight status. So weight status, food variety, weight status is something that unfortunately nutrition studies pretty much rely on because it's a fixed end point that's very easy to measure. Highly flawed for a number of different reasons. One of which was the fact that they used things like food frequency questionnaires that unfortunately a lot of nutrition studies use, which is why it's a it's a real shaky science in general. Which is why whenever you hear someone talking about nutrition with very, very fixed and firm beliefs, you always got to put a red flag up. And if you ever catch me doing that, put your red flag up against me. Luckily, I feel like I'm pretty nuanced. The intervention group, i.e. what they were comparing the control group to, i.e. people who didn't meal plan, were simply those who declared that they were intending to meal plan at least occasionally. So that was the intervention. I mean, there was no way of checking whether they'd actually meal planned or not. So, I mean, it's a bit of a joke. The fact that it was even published is quite funny, but still interesting. And what what they concluded or didn't conclude was meal planning was associated with a healthy diet and less obesity. And that was actually, I believe, the title of the the paper. They go on to say, you can't infer causality from this because of the the flawed nature of everything, but it might be relevant. So, look, just whenever you see a headline, whether it's on a in a newspaper, a broadsheet, a tabloid, a Twitter post or a journal, as it was the case here, you know, something something is associated with something something, you always got to dive a little bit deeper because unfortunately, everyone is veering towards clickbaitiness. Even we do on the YouTube channel, you know, some of our titles are pretty clickbaity, but hopefully you get into the content, we provide some nuance as I am right now. And the links to that that study are going to be in the in the show notes on the doctorskitchen.com as well. So I think when it comes to meal planning and the benefits of meal planning, it really comes down to real world experience of my own experience, your your own experience of meal planning, a dose of common sense, obviously. These things combined with pointers in the direction of planning, particularly as most supermarkets are meticulously designed to upsell you things, right? Whether it's the colour of the signs, the discounting, the position of the shelves, the end of aisle offers, these are all things that are designed to put money from your pocket into their pocket. And look, there's no denying that. I'm this isn't a big conspiracy. As soon as you go into a supermarket, you know that everything is, you should know, everything is designed to upsell you. So you've got to whenever you go into that environment, you've got to be, you've got to have your guard up. And the same thing online as well, probably worse online because there are very clear marketing tactics that everyone uses in e-commerce to upsell you things. So you're you're fighting against a lot of um very well planned behavioral nudges that nudge you to put more things into your basket. Hopefully, we can use the similar sort of nudges to put uh healthier items in your basket, but when you're on a budget, you've got to be pretty strict anyway. My anecdotal experience of using meal planning is that it's saved thousands for for friends, families, patients. And it could potentially work for you. And this was definitely the experience that me and Prue Leith had when we um when we did the Cook Clever Waste Less. So we had families that were spending thousands of pounds sometimes every month, many of them many years over the year. And um we we demonstrated with a simple act of meal planning and wasting less food, you could save a lot of money. So, uh, it it's I think it's definitely something that uh you should at least try and just monitor what your your um your change in your budget is and what you do with the extra um money as well. To meal plan, I would suggest either getting a very simple, cheap whiteboard that you can stick in your fridge or in your kitchen somewhere, flick through your cookbooks. I'm not saying that you need to get the Doctor's Kitchen cookbooks, but you can get them in all good book stores. Um, fill in the shopping list. Uh, we're actually working on harmonizing this process on the app as well. Everyone keeps on asking us for a meal planning element. We're definitely working on that. Um, and then hitting the shops or the local market. I actually find the satisfaction of knowing what I'm going to be eating on Thursday or going to be preparing on Thursday, even if I have to divide it into a couple of shops to maintain the freshness of the food. Um, I find that really satisfying. I actually I I like knowing what I'm going to be looking forward to. Um, and actually when I was growing up, my mom would have a meal plan. Uh, she she would almost like do it like a cafe, like on Thursday we'd have like Italian night. And Italian night would be, you know, meatballs or spaghetti or, you know, bruschetta, like all these different things. We felt we were so fancy. Um, I was like 11 or 12 at the time. So, you know, you can make it quite fun as well, particularly if you've got kids at home, like get them involved, get them asking what things they're going to look forward to, what kind of herbs they're going to add to it, how they're going to make it different from last week. You can make it a really, really fun activity. Um, so, yeah, I'm always inspired by um that movie, uh, La Vita Bella. I think it's called La Vita Bella. Very, very horrific story uh in the context of what it's about. It's about a a guy who's Jewish and his son going to a concentration camp. It's a very old movie. And he basically convinces his son that um the concentration camp is a big game. And in light of the fact that it's a horrific uh situation and a horrific reality, um the movie is so touching uh because of the love that his father has for his son and how he's doing everything in his power to not just protect him physically, but protect him emotionally, um which I always find really heartwarming. Bit of a segue and very different to exactly what we're talking about here. We're not talking about anything as as uh as macabre as that. But, you know, I I I find inspiration from from various uh elements of of media and stuff. As you probably know from my eat listen read newsletter. So, before you shop, get some inspiration, think of it as a fun activity, think about these constraints as something that's actually going to push you. Um and you'll, you know, there's a ton of recipes on on the website, on Instagram, on the app and all that kind of stuff as well. All right. Uh second thing, uh during the planning phase and before you head to the shops. Need protein, think pulses. So, tinned, dried beans, peas, lentils. If you have time, then go for the dried versions and cook them from scratch because the texture and the flavor of these different legumes is so, so much better. I've grown up within a culture of like always having fresh prepared beans. I mean, we we use convenient beans obviously all the time, but I I it's not been out of uh out of the ordinary to have beans that are prepared from scratch, i.e. soaked and then uh boiled for like 45 minutes with a little bit of um bicarb. Although you do have to weigh up the issues around energy consumption. However, I I I still think even with the energy hikes, uh it's still affordable to do because we actually did a little bit of digging around the contribution of cooking to your overall energy consumption. Uh it ranges, obviously from household to household, but the biggest uh consumption of your energy is unsurprisingly your heating costs. Kitchen costs account for around 6 to 8%. There was a Bloomberg article that went through this, I think at the end of last year, we'll link to it in the show notes as well. So kitchen cooking is not going to be a huge, huge contributor, apart from if you're using the