Episode 297: Deep Nutrition on a Budget
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Eating healthy can be expensive - we know this. But we also know that how we eat builds our physical body and dictates our health, so it’s important to prioritize a healthy eating budget. That’s why on this episode of the Funk’tional Nutritionist Podcast, Erin shares practical strategies for incorporating nutrient-dense foods into your diet without breaking the bank. From kitchen hack DIYs to meal prep and planning, this episode is packed with actionable advice and money-saving strategies. Give it a listen - your body (and wallet!) will thank you later..
In this episode:
A reframe for thinking about your health [5:55]
Things to DIY that you’re probably not currently doing [12:00]
The most nutritious seed & the easy nut mylk to make [19:28]
My favorite things to buy in bulk [22:45]
Stocking ingredients over snacks [38:43]
Meal planning pro tips [39:34]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective
Eat to Achieve 21 Day Nutrition Program
Ned Natural Remedies (get 15% off your order with code FUNK)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Mind (get $100 off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code FUNK)
Learn more about Functional Nutrition
Related episodes:
293: New Year, New Paradigm: How to Make Health a Priority in 2024
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is the functional nutrition podcast, where we lean into intuitive, functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture, and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be, either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect.
Erin Holt [00:00:39]:
So I founded the Functional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you. If you're looking for Ned ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review, and share because you never know whose life you might change. And of course, keep coming back for more. Hello, friends. Glad to be back. I hope you enjoyed last week's episode.
Erin Holt [00:01:18]:
Today, we are going to get into deep nutrition on a budget. Now, my intention for this show is for it to be a quick and dirty. We'll see how that goes. That's my intention. I want it to be just a compact, little digestible resource for you. I want to focus on foods that will pack a nutritional punch and ways to reduce dollars spent in order to do that. Now, when I was planning this episode, I kind of started to get a little bit into the weeds of explaining the whys behind all of these foods, why they're so nutrient dense, why we want to focus on them. But then I realized it would kind of be like a four hour episode.
Erin Holt [00:01:58]:
And also, I was reinventing something that already exists, which is my nutrition program, eat to achieve. So if you do need help with understanding the whys behind deep nutrition, how to shop, how to cook, how to meal prep, different recipes that all can be found there in eat to achieve. Now, as a reminder, you do get access to eat to achieve, and all my other functional nutrition and functional medicine programs in the functional nutrition collective. That's a monthly membership where you can access everything, like basically my entire body of work. Once you complete eat to achieve. Like, if you're starting from the beginning, you're like, I don't know what to eat. Cool. We've got you.
Erin Holt [00:02:41]:
You can start with eat to achieve. You can then move on to the carb compatibility project that helps you dial in your macronutrients. You learn how to better support your blood sugar, your metabolism, eat to reduce fatigue, to get your energy back, to reduce anxiety, to reduce brain fog. And then when you feel ready, you can move on to your hormone revival. That is all about balancing hormones. So you learn specific tools, strategies, resources, practices to support your nervous system, to balance your hormones. And you've also got access to body intentions breakthrough, which you can use anytime through any of the programs or even if you're not going through a program. This program, body intentions breakthrough, legit, answers every single question that people ask me about manifestation and mindset.
Erin Holt [00:03:35]:
It's all baked into the curriculum, especially as it relates to your body or your body goals. So whether that's health goals or body composition goals or weight loss, and that's honestly the program that I personally come back to time and time again. Every single time I'm working on a new goal or a new intention within the collective, you also get access to ongoing live classes. We gave you a little sneaky peek of one last week. We're going to give you a little sneaky peek of one next week, most likely. So I teach those, and then people on my team, the functional nutritionists on my team, also teach those as well. We do bring in healers and energy workers that I've worked with in the past because for years, people have been asking me for a monthly membership where we offer ongoing nervous system support classes and restorative classes. Things like breath work, guided meditations, energy healings.
Erin Holt [00:04:28]:
So, of course, we had to bake that into the collective, too. So you get access to that. Now, before we get into details of today's show, I do want to share a reframe with you. I'm hoping that this is helpful for some people. That's my goal and my intention. And this is specifically around budgeting for your health or budgeting for your nutrition. Since that is the topic of today's show, I ran into a former client of mine at my physical therapy office. Shout out to Oceanside in tide strength studio.
