You want to eat healthy but your pocket can’t afford it.

You want to eat cheap, but your body can’t afford it.

Fortunately, there are actually quite a few healthful and tasty foods that are dirt cheap.

Here are a few of our favorites, with some inspiration on how to prepare them in delicious ways.

1.  Whole grain pasta

Name your sauce.  Toss it on.  Eat.

2.  Bok Choy

This nutrient-packed super food is as delicious as it is versatile.  Try it chopped fresh in a salad, stewed or sauteed.

3. Canned Tuna

Cold-water fish like tuna are a rich source of the omega-3 essential fats, a form of essential fatty acids in which the standard American diet is sorely deficient.

Our Italian exchange student tossed a can of tuna in the frying pan, along with marinara sauce, and it made the most delicious pasta smother in about five minutes.  Easy and Yum!  (Keep tuna consumption down to twice a week due to high mercury content.)

4. Homemade Bread

Skip the additives and preservatives, make it fresh.

5.  Garbanzo beans

Mash them for hummus, fry them as falafel, or simply toss them together with the leftover chopped up veggies from your fridge.  Two cups of delicious protein and fiber for eighty cents.

6. Beets

An under appreciated wonder food.  These colorful root vegetables contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.

You can bake and stew them like a potato, or you can grate them and eat them deliciously raw.

7. Yogurt

Yogurt is a very good source of calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin-vitamin B2, iodine, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid-vitamin B5, zinc, potassium, protein and molybdenum. These 10 nutrients alone would make yogurt a health-supportive food. But some of the greatest benefit you can receive, are from the live bacteria found in better quality yogurts.  Be sure to check the label.

Try this delicious and easy twist to make a healthful dessert.

8. Quiche

Essentially a bunch of eggs (one of the cheapest healthful foods), mixed with whatever you think might taste great.

9. Curry

One of the most satisfying of the cheap/easy/healthy recipes.  Honestly, all you have to do is put the following in a pan and cook on medium for ten minutes or so, then pour over rice, or sop up with some bread.

1.  your protein

2.  milk or a can of coconut milk

3.  curry powder (from the grocery store or a local southeast Asian market)

A lot of people don’t seem to think they can make a curry.  They must have never tried.

Plus, the aromatic spices that make up curry pack a powerful health punch.

10. Tap Water

Most bottled water is essentially tap water.  Save your pockets and the environment: drink tap.