oven for many, many hours. So I would just bear bear that in mind. I think there's an unnecessary amount of attention being given to kitchen materials. And look, I have an air fryer. I I also have a slow cooker. I tend not to use those. I tend to just use my hob because it's quicker, easier, easier to clean, all the rest of it. And look, they will reduce your total energy spend, but to fact if you factor in the savings of having an air fryer, it takes usually over a year for you to realize those savings. In some cases, depending on the price of your air fryer, it can take two years. So if you think about the warranty of an air fryer, it could break in that time. I don't know. I'm sure there's many uh very well-made air fryers out there and I don't doubt that it's really convenient as well. I think they're they're an awesome gadget to have in any kitchen. But if you're buying it thinking that it's going to save you a ton of money, I got news for you. It it's going to take a little while for you to save those pennies. And actually, I think you could probably do a lot better by buying more appropriately, uh cooking things from scratch a bit more and changing up your protein needs. So getting a lot more uh plant-based proteins into your diet versus meat-based proteins or animal-based proteins because it's definitely a lot cheaper and there are potentially health benefits as well. So the cheapest options in the UK tend to be red lentils that you can buy in bulk, um red kidney beans, chickpeas, split peas and mixed beans. You can buy these in in canned and jarred and all the rest of it. Um stock up for the week and you can create lots of different easy meals and they provide not just protein but also fiber. I also want to I have to catch myself when I talk about things through the lens of just one macronutrient, like uh fish is just protein or beef is just protein or beans are like protein and fiber. In reality, when you're eating whole food, you're getting a huge, huge rich array of all these different um uh compounds um and different types of amino acids as well. I think a lot of people um understandably have legitimate concerns about whether their protein needs are being met if they convert to uh completely to plant-based proteins or largely to or mostly to plant-based proteins. And the common ones and the common sort of uh pushbacks I get are around amino acid profile, so looking at the uh distribution and the quantities of the 20 different amino acids, particularly the nine essential ones, bioavailability and digestibility of proteins. Very legitimate concerns. Sometimes I would say washed away or sort of not really appreciated, particularly if you have a persuasion towards 100% plant-based eating for moral or ethical reasons, which I completely understand. Um but there are a few things that you can do to mitigate uh those concerns. So the the if you're too long didn't read, you can skip forward this and the answer is combining proteins and actually plant-based proteins have uh a real rich array of all those different uh nine essential uh amino acids with some that are particularly high. But let let's go into it for those of you who are interested. So despite the lower anabolic properties of plant versus animal protein. So let me just dive into that for a second. Um anabolic properties are referring to the ability of uh proteins to build uh sorry, amino acids to build bigger structures. And the normal thing that we think of is uh around skeletal muscle, although amino acids aren't just for skeletal muscle. Um the those properties are diminished in plant-based proteins. They're less likely to have the same effects as animal-based proteins. That's just a fact. We're not going to go too much into into depth about about that. Um but there are things that you can do. So I was looking at this paper that I'll link to um in the show notes as well as a number of other papers that have looked into this. Uh a few strategies that can mitigate against the lower anabolic properties of plant-based proteins versus animal-based proteins. Again, that's just a fact. I'm not going to go into it in too much more detail than that because we just have to accept that plant-based proteins are not as high quality as animal-based uh proteins. Um it's it's yeah, we're not going to go into it. So, a few things that we can do both as individuals and in the food industry, right? Consumption of greater amounts of the plant-based proteins. That is a very simple, I know it sounds really silly, but that's a very simple way of mitigating against the fact that you're not going to have as much of an anabolic property as an animal-based protein. Eat more of it. Second thing, combine the uh different protein sources from plants to provide a more balanced amino acid profile. When we say more balanced, it means that rice versus soy versus corn, uh versus seeds, those are going to have different of different amounts of those nine amino acids that you're going to find in all different types of uh uh plants. So when you combine all those different amounts, you're basically filling in the gaps from all those different um uh all those different proteins that you're consuming. The combination of proteins is evident in cultures from across the world, whether you look at parts of Africa, India, South America, we're always combining different proteins. It's curry and rice, it's uh nut butter and I've seen nut butter and rice. I actually did a a recipe from a Zimbabwean chef in my second book, eat to beat illness. And um I remember thinking like, wow, this is this must have been passed on from generation to generation. Um you've got all these different combinations that you see in different cuisines and it's because ancestrally we've we've figured out how to create uh high quality protein. So combining different um uh types of plant-based sources, very, very easy to do. Um and then from a food industry point of view, there is selective breeding of plants uh sources to improve the amino acid profile. That's something that we could do. Um and then fortification. I'm not a big fan of fortifying with specific missing micronutrients or just simply adding more fiber to, you know, a health bar to make it higher in fiber. I think that's pretty um myopic. It's it's pretty naive to to just think that you can uh mitigate against those uh lackings and actually just provide a different sort of whole food source. But there is one way in which we can cater for those who um who might be missing uh those different types of proteins. And the specific ones that they tend to talk about in terms of the essential amino acids are leucine, methionine, lysine. I'm going to dive into leucine a little bit more. So that's L E U C I N E. It's the one that gets the most attention because it is the most effective and powerful amino acid that triggers protein synthesis, i.e. when cells start making their own respective proteins and particularly for skeletal muscle. Again, slight segue, open up a new tab in your brain here. Proteins and amino acids are not just for skeletal muscle. Proteins are the building blocks of life, whether it's enzymes, different structures in your body, it's it's all protein, hormones, it's everything comes down to the amino acids. So when most people think about protein, they think about skeletal muscle, it's a very, very important um part of our diet and we do tend to get enough protein, but the quality of proteins can be affected. And a lot of arguments I feel against the use of plant-based proteins as a replacement for uh animal proteins. And I'm actually of the opinion that we should have some animal proteins in our diet just to cover all bases. Um is that it doesn't have enough of the specific amino acids that have this triggering um protein synthesis property or like sometimes it's described as a master amino acid because it's it's the the building block in this wall of um of uh proteins that need to be built. When you look at leucine uh content within um different types of animal proteins and plant-based proteins, fairly