Erin Holt [00:05:00]:
If you follow along with me on instagram, you've probably seen that I've been doing a lot more strength training lately. I've been working with a trainer, Chris, over at Oceanside, and it's just been a phenomenal experience. At the time of recording this, I turned 40 in exactly two months. So my personal goal is to continue to put on muscle mass, to continue to build muscle so that I can maintain it into my forty s and beyond. So my personal goal, I feel very grateful and fortunate that I am at a point in my health journey where I can have goals like that versus just like getting out of a health crisis. And I attribute all of that to all of my programs. I got to shout myself out there. I literally build the programs that I needed and then I shared it with the masses.
Erin Holt [00:05:55]:
So anyway, so I ran into my former client there and she's like, hey, I heard about the collective. I'm so excited. I really want to join. Right now, my husband and I are looking at our budget because our health insurance three ned this year. And then she said, but honestly, that's why I need to join the collective, and I want to speak into that. This is quite literally why we priced the functional nutrition collective the way that we did it, is to give you access to functional nutrition programs very affordably. We teach you how to build and maintain your health house. And that's why someone who's never worked with me before has joined the collective.
Erin Holt [00:06:42]:
That's why people who have already worked with me before are joining the collective. That's why people have already done. Some of the programs are coming back because it's not just about building the foundations, but it's also about building on top of those foundations as well. Now, I'm not going to sit here and argue with you that eating healthy is inexpensive. We know that it's not right. Eating healthy costs money. But something that we don't talk enough about is that being unhealthy is extraordinarily expensive. Medications, surgeries, treatments.
Erin Holt [00:07:15]:
There is a reason that health insurance costs go up and up and up and up. Being unhealthy costs a lot of money. Now, we know that how we eat builds up our physical body. How we eat informs our cells. How we eat dictates our health. So investing in things like the functional nutrition collective and a solid food budget can save you a lot of money in the long run. And again, that's why it's priced that way. I understand that it's hard for some of us to think about things in terms of the long run, which is why a lot of people will just wait until you're in crisis mode to actually look at your health, because you have no other option but to.
Erin Holt [00:08:04]:
But the truth is, it is a lot more challenging and a lot more expensive to manage your health once you hit crisis mode. So just keep that in mind. I'm presenting that reframe to you in the event that some people need to hear it. And I know I've been championing this message for a hot minute, but I also want to speak to the women moms, the caretakers, the people pleasers. I just want to keep the piecers. I don't want to ruffle any feathers. I don't want to rock the boat ers out there that are listening. We have to, we can and we must.
Erin Holt [00:08:41]:
We have to put our own health on our priority list. And we'll never stop advocating for this. Never. And this includes making the time, the space and the budget for it. So with that said on Instagram, because I pulled folks on Instagram, Misa's clean kitchen shared. She said, I put other things at the very bottom of the list so I can afford organic and sustainable food. And I certainly relate to that. It didn't really matter how much money we were making.
Erin Holt [00:09:21]:
And this goes all the way back to when I was like a broke ass college student, because I prioritized the way that I eat, because I prioritize food and nutrition. It was a priority. It's kind of like that episode that I did on desired values versus embodied values. I think a lot of people would like to think that they value nutrition and healthy eating, but we have to really see what our embodied values are, what our priorities are. We have to look at what we're actually doing in our life. I know that money is a really tough subject, just in general, but also, especially right now. And I've been sitting on something, a course, a money course that I've been wanting to build for a couple of years now. And the more I think about it, the more I think it should be more like bite size, like a smaller thing, maybe a podcast series.
Erin Holt [00:10:18]:
I have a lot of projects on my plate, so that one's always getting bumped around. But if you are interested, if you think that this would be of value to you to have either a mini course or something on money mindset, please dm us and let us know if there's a certain level of interest. I will actually take the time to build that out. Just a heads up. That would be a paid thing because we would be talking about money. So anyway, let's get into the show. Deep nutrition on a budget. I want to just shout out everybody who shared.
Erin Holt [00:10:59]:
This is a group effort. I pulled everybody on Instagram to ask for your best tips and tricks. And so I'm compiling everything here. Thank you again if you shared. Now, I recognize that some of what I'm about to say requires time. So you're kind of switching out one resource for another. You're trading dollars in hours, but some of what I'm going to say is actually super fast. It's one of those things that we build up in our head to be, like, way bigger than it actually is in practice.
