Speaker 1: many of you shared the biggest difficulties you've encountered while trying to eat healthy and several people mentioned the money factor, this idea that eating healthy is expensive and of course everybody is struggling these days but the truth is some of the best foods are good for the body and the pocket so let's look at nine key tips to eat cheap and healthy and at the end we're going to ask how much a meal would cost if we put all of it together so get ready for some major savings. tip number one is be flexible. i have people messaging me from uruguay saying kale is really hard to find here or it's really expensive, what do we do? don't eat it. eat your local greens and save your green. i'm spending time in portugal right now, kale is hard to find here so i eat portuguese cabbage which is really good and it's dirt cheap. you don't need to replicate someone's exact plate from instagram or youtube, it's about the general principle, not the minutia. the famous blue zones, where people live to very old ages and where there are a lot of centenarians, span asian, european, central and north american cultures. so the exact foods they eat vary enormously. okinawans eat a lot of purple sweet potato, costa ricans eat a lot of rice and beans and the greeks and sardinians eat a classic mediterranean diet with a lot of vegetables and legumes. but despite these local differences the pattern is very similar across. lots of unprocessed plants, they're physically active, low stress and socially engaged. blue zone centenarians aren't running around stressing out about kale, they eat what they have locally, there are no magical foods, the magic is in the overall pattern. so don't sweat the details, focus on the big picture and save your money. and speaking of legumes, that's tip number two. at around a dollar a pound you really can't go wrong with beans, lentils and chickpeas. they're a concentrated source of protein, iron, fiber and they're dirt cheap. legumes are almost too good to be true. a lot of people write and say i want to eat healthier but i don't want to eliminate all the meat. totally doable. and here's some evidence. researchers had people replace meat with beans and lentils only a couple days a week. same calories, same total amount of protein across and they were still eating meat on the other days. after two months their cholesterol, their triglycerides, their glucose and their insulin were all lower. so diet is not all or nothing, black and white, even a partial change can pay some dividends. okay, what about prices? average cost of a pound of beans or lentils in the US is $1.45, ground beef is around four bucks, regular steak is a little over six, if you go to sirloin it's more. matching for same amount of protein, red meat is about four to five times more expensive than beans. now, chicken is somewhere in the middle. chicken breast is around twice as expensive as beans and if you choose cheaper chicken parts you might be able to get even closer. the other thing to bear in mind are imitation meats. a lot of people think that if they cut back on meat they gotta eat a lot of veggie burgers and processed soy but the truth is those products can cost as much or more than meat and they're not your best health bet anyway. overall, beans and lentils deliver the biggest health bang for your buck. okay but this video is about the ka-ching so let's lower those prices some more. tip number three is bulk. we said the national average for beans and lentils is about $1.45 a pound. forget that, how about half that price? lentils at 72 cents if you buy them in bulk. red lentils, even cheaper, 64 cents a pound. next, they're gonna be paying us to get it off their hands. i feel like a used car salesman, come on down. by the way, i don't get a penny from any of the links in this video, it's all just googled how about some grains? barley, 87 cents a pound, one of the best sources of soluble fiber, lowers your cholesterol, dirt cheap. here's oats, 90 cents a pound, that's 22 cents a cup. breakfast of champions for 22 cents. and this was all a quick google search, it's not like i went to the deep web. in fact, maybe you can beat that price. if you know a place that sells it even cheaper definitely link it below and feel free to gloat. even fancier foods you can buy in bulk. in fact, sometimes there the difference is even more dramatic. here's flax seed at a dollar a pound grind it in the mixer, sprinkle over your oatmeal, there's your ALA, there's your omega-3s. one tablespoon comes down to less than two cents. add to the bowl of oatmeal, you got breakfast for 24 cents. you can pay with a quarter and still get change. you can get your flax seeds and your organic goji berries at whole foods and leave your entire paycheck there or you can do this and get it almost for free. now, obviously bulk is easier for dry goods like legumes and grains because they last forever but even vegetables and meats you can buy in bulk and freeze. and that's tip number four. we covered in a previous video how frozen vegetables aren't any worse than fresh and may even be superior. here's frozen mixed veggies, a dollar a pound. broccoli, a dollar thirty a pound. corn for a dollar, spinach for a dollar thirty. it's even cheaper if you consider there's no waste. how often do you buy vegetables and you put them in the back of the fridge and you kind of forget about them and later they're brown or they're moldy or they're old and you throw some away? that's money down the drain. that's the beauty of frozen, it preserves the nutrients, it lasts forever and it's zero waste. i'm not against fresh, i'm just saying frozen is fine too and if it saves you some hard-earned ka-ching, do it. now, all of those are right off of the walmart website and that's tip number five, being careful about where we shop can save big bucks. now, that sounds kind of obvious but we often get in a rut of going to the same place over and over and we don't even remember why anymore. here in this neighborhood, within a one block radius, i can find the same fruit at three times the price, massive difference. when i used to live in la one of the tricks was to go to hispanic supermarkets, they had crazy little prices. local farmers markets and fairs are