similar, fairly similar. Taking into account that you probably need to eat more of the plant-based proteins. I think we've already established that. Um it's fairly similar. So when you're looking at uh I'm looking at this graph here that I'll link to in the show notes. When you're looking at whey, it's around 14% of the total protein is leucine. Uh when you're looking at casein or bovine milk, again, around 10%, beef is around 8, 8, 9%. And then you look at it compared to different sources of uh plant-based proteins. So let's choose one that's more um widely available in the budget range. So there there is spirulina that is around 9%, but I don't think people are going to be chugging a lot of spirulina. If you've ever tried it, it just basically tastes like fish. Um but lentils and quinoa, black beans, those hover around 7 to 8% leucine. Uh you've got maize that's really high, it's like uh 12%, soy is around 9, 8, 9%, pea again around 8, 9%. So a lot of the protein powders that you'll find a lot of vegan bodybuilders use uh are pea, rice and soy based. They actually have quite good uh protein content. Um and you'll see that they they can be uh very effective as well. So I don't have particular concerns around leucine, particularly if you're doing all those things that we just talked about. So increasing the total amount of your uh plant-based proteins in your in your shop, which is very easy to do on a budget. Um and um uh and simply uh combining a lot of these different types of proteins that the the budget meal planner that I created that you can download for free, um has done pretty much effortlessly. You don't really think about it. Like we we added pearl barley, but we also had split peas in there and a whole bunch of other elements that all have different types of proteins. So that's just one way I think to mitigate that concern around the amino acid profile. Let's move on to bioavailability and uh the digestibility as well. Because I think again, we have to be respectful of people's legitimate concerns around this. Um and if you are going to be reducing or completely removing, but that's not what I'm suggesting people can eat whatever they want. Um you have to appreciate that these concerns are legitimate and some people might need more protein than others as well, particularly as you go into the older age group. Um it might be harder for someone to be more plant-based and actually might require um more animal proteins in their diet through fish or or milk or there are vegetarian sources, but um essentially derived from animal um products. So bioavailability studies, this is a this is a tough topic because um we traditionally they use different values. They use things like biological value, um net protein utilization and nitrogen balance. Um the most up-to-date uh values that we tend to use these days is something called the PDCAAS. This is the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score. Uh not something that you're going to find on the back of many packaged foods. Um but it takes into account not just the bioavailability of the proteins, but also its amino acid profile as well. So it's a more sort of holistic picture of how well you can utilize this particular protein. Um they're mostly used these kind of scores when comparing different protein powders and food additives. So I would again take that with a pinch of salt. And I would I would just caveat everything I'm about to say about these um these these different scoring systems in that they fail to reflect real life, right? In reality, we're not just taking a bunch of different powders to replace whole meals, at least I hope we're not. Um in reality, the combination of foods, the timing of your foods, the energy requirements that you might have, the protein requirements, the amount of exercise you do, uh even things down to stress and the consistency of how often and when you eat certain meals, this will all have an impact on your utilization of protein. So there's only so much you can read into all these different scales and percentages of absorptions and stuff. If you're really, really um into all these sort of numbers and stuff, it's more than likely you're a professional athlete or bodybuilder, in which case your diet is going to be really restricted because there's only a certain number of foods that you can confidently eat and and understand like, okay, this is going to affect your performance. This this probably isn't for you. Um if that's the case, um most people who are on a bodybuilder diet, you know, they will count calories, they will have a certain select distinct foods that they consume because they know that their body can tolerate it. Things like brown rice, chicken breast, um uh some some brassicas, some broccoli. Um it's a fairly limited diet for a lot of people because when you veer outside, then you introduce a whole bunch of um uh variables that are hard to hard to control. So, if you are of that sort of mindset, probably probably not for you, but for most people, I think these kind of scores fail to reflect real life. And um it's just a bunch of assumptions that we're making. The main one being that protein is purely used for anabolic activities. That in itself is a big assumption because in reality, when you consume too much protein, it can be converted into glucose, for example. Um that's one of the reasons why a strict keto diet that we use in treatment refractory epilepsy um for for children is uh a low low protein and a low carbohydrate diet with a very high fat content. It's because the excess protein can can skew what we're actually trying to achieve in a ketogenic diet. I've done a a podcast with Sue Wood, um who's a keto dietitian, one of the very few ones in the in the UK. So if you're interested in that, I'd go back and uh and listen to that. So, um going back to protein digestibility and all that all that good stuff. Um the values are fairly similar again. So, digestibility of plant legumes and and plant-based proteins, they range from 75 to 85%. And I think it's a useful approximation to understand that most plant-based diets will have a digestibility of 75, 80, 85%. I think that's a good range to just get your head around. Um and that's coming from whole grain cereals, you know, all these different sources, not taking into account the combinations and all that kind of stuff, just like a simple well-balanced whole food plant-based diet that has adequate amounts of protein. When you are basing it on uh animal proteins, it's higher. It's higher because it has higher scores of that PDCAAS scores. Uh there's there's more of the leucine, there's more of all the different types of amino acids that are easier absorbed. Um and so it's 85 to 90%. So, if you are concerned about low protein, which I don't think many people need to be unless you're in an age group where you're at risk of things like sarcopenia and muscle loss. Um I I don't see it as a concern, particularly through the lens of what we're trying to achieve here, which is uh budget and health. Um so, yes, I think there are a few takeaways from this little segue. I I could do a whole podcast actually on on protein. I perhaps we should actually with uh a guest who can really dive deep into um the these different scores. But uh the the main takeaways are plant-based proteins are less available, plant-based proteins are less complete. However, it can be mitigated by combining proteins, eating more of them, and being cognizant of getting proteins uh at at most meal times through various means. That could be through cereals and other whole food ingredients. Um if you are uh concerned about low protein uh in your diet, then having some animal-based proteins might be a good strategy for you. That's it. Um but I I I don't have concerns that people would be protein deficient if they slightly reduce their protein from animal-based products and took it from plant-based products in uh the view of a, improving their fiber content and b, reducing their budget. Um and I think if you increase your fiber, you're going to be uh leaning into