Erin Holt [00:11:28]:
It is January 18 right now at the time of recording this, and I still have my Christmas tree up and all of my Christmas decorations. Why? Because I am making that project way bigger in my head that it will actually be in practice. If I just took an hour and a half, it would be done. But for weeks, I've been like, oh, I can't even bother. So I know what that feeling is like. And I also want to say that once you start doing these things and implementing these things and making them habit, they really become second nature. And it's not an actual time suck. So just want to speak into that.
Erin Holt [00:12:00]:
Now. There are some things that you can diy that you're probably not currently doing, and maybe some of these foods you're not even currently eating. So let's take it from the top. And I'm going to start with growing your own sprouts because it is cheap and it packs in a ton of nutrition. When I think of a nutrient dense food, I think of sprouts. That's why they're often referred to as a superfood. They've got antioxidants, vitamins, B vitamins, vitamin C, minerals like zinc, calcium, manganese, copper. They are like little powerhouses of nutrition.
Erin Holt [00:12:37]:
And I don't know, they just put a little pep in my step. I love making. Remember a couple of weeks ago, I talked about my breakfast? I always put sprouts on top of my eggs or on top of my sandwiches. They just bring me great joy and also great nutrition. You can make them yourself. They're not inexpensive to buy, but they are cheap as dirt to make. So you have to get sprouting seeds. And there's all different kinds.
Erin Holt [00:13:00]:
There's radish, lentil, broccoli, sunflower, mung beans. There's an abundance of different types of sprouting seeds that you can sprout. You've probably heard me talk about broccoli seeds before. They are a great source of sulforaphane, which is a compound that helps us clear estrogen out of our bodies. So you just have to find a source for sprouts. I know a client has sent me broccoli seed sprouts or broccoli seeds, I should say, from Johnny Appleseed. I know that mountain Rose herbs is an online catalog where you can get lots of different things there. Herbs, spices, but you can also get sprouting seeds there.
Erin Holt [00:13:46]:
I would love to compile a list of resources after this episode. So if you know places where you can buy in bulk online, since obviously this is a global show, I live in New Hampshire, so there's certain things that I buy in bulk local to me that doesn't really help all of you. So if we can, again, group think this a little bit, please feel free to dm us with any resources. And as we receive those, we can update the show notes page. So we've got lots of resources there. Now you do need to buy something to actually sprout the seeds, but I just use a wide mouth mason jar. We have so many of them. I just get them at a local grocery store market basket.
Erin Holt [00:14:28]:
I get like a whole fleet of them. That's what we use for drinking glasses because we pound water in smoothie glasses as well. And then you need to order a mason jar sprout lid. So just literally go into Google and search mason jar sprout lid and you'll see. We'll link it up in the show notes too. There's a lot of them. I'll show you the one that I have. It's very easy.
Erin Holt [00:14:55]:
Okay. So make your own sprouts. It's awesome. It only takes a few days too super quick. So you just have an ongoing supply of sprouts. You can put them into smoothies if you want. You can add them to salads. Good stuff.
Erin Holt [00:15:13]:
Whip. Hey, let's take a quick break so we can talk about low sugar nutrition. I'm always looking for kind of quick and dirty ways to pack in extra nutrition. Polyphenols, antioxidants, fibers for my gut, and even herbs for my stress response. Like, the more adaptogens the better. Which is why I use organify powders every day, several times a day. I love to put them into my water. This is great.
Erin Holt [00:15:48]:
If you're one of those people that struggles to just get enough hydration, get enough water, and if you feel like water is really boring, these powders can judge it up for you. My kiddo loves them. She feels like she's drinking juice. My personal favorite is the red juice. So it has lots of different red powders. Things like acai, cranberry, pomegranate, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, all of those polyphenol rich red and blue powders. And it's low sugar all of organifi's powders are under 3 grams of sugar per serving, and most of them offer up fiber as well. To counteract any spike in blood sugar.
Erin Holt [00:16:32]:
So highly recommend I throw them in my smoothies so I can pack in a bunch of veggies without adding a ton of fruit that might spike my blood sugar. And I can still make them sweet and palatable. Go to organifi's website, organifi.com. You can click the link in the show notes. Be sure to use the code funk. It will save you 20% off of every single order you ever place. You get a good deal, and you get to support all the good things in your body, too. I want to introduce you to a new to me product called qualianolytic.
Erin Holt [00:17:07]:
It's something that I've been experimenting with as I round the bend on 40 for more of an insurance policy than anything else. I feel good, and I want to stay feeling good. As you age, you accumulate these things called senescent cells. We talked about this a lot in episode 280, the science of aging. Senescent cells actually cause the symptoms of aging. Aches and pains, slow workout, recoveries, low energy. So qualiosinolytic actually removes these worn out senescent cells. And the cool thing is you only have to take it two days a month.
