10 Tips For Saving on Superfoods

This week I've been featuring executive fitness coach, Bonni Doherty.

Though Bonni is not a nutritionist, she does recommend her clients eat many small meals throughout the day, meals high in essential fatty acids and phytonutrients.

Bonni calls her favorites --leafy green & red vegetables, some fruits, avocados, nuts, seeds, deep-sea fish, good fats and oils--Superfoods, and when we shopped together at Whole Foods, my task was to help her locate great deals on those items.

So far this week, I've offered a number of tips for getting great deals on superfoods and to recap, those tips are as follows:

1. In the produce section look for the Good Stuff for Less, Weekly Specials, Weekly Buys signs since veggies and fruit under these signs are a great deal.
2. Leafy greens like kale, chard, spinach, and celery, often go on sale: two-bunches-for-the-price-of-one, so watch the weekly prices and buy more when the price is lower. Whatever leafy greens you don't plan to eat that week wash, saute, and freeze portions for later consumption.
3. Consider buying WFs loose braising mix. It contains all of the above leafy greens (plus other bitter leaves), but it's just the leaf -- no woody stalks. So you'll pay only for the portion of the plant you'll eat.
4. Avocados are in season now and because of their tough outer skin, it's safe to consume non-organic avocados, and the price of conventionally grown is less than organically grown. If you buy several at a time, pick firm through soft. Store the firm avocados in the fridge and eat the softer fruit first. Take the firm avocados out of the fridge a day or two in advance of eating them so they have time to soften.
   
5. Pick bunches of beets with healthy green tops. Cut the leaf from the stalk, wash it, and saute it with other leafy greens. In other words, bunches of beets are naturally a two-for-one vegetable.
6. Buy nut butters and olive oil in bulk at WFs and save on packaging by bringing your own containers.
7. Also shop the bulk aisle for seeds and whole nuts. Buying dry goods in bulk offers a great savings over brand-name packets of nuts and seeds.
   
8. Consider purchasing tinned fish, i.e. sardines, tuna, salmon by the case and receiving WFs 10% case discount. Ask a WFs associate for help, and get the best deal on deep-sea tinned fish.
   
9. Cut back on your consumption of expensive cuts of meat and consider tofu products, tinned deep-sea fish, or fresh and or fresh frozen salmon, and less expensive cuts of chicken and or turkey.
10. Because you'll save when you cut back on meat protein, buy the DHA Omega 3 eggs, they cost a bit more, but if you follow the above tips, you're still saving overall.

It's one thing to buy all these healthy superfoods, but it's another to cook them up into satisfying meals. With that in mind, and in-keeping with Bonni's counsel that her clients eat regular small meals, I'm offering two mini-meal ideas using superfoods:

Beets with Pear or Apple and Cheese
1) Cut beet bulb from stalks. Wash and gently scour beets of dirt. Add to pot of water and simmer till tender, about 45 minutes.
2) Peel beets and slice. Store in an old yogurt container or Tupperware. You can add the strained beet water from the cooking pot to the container so beets don't dry out. To the beet water, you can also add rice wine vinegar if you wish -- the vinegar off-sets the sweetness of the beets.

To Serve: Slice a pear or an apple, lay alongside sliced beets. Drizzle with lime or lemon juice. Grate or thinly slice your favorite aged Italian cheese, i.e. a Romano or Parmesan or Asiago etc. Place cheese alongside beets and fruit to create an eye-appealing superfood mini-meal.

Red Chard with Apple, Chicken and Walnuts
1) I posted a variation of this dish a couple of months ago.
2) You can swap out spinach for chard, or chard for kale, or use the WFs braising greens I mention above.
3) Then either turkey or chicken or tinned tuna or Tofurky would work with this dish, since all compliment apple well.
4) And of course walnuts are the crowning glory!

To serve: drizzle with olive oil and juice of a half lemon.

The Fitness Coach Diet for Optimum Health

Yesterday I introduced readers to Bonni, an executive fitness coach.

B advocates a diet high in essential fatty acids and phytonutrients.

In other words, she eats, and recommends that her clients eat, lots of veggies (particularly leafy greens), fish, lean protein, and good-fat foods.

The advantage to a diet like this is that it's highly affordable.

If you need to spend less on groceries and you like the sound of Bonni's dietary program for health and fitness, one thing you can do is cut back your consumption of meat.

Think of it this way:

1. A plateful of veggies and pulses with a little bit of meat is a lot cheaper than a plate of meat with a little veg and a lentil.
   
2. Striking a balance is better for your pocket and for your overall health. Make fish, chicken and meat go further by adding beans, lentils, chickpeas.
   
3. Turn your meal-planning around so that the most expensive ingredient is the ‘flavoring’ rather than the main event.
   
4. Use eggs, nuts and seeds for protein, fiber, and crunch.
   
5. And return something as beautiful as a great steak-and-red-wine meal to the special status it deserves…crave it, look forward to it, then really enjoy it -- just not every second day.

The above 5 tips are modified from Table Talk: 10 ways to save money in the Kitchen. A blog article worth keeping on hand!

Once Bonni had pointed out her favorite fresh produce, leafy greens, beets, celery, avocado, and apples, I had an opportunity to introduce her to the great value of picking and paying for only what you need in Whole Foods bulk section.

Keep in mind that if you use WFs containers to collect your oil and or nut / seed butters, you'll pay something minimal, but if you bring your own container you'll pay only for what you put in it.

In the pics above, B is enjoying the bulk almond butter $3.99 lb and the bulk olive oil $5.99 lb, great buys on two healthy fats.

Because B eats a diet rich in essential fatty acids, and recommends the same to her clients, her preference is the DHA Omega 3 eggs, which are are about $1 more than other brands.

But if you're not spending on expensive cuts of meat, you could spend what you save at the meat counter on eggs high in omega 3's, and essential fatty acids found in deep-sea oily fish, like salmon, which B buys fresh, fresh frozen or tinned.

I suggested that if she consumed several tins of sardines, tuna, and or salmon a week, she might consider buying a mixed case of tinned fish and receive WFs 10% case discount.

Because B eats as many as eight small meals throughout the day, she gravitates toward lean-protein snacks like Tofurky, a baked tofu product that's sliced like deli turkey. It's about a $1 more than the 365-brand tinned salmon, but still at $3.29, B's choice of protein items are significantly less than butchered meats.

And like everyone, B has one self-professed weakness: expensive cheese. She and her boyfriend love a well-aged, yellow cheese and she says they easily spend around $8 a week on their favorites.

But rather than consider it a weakness, I think anyone who diligently tends their health, working out and consuming healthy, unprocessed food needs a treat, and for Bonni that's cheese!

So an average grocery shop for executive fitness coach, Bonni Doherty consists of the following:

• leafy greens, celery, carrots, some fruit
  
• eggs, nuts, seeds, olive oil,
  
• deep-sea fish, fresh and tinned
• organic chicken, tofurky, tofu,
  
• sprouted-grain bread like Ezekiel, and cheese

Note there are no packaged items like chips, chocolate, cereals, frozen foods etc. -- it's all whole, unprocessed food!