a more healthy um lifestyle as well. So, anyway, that's my that's my very short segment on protein. There's a lot more we can say. There's like processed proteins, there's like, you know, the these companies that are creating like uh burgers that are uh taste and feel like um uh meat protein. Are they more processed? They probably are, but we'll we'll park that for now. Um on the subject of, so we're still we still haven't got to the supermarket yet. So sorry, I'm taking a little bit of time here during the planning side. But on the subject of swaps, that's the third thing I think you need to think about before you shop. Um we've already talked about protein in terms of swapping animal-based proteins uh like uh meat for beans and peas. But you can also, for example, if you're making a bolognese, um which is a typical example that we tend to use, you know, instead of using a whole pack of lean mints, use a quarter of it and then use the remaining, add mushrooms, add, actually no, mushrooms are quite expensive, so take that back. Lentils, add a bit of soy, soy sauce. Um those are great additions to a, increase the fiber content, maintain protein content and save money. Those are really, really simple things that you can do. So always think about the swaps that you can make, even if it means not taking away the entire uh meat, for example. You can always save the uh remaining meat that you consume uh that you don't consume and and freeze it. Um put it in another meal. Um and uh and use it for like a different dinner afterwards. So those are like whenever I'm thinking about those kind of swaps, I'm thinking about that. Snacks, swapping snacks is a really, really key way of um of reducing your budget. So when we did meal planning for some of the people on the show a couple of years ago, we replaced things like biscuits, bars and crisps that seemed cheap, but when you look at the amount that you get per uh 100 grams or 1,000 grams, I'll talk about that in a second. Um and you replace it with things like dried chickpeas or roasted uh beans or uh veggie sticks, homemade hummus, um these whole food items, not only give you more for your buck, but also more health for your buck as well. This is what you need to lean into. And a lot of the junk food, convenient food items that we buy on impulse in the supermarket or in a setting outside, whether it be a grab and go restaurant, those add definitely add up and they definitely don't um improve uh health. In fact, more than likely will be at the detriment of it because it will won't satiate you and it will actually the processing and the the inclusion of those different uh ingredients can actually stimulate hunger as well. So, not only does it not satiate you, not only does it not provide nutrients, it can actually make you more hungry and lead to uh a catalog of decisions that are less uh favorable to you. Breakfast foods as well, big, big area to swap. Uh so things like jams, uh breads, cereals, that those kind of stuff, swapping for whole oats, uh frozen fruits and and even beans. Like my favorite uh my favorite uh breakfast is actually uh like a Lebanese breakfast or an Egyptian breakfast or an Indian breakfast because it contains things like leftovers that I've made the night before, so beans or like stewed greens. And I know it sounds quite abnormal, but I shared this um this article on the newsletter recently of uh what kids eat around the world um from Brazil to Sri Lanka to Thailand and it's just amazing how different we are in the UK and the US to all these wonderful different cuisines. And unfortunately, you see the westernization creeping in like the odd box of cereal uh or like, you know, healthyish granola. I think most granolas are pretty unhealthy. Um but you know, the the bare bones of it is that actually a savory breakfast is something that's very, very normal and we need to retrain our uh perception of what breakfast means. Um so for me, breakfast is in a lot of times savory, it's leftovers. Uh today I had some leftover greens that I had. I just put it into a pan and cracked a couple of eggs in it. That for me is uh is a really good breakfast. So think of those swaps as well before you go to the shops. Um one thing is uh shopping on a full stomach. It's easiest to shop uh accurately and less impulsively when you are full. When you are hungry, you are obviously going to make the wrong impulsive decisions. So don't shop when you're hungry if possible. Do your big shop when you're um you're full. So those are things to think about before you go to the shop, right? You've got to you've got to think about swaps, you've got to think about proteins, uh and you've got to plan. At the shops, your plan of attack is to go for the staples first. And when I say staples, I mean those whole ingredients that you know you can create a variety of meals with. So curries, stews, sauces, stir fries, tray bakes, these are the foods that you need to base your entire shop around. The foundation, I I always talk about this in um in talks, the foundation of cooking is to master one recipe at a time. And if you know how to make a curry and a casserole, then you can sub in all these different ingredients, but your staples are going to be pretty core. Um and it should be based on what's available to you as well. So your shop is going to be geared around these different items. I would start filling your basket with those whole foods that you can use for all those different meals. And for me, those staples look like, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but like tinned and dried beans or jarred uh beans, legumes and peas. So I tend to go for jarred because a, I take pleasure in the extra uh the extra tastiness that a jarred bean or pea offers over a can. Um I don't have too many concerns about BPA in the lacquer because I think a lot of the BPA has actually been removed, particularly from at least the UK shops that I've been to. Um the replacement BPA, um I do have concerns of. I I remember having a conversation with Professor Swan about that, but BPA if if people don't uh recognize is uh a very well-known now, it should be very well-known now, but it's very well-known to have endocrine disrupting effects that can lead to insulin resistance and obesity. So BPA is being steadily removed, but unfortunately what's it's being replaced with is potentially as harmful as well. So, um there are some concerns around it. Uh in my in my view, like if you can cook the beans and legumes from scratch, great, because you're benefiting from not only the removal of any potential harmful pollutants or or toxicants, um but you're also uh having a a better tasting product at the end of it as well. I also use jarred for the same reasons because a, I'm removing any potential uh harmful um pollutants to the food. Um but I also prefer the the texture of it as well. And I'm I'm willing to pay the extra 10, 20p per jar um to to have those uh as my comfort. But everyone's in a different situation. So you choose your own. Um the the other staples are your vegetables that you like the best look of. So frozen and fresh, we'll talk about that in a second. Whole grains, pearl barley, short grain brown rice, camargue rice, um whatever your your grain of choice is. And then aromatics, so ginger, garlic, spices, all those different things that you make your sauces and marinades out of, those are the things that you want to uh keep on your staples basket. And then everything else is kind of seen like a bit of a luxury. When I uh shop for um pulses, the things that I always look for, I think I mentioned them already, are the red lentils, red kidney beans, chickpeas, mixed beans, split peas. Those are the things that I feel have most bang for your buck and they tend to be the cheapest, just looking at the skew of what we have in the UK. In the US it might be different. It could be fava, broad beans, black eye peas, pinto beans, adzuki. Um there's a whole variety of different beans. So I would use um I would use whatever the cheapest ones are and the ones that you enjoy the