Erin Holt [00:17:34]:
So if you want to support aging at the cellular level, try qualia. Analytic, go to neurohacker.com. F-U-N-K-S for up to $100 off in use code funks funks at checkout for an additional 15% off. That's neurohacker.com funks for an extra 15% off your purchase. Whip whip. Next up, things you can diy fermented veggies. So you probably know that I'm a big fan of eating fermented foods. They provide probiotics.
Erin Holt [00:18:13]:
Fermented veggies also provide prebiotics. And you can pack in a lot of different variety by using different veggies. So when you rotate the type of veggies that you use, you're also rotating the different prebiotic fibers that you use which feed different bacteria in the gut. So it's wonderful. That's why we always want to prioritize variety in our plant food that we're taking in, because it helps to feed different bacteria, beneficial bacteria in our guts. Fermented veggies also contain those probiotics, like I said. Now sauerkraut, kimchi. There's lots of different varieties, but if you're buying a good organic one at the grocery store, it's going to run you like ten dollars to twelve dollars a jar.
Erin Holt [00:18:59]:
When you make it at home, it's like a few bucks and all you need is a jar, water and salt and then obviously some veggies. Now, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of exactly how to do that, but just search it on the Internet and there's like a bunch of tutorials that walk you through it. So fermented veggies, you can start making those yourself. Nut milk is another one you can diy. You know I'm a big fan of nut milk. You know I'm a big fan of nut milk. I went viral on Instagram for it. It's a whole thing.
Erin Holt [00:19:28]:
Now I'm going to make a case for you using hemp seeds in your nut milk. All right, ready? Let's go. It's easy, it's fast. There's no strain. Okay, no strain. So some of the nuts, like cashews, almonds, it does make for a better final product when you take the time to soak the nuts overnight. This also reduces some of the anti nutrients that are found in nuts and seeds. If that's a problem for you, it's a problem for a lot of people.
Erin Holt [00:20:00]:
So you soak them, you strain off that liquid, it's better for your tummy. I support you in that endeavor. I used to have to be really diligent about doing that myself when my health was in a different situation than it's in now. And then from there, once you have the soaked nuts and seeds, you blend them up with water and then you go through another process of straining them. So you can use a fine, like a wire mesh strainer or a nut milk bag. I never, could never get into nut milk bags. It was just a mess. Then you had to clean it.
Erin Holt [00:20:36]:
It was just chaos. So I always used just a fine wire mesh strainer. But for hemp seeds, you have to do exactly none of that. So I can make nut milk on the fly. When I'm using hemp seeds that fast, you just blend the hemp seeds up with water and tada. You have nut milk. Now we can get like a little bit more fancy than that. Of course.
Erin Holt [00:21:00]:
We can add dates, obviously, pit the date first. You can throw a date in there. You can add vanilla, either vanilla extract. Back in the day, I would buy vanilla seeds or vanilla pods. Is that what they're called? The long vanilla pod? And then you open it up and you use the seeds inside. That's so bougie, so fancy. Tastes amazing. Then add, like, a little pinch of sea salt.
Erin Holt [00:21:23]:
So if you want to doctor it up, jujit up, you can absolutely do that. It kind of depends on what you're using the nut milk for. I usually make it for smoothies, and since I'm adding lots of different things to my smoothie and my protein powder is usually flavored and sweetened, I don't really bother with that. But if you want to elevate the experience, add a sweetener, add some vanilla, add a pinch of sea salt, and tada. Now, hemp seeds are also super nutrient dense. They've got manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, some B vitamins, and not in, like, little dribs and drabs. Hemp seeds are a really good source of these minerals. And so when I make it, I usually do one cup of hemp seeds to four cups of water.
Erin Holt [00:22:12]:
It makes a pretty thick milk, so you might want to kind of fool around with that ratio. But when you do it this way, you're getting over 10 grams of protein per cup of milk, which is pretty bitching. So three tablespoons of hemp seeds have 10 grams of protein. So just a heads up on that. Now, if you don't want to use hemp seeds or you want to rotate or alternate, I also like Brazil nuts. I like pumpkin seeds. Like I said, you can use almonds and cashews. Sometimes I'll do a half and half.