great options too, cheap and local. or we can go to whole foods and give the cashier our car keys to cover the groceries. i like this whole foods bashing thing. let's keep going. whole foods is not going to sponsor this video. all right, tip number six, forget the organic produce. this is a bit controversial because organic has a reputation for being healthier and more environmentally conscious but is it? very few long-term studies have been published and the results haven't been consistent so the jury is still out on whether organic delivers any actual health benefits. the environmental picture is similar. greenhouse gas emissions are pretty much a tie between organic and conventionally raised and for things like land use and acidification which are other environmental concerns organic may actually perform worse. this isn't me saying definitely don't buy organic, it's me saying if money's a problem, don't sweat it. organic is probably not a huge factor. okay, what if money is not a problem? you're just, you're balling, you don't care. okay, settle down Jeff Bezos if you want to buy organic, just in case, just on the off chance that a health issue is demonstrated in the future, i don't think that's an unreasonable position. but whether you're rolling in cash or are hard-strapped, take-home message here is make sure you get your fruits and vegetables. an ocean of evidence indicates the benefits of eating plant foods far outweighs any potential concerns of pesticides and organic. and speaking of oceans, tip number seven is water. americans spend more money on soft drinks than any other food item. $850 a year for the average household. now, if you're watching this channel you're probably not average when it comes to food but sodas and juices and other commercial drinks can add up real fast. we all know water is healthier but it doesn't taste as good as coke and that's the problem, right? one trick is to put some slices of fruit in your water and refrigerate. the water becomes flavored with the fruit for an easier transition off of sugary drinks. tea is another healthy option. you can also dip some lemon peel in the water, zap it in the microwave and boom, lemon tea for free. because the lemon peel was gonna be trash anyway, right? you can have it hot or cold and you can make a whole jug. good for your health, good for your wealth. okay, what about bottled water? that's cleaner, right? so we kind of need to get it? actually, many brands of bottled water are basically tap water. in many US cities the requirements for tap water purity are actually stricter than for bottled water. if you're not sure, if you're worried, you can double check. i once bought some cheap chemical tests online for some common contaminants like lead, aluminum, bacteria, stuff like that and i just quickly tested my tap water in LA and everything looked great within the recommended margins so i just kept drinking it. it's the same here in europe, tap water is highly purified and tightly controlled now i know in some countries that's not the case so this is going to be a bit location dependent also some people don't like the taste of tap water so one option is to buy a home filter probably pays for itself over weeks or months with what you save from bottled water plus you avoid the plastic contamination, the bpas and the environmental impact. i take my glass water bottle with me everywhere i go. bottled water is an insane business model, you're selling something that's essentially free. depending which one you get, you may be paying more for your bottled water than your gas. how is that possible? the richest man in china as of last week is a multi-billionaire who sells bottled water. go figure. alright, seven down, two to go. while we're on the topic of drinks tip number eight is make your own milk. for plant milks i mean. for cow milk it's going to be a a little harder. you're gonna need a bigger kitchen. making plant milk is super easy. even with my non-existent kitchen skills it worked the first time I tried it. three steps, soak, grind and filter. and the third step is optional I'll include some links and some recipes below. almond milk is two to four bucks in the US and if you buy your almonds in bulk you can make it for a dollar fifty over a year or more the savings can add up and the leftovers that you filter out that's almond meal and you can use that to cook and you avoid all the preservatives and the artificial stuff in the commercial milk. so that's another 50 cents on our bowl of oatmeal from earlier if you want to have it with some homemade almond milk. another option is oat milk which is even cheaper. okay we're in the finish line here, tip number nine is batch cooking. it goes hand in hand with bulk shopping. buy in bulk, batch cook, freeze for the long run, save time and money. building this habit to cook more at home saves big cash and can really boost your health. when I was working long hours in the lab I took all meals in tupperwares, batch cooked. probably saved thousands of dollars over the years and i was in control of what i ate. doesn't mean you can't go to a restaurant once in a while for a change but eating out of restaurants on a daily basis can be really tough on your health and your wealth. all right, time to put all of this together and see how cheap we can get for a healthy meal here's the spinach and lentil doll on the bbc page, nice and fancy. pass the lentil doll please so bulk lentils, 72 cents a pound, that's 18 cents per cup. frozen spinach was $1.30 per pound so it comes down to 33 cents per cup. sweet potato is less than a dollar a pound so even if you eat a whole sweet potato that's a whopping 30 cents so we're at 81 cents per person and we got all our staples. now, we want to add some flavor. we're not savages. onion, garlic, turmeric, pepper, some olive oil if you want. let's say those condiments double the price, it's going to be way less but let's be generous and say they double the price. that's $1.62 per person for that bbc meal. family of four dines for $6.48. give me a break with the healthy foods being expensive. next time you hear that, link this video, i'm out. here's me shopping and applying some of these principles in the real world, and here's a full day of eating.