most. Um if you go to international stores, it is likely that you're going to find it a lot cheaper. I can't ratify the brands over there um because a lot of them are shipped from abroad. Uh but uh it is interesting to just venture into your local international store, whether it be a Turkish or Indian or Sri Lankan, whatever it is, go check it out because there are definitely some bargains there that I always um I always opt for as well. Um the aromatics that I always go for, any fresh herb that is cheap, and again, from the international stores, you're going to get them a lot cheaper because they're in much bigger quantities. Um ginger, garlic, onion, chili, soy sauce, tomato puree, and good quality oils. We'll talk about things that you don't want to skimp on as well. Um I always have these spices, cumin, cayenne powder, paprika, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, turmeric, either fresh or dried, dried oregano, dried tarragon, garam masala, cinnamon, and sumac. Sumac is an addition uh over the last couple of years because I love food from the Levantine region. Um those and you'll notice I said seeds rather than ground. You get a lot more bang for your buck when you're getting seeds because if you pound them in a very cheap pestle and mortar or, you know, chop them with a knife or however like or if you're lucky to have a spice um blender like me, um you get so much more flavor because you're reducing the surface area, so they're less likely to be oxidized and they're less likely to have lost the original flavor. So if you freshly pound your spices before using them, you're going to get a lot more flavor out of it. And that could correspond to a higher polyphenol content as well. Um so I I mean, I'm going to focus on those and then everything else in my my brain is a luxury item, including granolas. So there is a real trend toward like health and and granolas and and all the rest of it. Like there are some great granolas out there that are high fiber, low sugar. A lot of them, particularly the ones from big, big brands are not healthy because you when you do the math uh and you look at the nutrition value per 100 grams, you'll notice that um the sugar content is usually over 15 or sometimes 20 grams of added sugar in these different items. And they add sugar in the way of glucose or high fructose corn syrup or another name, there are hundreds of names for the different types of sugars. And sometimes, you know, they'll use nectar or coconut sugar or molasses or whatever, whatever. Sugar is sugar. Um there are some different types of whole sugars like date molasses that have marginal um uh definitely not benefits, but they're marginally better because they're less refined and they might have some B vitamins in there, but nothing that you're really going to uh benefit from in the quantities that we should be using it. So, as a general heuristic, sugar is sugar. I wouldn't uh I I I wouldn't believe the hype um in uh the the benefits of natural. From a flavor point of view, fantastic. I really like the earthy flavors that you get from date molasses and um and even maple syrup as well. Uh but not from a health point of view. And I'd always use even when I use refined sugar in, let's say, uh a Thai dish to balance out the real rich fiery flavors, I'm going to be using like a teaspoon. So it's not going to move the needle in terms of the uh potential uh negative effects of having excess sugar. It's not, I mean, a teaspoon is not an excess amount. So that's just something to to bear in mind. Those staples and everything else, like this is the core of your of your budget diet. Everything else, be ruthless about it. Be ruthless about cutting out. Um I want you to enjoy those staples, enjoy those vegetables, enjoy those aromats. That's what makes cooking so pleasurable. That's what makes eating well so pleasurable. Everything else, nice to have, ruthlessly cut it out if you really want to dive into the budget. And if you want to, you know, save 15, 20, 25%, um on your uh on your budget items, go for it. Um this is what you need to really need to lean into. Um so don't don't be attracted by the um the the pretty items. On the subject of doing the math, you've got to do the math. So to work out the best value uh goods that have the thing is when you when you go to a supermarket, it's very confusing. Even in the fresh uh uh produce section. So, you know, mushrooms are uh let's say £2 per 100 grams. That's very expensive actually. It might might be more than that. Actually, depending on where you go, actually, I've I've been to, I won't name the names, but I've been to some pretty expensive uh grocers. Actually, no, I will say the names. So Natura, I actually love Natura. I think it's a a fantastic brand. Uh I I I think uh the quality of the produce is great. Um but really expensive. Um and uh you know, sometimes you go there and it's like, this is more expensive than truffle. Uh like this is crazy expensive. But, you know, I'm sure they they they put the they put a lot of effort into it. Um and if you can afford it, great. Uh but uh I'm definitely not of that bracket uh just yet. It's uh you you definitely got to do the math though. So my point is when you go to the supermarket, all the different prices of uh fresh food items, uh staples, uh if you're lucky enough to have one of those bins that you can fill yourself and weigh, um all it's always in different amounts. So you've got to do the math in your head, what is this product per kilo? So what is the price of uh broccoli per kilo or um uh tomatoes per kilo, mushrooms per kilo, depending on which mushroom you're using. That will give you a general uh understanding of what you're getting for your pound or buck. Um without doing the the math, it's very hard to understand the price of your food. And so I always think in price per kilo because it levels the playing field. And what I found is that the cheapest items are things like carrots, onions, leeks, red cabbage, apples, courgettes, sweet potatoes and parsnips. Now, this will change according to seasons, but those are generally my go-tos because those per kilo are super, super cheap. Particularly, and this is the the second bit I'll talk about now, is if you go loose and frozen. So, loose, the loose vegetables, not only is it better for the planet because you're not buying these uh plastic bags, which I absolutely hate. I don't know why we have them in supermarkets. They should be able to get rid of them tomorrow. Um these uh these items tend to be a lot more expensive as well. So not only are you paying for the extra plastic to be deposited likely in the in the ocean, you're also paying for the privilege of having it in a in a in a bag, which I I never really understood. So go for loose where possible. And those loose items, carrots, onions, leeks, fantastic, really, really good value. And when you think about it per kilo, you can get it right down. I've actually got some prices here. Um actually no, the prices are for frozen, but they are very, very cheap. And the cheapest staples that I always tend to have in my basket, lentils like I've I've spoken about, oats, beans, quinoa. When you're going for nuts, go for mixed nuts because they're it's a real mixed bag in there. So, you know, sometimes you'll get like pecan or um uh pistachio and like, wow, this is actually pretty expensive if you just buy the whole bag of pistachio, the whole bag of pecans. But a mixed bag tends to be cheaper. Um and then if you are going to go for a particular seed, rather than going for something like a sesame seed or a pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds are fantastically cheap. Compared to, I mean, if you're going to make a pesto from scratch, you'll probably spend a few pound making a pesto using pine nuts because pine nuts have to, there's a lot of manual labor uh when you're breaking into a pine nut, for example. But using sunflower seeds, it's it it the taste is obviously noticeable, but it's a really, really good replacement. Um and the other staple is pearl