Erin Holt [00:22:45]:
So I'll do half Brazil nuts, half pumpkin seeds, or half pumpkin seeds, half hemp seeds. So you can fool around with that. Get wild, get crazy. Let loose, let your hair down. Go for it. The way to make this even less expensive is to buy in bulk. So go to local co ops, go to local health food stores. You can buy in bulk in whole foods.
Erin Holt [00:23:10]:
What I always say, if you're buying nuts or really anything in bulk, make sure it's a high turnover place, meaning they're moving through product quickly. Otherwise the oils and the nuts can go rancid. So I've definitely purchased nuts and seeds before, and I open the bag and I can smell the rancid oil, and from there, it goes directly into the trash. And that is not good for the budget or the planet. So we want to make sure that the nuts stay fresh when we're buying them. So just keep that in mind. In terms of buying in bulk, we'll get a little bit more into different things. You can buy in bulk later on, but right now, I want to continue to focus on stuff to DIY salad dressing.
Erin Holt [00:23:52]:
If you're shopping for bottled salad dressing at the store and you're looking for good quality salad dressing, meaning that they use good quality oils like olive oil or avocado oil and not sunflower oil or canola oil oil, which most salad dressings are made with. They're not cheap. It's like $10 a bottle. Sometimes great in a pinch, but I just feel like they're suboptimal taste wise to the salad dressings I can make at home. So really, all you need to make a salad dressing at home is fat, acid, and salt. So fat is like an olive oil or an avocado oil. Acid is lemon juice or apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar. And salt is pretty straightforward.
Erin Holt [00:24:37]:
If you've got those three things, you're good to go. Just put it in a little tiny mason jar and shake, shake, shake. You can get even more crazy with an immersion blender, but basically, that's all it takes. So two of my go to easy peasy recipes are olive oil, lemon juice, put a little bit of mustard in there, helps to emulsify it and kind of make it a thicker dressing. Honey and salt, or like a gluten free tamari or aminos. So that's a go to one. Again, just put in the mason jar. Shake, shake, shake.
Erin Holt [00:25:10]:
Another go to is balsamic olive oil. I use about half and half. So if I'm doing, I don't know, a third of a cup of balsamic, I'm also doing a third of a cup of olive oil. I will put a clove of garlic. Am I saying that right? One section of garlic. Not like a whole thing of garlic. One section of garlic. Put that in there, and you do have to blend that one.
Erin Holt [00:25:36]:
And when you blend it, it makes it nice and thick, and then it stays thick. So you just put it into a glass jar, put it in your fridge, and you can use it like a regular salad dressing. Hooray. So start making your own salad dressings if you're not doing that already. Now, I don't have a green thumb, but I can grow herbs. Herbs are a slept on resource when it comes to adding nutrition to every single thing that we eat. There's so many different types of herbs, and you can grow them in your own house, like right from your windowsill. So start doing that.
Erin Holt [00:26:10]:
You save so much money growing them versus buying them, first of all. But then if you have an abundance of them, let's say you grow herbs in your garden. In the summertime and things just start popping off and there's no way you could eat them fresh, dry them. You know that buying dried organic herbs and spices is expensive, so just do it yourself and then save them. It just really adds not just flavor. So it makes home cooking taste a lot better. And home cooking is like the number one way to save money on food, but it also adds nutrition. And then the same thing with spices.
Erin Holt [00:26:47]:
You can buy those in bulk. Just save your glass jars. By the way, you should always be buying herbs and spices in glass jars. Save your glass jars and then refill them. I personally go to the mustard seed, which is in Nottingham, New Hampshire. So very local. But there are places that you can find bulk organic herbs and spices online. I do believe mountain rose herbs sells them.
Erin Holt [00:27:09]:
So you can look there now again, dm us with resources and we'll just keep pumping up the show notes full of different online places to get high quality stuff in bulk. It's a group effort. Speaking of group effort, a lot of you shared that you get frozen organic veggies and fruits as a way to save money. I will definitely second this. I don't buy a lot of organic veggies. I will say that. Oh, maybe that's not true. I buy a lot of organic cauliflower rice.
Erin Holt [00:27:41]:
We do a lot of that. That's mostly for my smoothies, though. But fruits, yes, organic fruit. It actually is more cost effective to buy it frozen. I can't tell you how many times we've had to throw out organic berries lately. We just bring them home and then there's like, they're moldy, they don't last. That's the most expensive way to eat produce is when you're throwing half of it out. So I've just sort of defaulted to only buying frozen organic berries because they last.
