No need to become a vegetarian, but if you trade one meat meal a week for an egg-based meal, you can eat well and pocket the spare change.
The 2005 U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend that people eat about four and a half cups of fruits and vegetables daily, for good health. But you don't need to buy raspberries in winter to get the job done. Eat seasonally and you'll do better.
During the summer, melons go a long way, and they're some of the healthiest fruits around. Watermelon and cantaloupe are loaded to the hilt with antioxidants, and they're terrific sources of potassium. Apples and oranges are around all winter, and they're at their peak then. Buy them by the bag and you'll save a bundle. A three-pound bag of apples is only about $2.50, and they last forever in the crisper. A box of those supersweet clementines may be $7, but it'll contain up to 30 fruits -- a huge bargain.
Beans are probably the top nutrition source here. Any type you like -- pinto, black, red, kidney -- they're all tops.
Beans are schizophrenic, too; they count as both a vegetable and a protein food. They're also a vegetable that kids and adults all like. They go in everything -- soups, salads, stir-fries, rice and pasta dishes. Plus, the canned ones are just fine and still among the best buys anywhere.
The dietary guidelines recommend half a cup daily, anyway, so beans are a great place to start eating better and for less. Incidentally, just one-half cup of pinto beans every day has been shown to reduce cholesterol by about 8 to 10 percent. With nutrition like that, beans should be on our plates no matter what our budgets are.
Carrots are the deep orange of the antioxidant carotene, cabbage is a high-octane cruciferous veggie, and deep-green collards have more anti-cancer compounds than almost any vegetable. And they're all economical. They never need go to waste, either, because the aging ones can always go into soups and stir-fries. The vitamin content may wane a little, but the minerals stay put, and so do most of the disease-fighting compounds.
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