barley. Now, if you're uh intolerant of gluten or celiac, uh not for you, but uh different types of whole grain rice are definitely um uh usable uh instead. But pearl barley for me is a fantastic high fiber grain that is um really, really accessible. So those are the items that tend to always make it into my basket, oats, barley, rice, nuts and seeds. Um frozen vegetables. We're going to dive into into frozen vegetables in a big way here. They are crazy cheap. They are crazy, crazy cheap. So if you go to a big enough supermarket, you will find that per kilo, you'll get some absolute bargains. So a kilo of broccoli, depending on where I'm using uh data that is from the end of 2022. So the prices have most likely gone up slightly. But when I when I last looked at um the online uh prices and the cheapest ones I found are generally Tesco, uh Aldi, um and you do get some bargains in Morrisons as well. But 75p for a kilo of broccoli, 65p for a kilo of peas, spinach, which I think is a really good hack. I'll talk about that in a second. Uh £1.10 for a kilo of spinach, cauliflower £1.20, mixed medley 89p. So these are fantastic because a, they're convenient, the shelf life is obviously months, and you can use them, yeah, you can just use them uh whenever you need them. They're a great way of getting in more vegetables, more of those phytonutrients, more of that nutrition. Spinach, I just want to call out spinach in particular. Everyone's had that scenario where you've got fresh spinach, you're really excited to use it, and you put it into the pan and it just goes to nothing. And it's just like, I spent £1.50 on this 20 250 gram bag of spinach and now there's nothing in my pan. So what they do with spinach and frozen food in general is that they minimally process it by blanching it uh and then they flash freeze. And so the same thing they do with spinach, so they they blanch it. So what you're getting actually in those little brickets of spinach when when you've uh buying it frozen is um you're getting a compact uh already cooked spinach that's frozen. So you're getting so much more bang for your for your money, so much bang for your buck. Um and when you thaw it, you can put it into stews and casseroles and and all the rest of it. We did a recipe in one of the um I think it was the thrifty cooking in the Doctor's Kitchen on BBC. I believe you can get that on BBC iPlayer now. Uh where we added thawed spinach. There was so much of it. You squeeze out the excess water and then we added beans, we added feta, we put some filo pastry around there and we made this like um this uh pie. Um and it's delicious. And to make the same dish with fresh spinach, we would have cooked had to cook bags of the stuff, absolute bags of the spinach. So spinach frozen for me is a real, it's almost like a life hack. I love it. It's uh it's it's fantastic. So I'm I'm on the spinach train, the frozen spinach train. It's uh it's a it's a brilliant uh addition. I always we always have uh tons of frozen spinach in um in our freezer. So uh so definitely go get yourself some uh some frozen spinach. Um let's talk a bit about frozen produce in general. So like I said, it's minimally processed uh and then flash frozen. Uh and when I say minimal processing, it's like it's blanched for a few minutes before freezing. There's a reason why they do that. It's uh to protect the color, to protect uh any spoilage. Um I think we need to be mindful of people's again, going back to the the same sort of legitimate concerns that people have about lowering their animal protein. Are there concerns that legitimate concerns that people have about the nutrient content of fresh versus frozen food? Um and instead of like brushing this under the carpet and just saying it's all the same, there are differences. Um for select nutrients in certain fruits and vegetables. The too long didn't read version is that overall the content is very similar. So I think from the perspective of budget cooking, maintaining health, it's a fantastic strategy. And I wouldn't want to suggest that you can't achieve health without uh having fresh uh food all the time. You can, you absolutely can. And I think we also have to be mindful of um the trade-offs as well. So the the trade-offs of uh vitamin retention, so minimal processing, for example, the impact on taste. So frozen is definitely going to have a less pleasurable experience if you're eating it in the context of something that you want minimally uh cooked like steamed or whatever. It's going to taste less uh delicious than a fresh pea, for example. I'm thinking I've got frozen peas in my head here. So when you when you thaw a frozen pea, it's not going to look or taste or have the texture of a fresh pea that you've just blanched, right? It's it's just not. Um so that that taste impact definitely comes into it. You've got shelf life, convenience, you know, the ability for me to just pull out some, again, frozen green beans, green peas and put it into a stew or a stir fry or whatever I'm using. That's pretty convenient. If I had to always have fresh peas on the off chance that I wanted to add it to, you know, one of my meals, then I'd always have to have fresh peas in my fridge that is less convenient. So which can lead to waste and all the rest of it. So these are all the trade-offs that we have to uh make. My the summary of every all this big rambling, I think, um that we want to move away from now is um you've got to have a blend of both. And I even without the uh intention of trying to eat on a budget, will have a good selection of frozen foods in my freezer because for the for the trade-off reasons that I was just talking about in terms of convenience and shelf life and minimizing waste. In the knowledge that it's pretty similar to fresh, but there are differences in in taste and texture and and uh potentially in phytonutrition as well. So, look, if you can have fresh food and uh you can um pay a little bit more for those or have the opportunity to eat them more regularly or cook from scratch more regularly with those, great, go for it. But always don't think that frozen foods that are whole foods, I should should underline that, whole foods, we're not talking about like the um the uh pre-cooked uh meals that are just heated up in a microwave or whatever because I think there's definitely some uh a lot of degradation in the nutrition values for those versus fresh, but that's another story. So frozen whole foods are definitely a fantastic addition to your diet and it will enable you to consistently eat better over time as well. Um so, yeah, that's my that's that's the sort of summary on fresh versus frozen. So definitely go for frozen because you can absolutely get some bargains. There are differences in the nutrition value, but uh at the end of the day, uh it it definitely um it's definitely marginal differences. Um and you've just got to be aware of what you think is your trade-off as well and what you're more likely to um uh you want to spend more on. On the subject of spending more on, we're still in the supermarket here. So we we've talked about um doing the math, uh the staples that you should always have and uh do your shop around, seasonal versus frozen. These are things that you don't want to skimp on. So these are things that you want to try and buy the uh the best that you can afford. Goes without saying, meat, animal products from uh a ethical point of view, I think it's really important um to maintain the high standards that we should have. Animal products should be a luxury product. Animal products should be expensive. That's my personal view. I know it's not very popular, particularly at a time where everyone's feeling the pinch, but that's my view and that's because I'm the more I learn about the process of uh animal farming, uh I I think we have to do it in the most humane way possible. There is no uh there is no getting around the fact that what we are practicing is um uh rearing animals to kill them and to consume them. Absolutely. Uh that's the reality of life. Um but if there is a way to