Erin Holt [00:28:15]:
We're not producing waste and we're also not wasting money. A lot of people also said buy veggies in season. And yes, it is a way to save money. Prioritize seasonal produce. A lot of people said this. A lot of people practice this. So that's something to keep in mind. Ideally, you have access to a local farm in your area and you're buying directly from them when things are in season.
Erin Holt [00:28:42]:
There are also just kind of less expensive veggies that tend to get overlooked. Potatoes and other roots and tubers. Beets. We eat an abundance of beets. I love beets. Love me some beets. Cabbage. I eat so much cabbage.
Erin Holt [00:28:57]:
It's a phenomenal veggie. And it's cheap. It's cheap and you can feed a lot. You can make a lot of recipes with cabbage and you can feed a lot of people. So don't overlook the cheap veggies. Somebody suggested that you could ask local farms to buy their b or c grade veggies. I've never done that, but I think that's a great pro tip. CSH shares are really helpful, not just for you, but the people that produce your food.
Erin Holt [00:29:23]:
Co ops. Purchasing direct from farmer or direct from the fisherman and then looking for cheaper cuts of meat. These are all straight from my instagram buddies. This one is for my low carbie barbies. If you're struggling with headaches, muscle cramps, or fatigue on a low carb diet, you are probably low in electrolytes. This is for two reasons. One is that whole foods, keto or low carb diets are low in sodium. When you cut out packaged foods, you basically cut out your main dietary sources of sodium.
Erin Holt [00:30:04]:
Also, you excrete more sodium in a carb restricted state. But the good news is that replenishing electrolytes can really rectify symptoms pretty darn quickly. Element is my personal electrolyte of choice. It's super yummy. Has everything you need and nothing you don't. The reality is every single person needs electrolytes. But if you're active or you're on a low carb diet, you really extra need electrolytes to feel and perform your best. Right now, element is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase.
Erin Holt [00:30:34]:
That's eight single serving packets for free with an element order. It's a great way to try all the flavors. Or you could share them with a friend. Get yours@drinkleement.com funk that is. Drinklmnt.com F-U-N-K. Element offers a no questions asked refund so you can try it risk free. All right, shit is bananas right now. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Erin Holt [00:31:00]:
Somebody recently asked me, what do you do when you're doing all of the things, you're practicing all of the tools, but things still feel really intense. And honestly, this is where Ned destress comes in. For me. It is part of my daily routine. Right now. It's a certified organic formula, full spectrum hemp with CBG, CBD, and also ashwagandha. So it really helps to calm down the body and soothe down anxiety. If you need some support right now, fortify your stress response and get 15% off Ned's destress blend with code funk, go to helloned.com funk or enter code funk at checkout.
Erin Holt [00:31:36]:
That's helloned.com. F-U-N-K to get 15% off. Thank you as always, Ned, for sponsoring the show and offering myself and our listeners a natural remedy for some of life's most common health issues. I also got a shout out. Making your own bone broth. Speaking of cheaper cuts of stuff, you can get bones, you can get chicken feet, you can get chicken necks, and you can make your own bone broth from them. So you can go to the butcher or you can go to the farmer and they usually will sell these things, and it's not very expensive. On the other hand, if you purchase bone broth, premade.
Erin Holt [00:32:22]:
So we will buy kettle and fire if we're not making it ourselves. And that is, again, it's like $10 or $12 for a little box that's like a serving, so. Or two servings maybe. So making it yourself is a surefire way to save money. I know a lot of people want to purchase collagen supplements. Again, not inexpensive, but this is a way to get the same nutrients. But you're getting it from bone broth instead of purchasing supplements or protein powder. So there's so many different things that you can do with bone broth.
Erin Holt [00:32:54]:
You can make a ton of it at once. It is a little bit of a project just because you have to cook it for a while. You can make a ton of it at once, and then you can freeze it and you can pull it out of the freezer as you need it. Obviously, you can make soups. I use it just for cooking too. Sometimes I'll freeze little cubes of it in a silicon ice cube tray and just pull them out and plop them into whatever I'm cooking. I always cook my grains with broth. So rather than use water, you can use broth.
Erin Holt [00:33:20]:
So you're infusing more nutrients, you're infusing more protein into your grains when you cook it. Organ meats. Not everybody's favorite, but definitely a deep source of nutrition and something you can purchase rather affordably. So liver, for example, different organs, like heart. And what people will do is mix it up with ground beef. So let's say you're making, I don't know, a ground beef, separate tacos or something. You can actually mix in some liver or mix in some other organ with your ground beef. So it's not like you just have to cut into a beef heart and eat that for breakfast.
