When someone is trying to make it in the professional athlete world nutrition and food play a key role. It's the small things that can separate you from your competition. Trent and I have always tried to eat healthy, but our idea of healthy wasn't really that healthy. Trent has read several books on the topic and we have tried implementing many different things. Some things didn't work as well as others.
While trying to eat healthy you run into the problem of an increase in your grocery bill! (As I've mentioned before... we are trying to cut back with our spending. This includes meals out! So our grocery bill did go up because we try to make dinner at home for at least 6 nights a week. We also try to have lunch at home everyday.) Healthy fruits, vegetables and fresh meats are not cheap! We even tried several different grocery stores to see where we could get the cheapest deal.
In the midst of our search for the perfect grocery store a neighbor of ours told us about the vegetable co-op that they are a part of. In fact, their house is the drop off site (perfect for us!). We pay $50 for a two week supply of fruits and vegetables. The produce comes every other Saturday. We receive a big bin that is full of fresh, organic food! Each time there are different foods in the bin, which makes cooking fun! Last week we received a spaghetti squash. Neither of us had ever eaten a spaghetti squash, so we looked up recipes online and tried something new! It turned out great and we hope that we get a spaghetti squash again! Anyhow, we make the produce we get in the co-op last for two weeks. That breaks down to $25 a week for produce. We get so much food in the bin that we really do not have a problem making it last. Since we buy our produce from the co-op, we do not buy produce at the store (except if we need something for a specific meal and we usually buy bananas for smoothies).
Making things homemade has also helped us decrease our grocery bill. Trent loves almond butter! He can go through a container pretty quickly. The down part to this is that a jar (they are not big) costs between $7-$9. Therefore, I've been making his almond butter for close to $5 (it's just almonds and honey in a food processor!). We've also done this with peanut butter, granola and bread. Along with those foods, I also make Jonah's baby food. Making food at home allows you to know exactly what is in them. No preservatives, chemicals or other unknown ingredients!
When we venture to the store (yes, we... We go as a family!) we only buy the things on the list. If it's not on the list then we don't buy it... NO exceptions! We also try to make meals that do not require lots of extra ingredients. A chicken cobb salad might require 10 ingredients where a fillet of fish, sweet potato fries and steamed broccoli only contain 3 ingredients. Our meals are simple! The great thing about this is that our trips to the store are short and sweet (we can get in and out in about 20 minutes or less). We also do not buy snacks. We use the produce from the co-op to snack on (occasionally we will get a snack for the week, but this is very rare).
After lots of trial and error we have significantly slimmed down our grocery bill! It's always a work in progress and we hope to get it even lower. Small tweaks here and there have made it easy to adjust. I wouldn't say that we eat less food, instead we are eating smarter and healthier. This change has been great not only for our wallets, but also for our own health.
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