do it better and to actually provide a a good life for for animals that we consume, then so be it. I'm I'm actually more uh on the um plant-based persuasion these days anyway. So I have a very very little amounts of um animal products in my diet apart from fish. Um but uh I think spending as much as you can on animal products, as much as you can afford, going to your local butchers and local fishmongers is um is something that I would uh I would recommend. It also means that you're voting for um a a better and more sustainable environment from the perspective of um uh ethical farming standards. If we continue to go for the cheapest options, then we're never going to get rid of intensive farming because that is essentially what we are uh voting for. But if we can spend a bit more money on that, then we can change the farming landscape. And I think there's huge energy around uh farming standards and having spoken to farmers, um uh fish people, whoever works in these industries, I think there's definitely a drive to do uh as best as we can for those. So, anyway, that's that's animal products including dairy as well. Oils. This is where I feel that you can get a lot of bang for your buck as well. Um it's my new favorite catchphrase at the moment, bang for your buck. Um cold pressed, minimally processed oils, uh you know, we can go down the route of single estate versus mixed versus uh the particular DOPs, so regions where you can only call it like Arbaquina, for example, or Arbaquina, uh all which is the best. Look, if you can get a a cold pressed, minimally processed extra virgin olive oil, like an early harvest, they are fantastic. They are so delicious, first of all. They have preserved a lot of those polyphenols, vitamin E, all the different fatty acids. We know that they're heart healthy in the right amounts. Um a wonderful addition to your diet. They are quite costly. You can use them in moderation. We're not really like, you know, I'm not suggesting that we should be drinking them, but using those and particularly when you're cooking at uh mild to medium temperatures, a wonderful, wonderful oil to to oils to have. So I would spend more on oils personally. Um and the other thing is uh canned fish as well. So there are some really lovely uh brands of of uh canned fish that are cheaper than fresh, but they're preserved in things like extra virgin olive oil. Uh they're usually smaller fish, so they are higher in the long chain omega-3 fatty acids and there are associations between consumption of that associations, but associations still between higher consumptions of those types of fish with uh cardiovascular outcomes as well. So those that I mean, it's up to you as to whether you decide to eat fish or not, but uh canned fish I I definitely think is something you don't want to skimp on. Um chocolate, peanut butter. Uh chocolate, if you're going for over 80%, you want to try and go for one that is obviously um uh a high ethical standards, has all the fair trade labeling. Um but they can be really good additions to your diet as well because they have those wonderful flavonoids, uh they have all the different polyphenols that uh can potentially be heart healthy. So increasing nitric oxide, we've talked about NO, nitric oxide from different ingredients like greens in the past. Uh but if you do like chocolate and you like dessert, my dessert is basically an apple, a little bit of peanut butter and dark chocolate. I probably can live without it. Um but yeah, I again, a really good addition to your diet and something that I wouldn't skimp on um because there is a lot of bad quality chocolate out there that has a real uh uh a real insidious relationship with modern modern slavery. Um and so I I try as much as possible to just go for the high high quality chocolate where possible. Um and peanut butter. So peanut butter can or nut butters in general, as long as you're not allergic, um try to get the the minimally processed one, ones that don't have palm oil in, ones that uh don't have any real additions of any oils. You can have a little bit of salt in it, but you know, just mechanically processed, good quality nut butter, a great addition to your diet, thickens stews, thickens curries, a lovely little snack, great. So those are things that I wouldn't skimp on. Um fermented foods as well. So when you're getting uh your um kimchis or sourkraut, uh there are definitely the more expensive ones that are higher quality, but if they are and they can be quite expensive, if they are out of your budget, you can very easily make your own ferments as well. And that's a great way of using up um leftovers, whether it be fennel or um we would make our own um lemon pickle. I think I might have talked about this on the Zoe podcast. Uh we made like lemon pickles with just uh uh squeezed lemons, uh you'd let it ferment with some spices, salt uh for a period of weeks in a in a sterilized jar and it would just break down, you can use it as a pickle in uh in curries and stuff. So it's a yeah, there are lots of really inventive ways in which people are making their own pickles at home. All you need is a a couple of air tight jars that you sterilize. There's loads of videos online of how you sterilize your own jars. Um and when we move into our studio, I'm going to make sure that we do a whole bunch of different pickles um and show people how you can make your own at home because um it's so good. It's it's a really good um hack of saving food and also um just adding flavor to your food without having to spend excess money on marinades and paste and and all that good stuff. So, um yeah, those are those are the things that I would do uh in the supermarket. So do the math, seasonal food, loose, frozen, don't skimp on those particular foods. That's my general advice. Um and you you want to be fearful of pretty packaging, anything that's labeled as healthy, anything that screams at you like their particular benefits. Look, like if they have to scream at you, uh it's uh it's not worth the money. You can you can allocate your capital towards uh foods that we know are whole, unprocessed and that you can get into your diet. So I'd also um look out for discounts when you're in the supermarket. It's just something that popped into my my mind. And this comes into something in the next section of during the week and it's flexibility. So if you go to the supermarket and you're doing the math and you find an ingredient that per 1,000 grams or per kilo is actually quite cheap right now because maybe it's in season or whatever it might be, it could be a whole vegetable, it could be a grain, um put it into your trolley. Um as long as you you've done the math and you know that it can go to this recipe or this can go to this batch cook that you're going to do, like add it because you want to be you want to be mindful of those different discounts and you don't want to miss out. Um so if you have the opportunity to diversify uh and the opportunity to to lean into a discount, then definitely go for it. And I mean, I'm recording this in May, so right now, you might find certain types of broccoli uh are are discounted or rhubarb for right now. Um spring onions, uh different types of onions. I mean, you're going to find a lot of different produce, particularly if you go to a market as well. But remember, do the math. On the budget meal plan, we have a whole bunch of recipes, suggestions of veggies that you should factor your your meals around. Um we do have some some data on like the cost of those different ingredients as well. So definitely check those out. Um there are lots of ways in which to um to to lean into this this budget cooking way of life. So I would try online shopping. Uh that way you have a much easier time of comparing prices, you can spot sales, you can, you know, it allows you to create a list as well. So definitely explore that. Explore local shops. So farmers markets and international shops, you can find some absolute bargains there as well. Takes a little bit of energy to do this, like, you know, at the weekends and