Erin Holt [00:33:59]:
And that's your vibe. I mean, do it. But there's other ways to get in organ meat as well. Canned sardines. While I'm just talking about weird things that people don't really love to eat, canned sardines, another super affordable way to get a lot of nutrition into your pie hole. You can just eat them right out of the can. You can put them on salad, you can mix it up with tuna in like, a tuna fish salad. Different ways to do that.
Erin Holt [00:34:22]:
And I forgot to mention this when we were talking about bone broth, but I will also make my own veggie broth. When I'm chopping veggies, which is pretty much every single night, I will take the veggie butts is what I call them, the ends of the veggies that you would either throw away or compost. And I put them into a plastic sealable bag and I throw them into the freezer. And then when I'm chopping veggies, I pull the bag out of the freezer and I put all my scraps, all my veggie butts into the bag. And when the bag is full, I just transfer it into making broth. So I just put water in the instant pot with these veggie butts. Or if I'm making bone broth, I will add them to it. And so you just get a little bit more flavor and then also some nutrition, and you're not wasting these things.
Erin Holt [00:35:09]:
So instead of buying veggie broth at the store, make your own. You're not going to spend any money doing it because this is stuff you would be throwing out anyway, you dig? So I said we would circle back to buying in bulk. So here I am. I'm circling back. Buying in bulk is definitely more money up front. I recognize that. But it does save you money in the long run. And it also saves you time, which is kind of a BFD.
Erin Holt [00:35:34]:
Now, when I go to, this is a local store, when I go to market basket, just my grocery store, I like to stock up on pantry goods and essentials because we'll also shop. We shop at the farm, Vernon family Farm. Primarily, we shop at market basket, and then we also shop at Whole Foods. So those are like the three contenders, the three places that we get our food for the most part. But I don't like to get a lot of staple stuff at Whole Foods because it's way less expensive at our local grocery store market. Like, when I'm there, I like to get the most bang for my buck. So I'm stocking up on things like jovial pasta and like canned tuna or olive oil or, I don't know, spices or things like that. Now, obviously that's not saving money in the way that we might think, but it is definitely saving time.
Erin Holt [00:36:26]:
And time is money, baby. So something to consider buying. There's other things that you can buy in bulk. Whole grains is one of them. Dried beans. So dried beans, I think about buying a can of beans, and the ones that I buy are probably like $4 a can, but you could do that so much cheaper. Buy dried beans, you soak them, you cook them either in a pressure cooker, like an instant pot, or you could do them on the stove. But I can't tell you how many times I've burned pans trying to cook beans on the stove.
Erin Holt [00:36:55]:
I don't have the skill set for it or the tenacity. So I like them in the instant pot. And then you can freeze them. So you let them cool and then you lay them out flat and you freeze them in a pan, like a sheet pan. And then when they're frozen, transfer them into like a big ziploc bag or other container. And you just want to freeze them first so they don't freeze in one block, you know what I'm saying? And then put them back in the freezer and then pull them out and you can heat them up for supper or whatever you're making. You can do the same thing with rice, by the way, back in the day, I used to buy the, they were in the freezer section at Trader Joe's, and it was pre cooked rice and they were so handy to have on hand. But you can do the same thing.
Erin Holt [00:37:39]:
You can precook a bunch of rice. I also use the instant pot for that. Cook it with bone broth and then lay it out flat, freeze it, put it into a bag, and so you can just grab, have little grab bags of precooked rice or some other type of grain. So that saves time. Again, more time up front, but it will save you time in the long run. Somebody also mentioned splitting a quarter cow with somebody. Definitely more of an aggressive move because you would need a deep freezer for that. Obviously, it's more money up front, but then you have it as a resource.
Erin Holt [00:38:10]:
So something else to consider. Buying whole chickens, using every part. I will say properly raised chickens are not inexpensive, but if you're using the whole thing, you're using the chicken, you're using the chicken bones to make the bone broth, you're doing the whole thing. You definitely get more bang for your buck. Somebody shared on Instagram, she said, chicken is cheaper than protein bars. And you know, that's fair. That's another reframe, another perspective shift. A lot of us have no issue with forking over a bunch of money for protein bars, but then we look at the cost of chicken and we're like, yikes.