stuff, but again, like making it a bit of an adventure, making it something that you actually enjoy, speaking to some of the producers, the farmers, it's honestly, I I actually, I mean, I'm a massive foodie, so I love it obviously, but it is something that I think from a human point of view, we should have a connection with regardless of whether you like cooking or not. You should know where your food is coming from. You should understand the um the insults on our climate and how that affects the food that is produced as well. And there are some incredible uh relationships you can make with your local farmers and local producers. So even if you don't intend to buy anything or even if there's something you feel is out of your price range, go check it out because you never know who you might meet there and what tips you might actually uh garner from them too. Um I spent some time in uh Brixton market recently because of um uh putting a spotlight on the Alexandra Rose uh charity uh foundation and they're prescribing fruit and veg to uh certain families around the UK. And just meeting some of the producers and understanding the stresses on them, the increase in rents, the reduction in footfall, like it just gives a different lens to the landscape of uh food that we have in in this country and likely uh reflected in other countries as well. So definitely go out there, have a conversations with them. I think it's really, really useful. Um some foods can actually be uh cheaper when they're sourced locally. Others might actually be cheaper when they're sourced from abroad. So local doesn't necessarily always mean cheaper. That's just like another heuristic to have as well. Um and the other thing on the subject of making things fun, we were talking right earlier about the average household spend on um on uh uh takeaways. Um and if you were to just, I know it requires extra energy and the reason why we have takeaways and deliveries is because we can't be asked to cook and you know, I'm in that camp as well. Sometimes I cannot be asked to cook. Sometimes we we do go the the easy route um and we we get take out. We tend to get healthy take out, but there is a price tag associated with that. But let's say you're getting take out as a treat. Uh you're doing something at the weekend because you want to do something nice for yourself. Totally understandable. Sometimes a take out, particularly if you're a large family, will cost a lot of money. It will cost a lot more than if you, let's say, invested in like a big piece of fish or a new marinade that you wanted to try or a spice blend. Um you can actually still have the adventurousness, the fun, the uh the experience, uh but it could cost a lot less. So, you know, an average meal for um a couple in London could be anywhere between 50 and 100 pounds, probably more uh depending on where you go. Um and you include drinks and all the rest of it. But I feel like you could recreate that at home and make it special and you know, create your own sort of bougie meal at home, go to a fishmonger, get an expensive item. Um or choose, you know, uh a really cool cookbook that you absolutely love and and cook something from scratch and take a few hours. That could be a real cheaper but still high value, high experience um uh pleasurable experience that uh wouldn't break the bank. So these are things that I mean, we did a lot of this during the pandemic when we couldn't leave. We would just spend a lot more time at home obviously and try a whole bunch of different dishes. That's why everyone got into like sourdough making. So those are definitely things that I mean, we always think about when um when we're trying to eat on a budget. And I just want to leave you with a few other ideas as well. So free or cheap food apps, Olio, Too Good to Go, wonky veg boxes, not really apps. Um and then Honey, it's a browser extension that searches for coupons at checkout. Those are definitely things that uh to think about. Too Good to Go and Olio. Olio is this free food sharing app. So if someone's lemons or avocados are going out of date, they tend to put them on Olio and then you can go on your bike or whatever and grab a few uh items. It's a amazing way of reducing food waste and actually getting some pretty cheap food or free food rather. Um and then the other thing that I mean, I always do when it's wild garlic season, which it has been here uh a couple of weeks ago. Um and for those of you in America or or listening in Australia or wherever, the there is this two weeks a year where wild garlic springs up uh in a whole bunch of different places across the UK. And wild garlic is this um long sort of grass, like a thick long leaf that has this beautiful garlic scent, this this essence of of garlic. We actually featured it on the seasonal Sundays newsletter a couple of weeks ago. And everyone buys it, makes or not buys it, plucks it, uh uh blends it, puts it in pesto, puts it in stir fries. It's exactly what I do. It's a wonderful, wonderful ingredient. You can even find it in farmers markets, but they'll charge you like £2.50 for like a bag that you could potentially get for free. And it always reminds me, um foraging is actually an art that we've lost and I'm sure there are lots of courses and online YouTube creators that will teach you a lot about foraging. I would suggest doing a course or doing an experience in foraging because you want to be safe when you're doing it. But in the UK, depending on where you are, you can get raspberries, blackberries when they're in season, slowberries, bilberries, elderflower, you can get samphire, which is a seaweed, which is really, really good for you. Uh, Dandelion, um there's obviously mushrooms that you can get. I would suggest doing that with with a guide. Um and nettle. Nettle is uh uh an incredible uh high nutrient dense ingredient. I tend to get it from inside a forest rather than on the periphery of parks or something like that because you tend to get dogs peeing on them. Um but definitely uh nettles using gloves when you're picking them and then blanching them and then pureeing them or putting them into stews and stuff, really, really high in B vitamins. Um so it's yeah, there are so many ingredients that are actually for free, but obviously there is a time investment uh with all those different items as well. So doing a foraging course, foraging courses are actually on the rise right now. There's a huge trend towards foraging. I think in response to uh budget constraints. So, um something to something to think about for sure. Um but look, I hope you've enjoyed this uh episode. I know it's been a bit rambly. We've talked about a whole bunch of different things here, the cost of living crisis, the average household spend. I'd be very interested to hear about how people consider themselves against that average. Um I think there's a lot to learn uh from meal planning in general, being cognizant of the price fluctuations of food by doing uh your doing the math and doing your research online by looking at online supermarkets, um and being flexible and being a lot more confident uh from a culinary point of view when you're in the kitchen and using different ingredients. So, I really hope you enjoy this episode. Remember, you can uh download the Doctor's Kitchen app uh from the App Store. The Android version we are working on as well. Um you can check out the eat listen read newsletter and you can check out seasonal Sundays, which is every Sunday we send you a newsletter about a seasonal ingredient or seasonal eating, the benefits of that particular ingredient, the history of its use. We featured asparagus recently and I was um I was blown away by some of the research that we came across um with uh the the times of when it was used, the historical uses of it and how it's changed over the last few years. And also different ways in which you can just use asparagus if you don't like the taste of asparagus despite wanting to experience its benefits as well. So, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you here next time.