Erin Holt [00:38:43]:
So something to consider as well. Keeping your mind homemade, everything. Everybody said this. Cook yourself. Buy the staples and cook at home. Don't stock snacks, stock ingredients. Teaching yourself how to cook is key. Everybody said this.
Erin Holt [00:39:02]:
This is like the number one thing was just cook yourself. And I have to agree, this is another plug for the functional nutrition collective. We teach you how to do this. I am so grateful that my mom taught me how to cook because it is a resource, a skill set that has served me very well and I enjoy it and I'm so lucky and grateful that I can. But it's also a teachable skill. So you can, if you don't have the skill set, you can teach yourself. And so that is something to invest your time and energy into. And you will save money by doing it.
Erin Holt [00:39:34]:
The second piece or the second thing that everybody said that was like, everybody's doing this to save money is meal planning. It limits waste. Having a plan saves. So planning the meals out in advance and then getting what you need each week based on the plan. Somebody else had a weekly menu plan. It's boring, but it helps keep grocery bills down and there's less food waste. Batch, cook and freeze. We kind of talked about some of that in terms of single ingredients, but you could make a big Chili, you can make a big soup.
Erin Holt [00:40:09]:
It's like the cook once, eat multiple times philosophy. Eat the leftovers, but then cook enough to actually freeze and you can pull it out later on. Some people talked about specific stores. Now, I know that some of these are location dependent, but I will share them. Costco, Trader Joe's, Costco. I guess you can get wild caught salmon, shrimp and cod. That's a little pro tip. Somebody said, I hate to give this secret away, but stores like Ocean State, job lot in big lots, I'm assuming for packaged goods or healthy packaged snacks.
Erin Holt [00:40:45]:
Somebody said, grocery outlet, I've never heard of that. But she said that there's a lot of bougie brands. Somebody said, thrive market. I'm always kind of like hit or miss on that. I don't really think it necessarily saves a lot of money. I used to leverage them a lot more than I do now. When Hattie was little and it was just easier to order things online, but I just always felt so guilty because of all the waste, the shipping waste. They do a good job about using recycled stuff, but it's a lot of boxes, it's a lot of paper.
Erin Holt [00:41:20]:
And I don't know, it just never sat right with me because I have access to stores where I can get those brands. Some people don't. And so then thrive market is a really good resource. Somebody said Walmart for kitchen staples. I definitely, like I shared with you, I lean on market basket, a local grocery store for some of the staples rather than going to Whole foods. There's a lot of things that we get at Whole foods that we can't get other places. But I don't like getting my staples there because they tend to be more expensive. And the last thing that I will say to close this whole conversation out is throwing stuff away is the most expensive thing.
Erin Holt [00:42:02]:
Right? Obviously, we're literally just like throwing money in the trash. I mean, not literally, but close enough. Close enough. So when you notice things getting a little squidgy in the fridge, you're like, okay, if I don't eat those tomorrow, they're going to go bad. And I know that I'm not going to eat them tomorrow. Don't wait until they've gone bad and then throw them out, freeze them. So, you know, when spinach starts to look like a little sad, a little wilted, I will move it. Boop.
Erin Holt [00:42:35]:
Right into the freezer. Because frozen spinach is great in smoothies. Or you can just cook it. You can just saute frozen spinach down. Same thing with berries. When berries start to get a little, like, you guys are looking a little squishy. My family will not eat squishy berries. They're like, no, they turn their nose up to them.
Erin Holt [00:42:54]:
So I freeze them. And then guess what? They're not squishy anymore. Not squishy anymore. Same thing with grapes. Because you know, it. Frozen or, excuse me, organic grapes cost like a mortgage. So I'm like, I'm not throwing these out. People are going to come hell or high water, somebody's eating them.
Erin Holt [00:43:09]:
So once I freeze them, then the people eat them. But frozen berries can go into smoothies. Like, anything frozen can really go into a smoothie. Or when things are looking just like a little bit sad, maybe the broccoli or the cauliflower, it just looks sad. Or the roasted or the root veggies look sad. I will just do a big roast. So I'll chop everything up, put them on a cooking sheet, and then put them in the oven and just roast them and that's enough to revive their life back so we can eat them. So those are all of the pro tips that I have and that I've received to help you prioritize nutrition but save some money doing it.
Erin Holt [00:43:53]:
So I hope that that was helpful. Again, dm us with any resources that you have for buying in bulk and I will catch you next week. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today day show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
