I'd question how healthy a £2.50 chicken is. Farmed salmon is very fatty too. Then there are the moral problems with eating intensively farmed food - and the environmental damage caused by fish farms.
Eat quality meats and fish but keep the portions down

Chocolate crisps cakes etc there are good and bad vegetarian diets just like there are good and bad omnivorous diets.

True. I tend to forget that.

I recommend the following to keep costs down:

CANNED SARDINES - 50P - SAINSBURY'S - They are Wild and very high in Omega 3.

BIRDS EYE REGGAE REGGAE CHICKEN BREAST FILLETS - £1 - COOP -

4 PACK ORGANIC KIWI - £1 - WAITROSE - Eat one a day and you get your full RDA of vitamin C

ORGANIC MILK - 58P - ALL SUPERMARKETS - healthier and lower in fat than normal milk for only 8p more. High calcium diets are scientifically proven to lower body fat.


Write down a food diary, that way you can find which foods work best for cost and losing weight. You can actually see which foods give you the best results.

I wouldn't recommend the chicken chargrills as part of a healthy diet. Much better for the OP to buy fresh chicken.

Can I ask why? The ones I listed are 150 calories per portion. Also Frozen chicken tends to retain nutrients. The only reason to get fresh would be organic.

You can get 72 chicken nuggets from Iceland for £3.

Because the OP of this thread is asking about a healthy diet, and fresh food is ALWAYS better than processed. Healthy eating isn't just about calories. Chicken chargrills aren't the worst thing in the world that you can eat, by any means, but it's much, much better to buy fresh chicken and jazz it up yourself.

The list of ingredients is vast, and even though there aren't any obvious nasties, it's only 74% actual chicken! Plus the salt content is quite high. Copy and pasted:

Chicken Breast (74%),Glaze ,Marinade ,Vegetable Oil ,Glaze: Water, Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Spices, Tomato Powder, Dried Onion, Sugar, Natural Colour (Plain Caramel), Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Natural Flavourings, Salt, Natural Emulsifer (Soya Lecithin)#, Cornflour, Yeast Extract, Parsley, Spice Extracts, Citric Acid, Skimmed Milk Powder ,Marinade: Water, Wheat Flour, Salt, Wheat Starch, Cornflour, Rice Flour, Vegetable Powders (Onion, Carrot, Shallots, Leek, Tomato), Garlic Powder, Dextrose, Paprika.

JulesF, thats fine but where can you get fresh chicken like this that's cost effective?

Other recommendations:

FRESH CHICKEN LIVER - £1.09 - WAITROSE - Rich in B Vitamins and one of the most nutrient dense foods planet.
FROZEN CHICKEN LIVER- 50p - WAITROSE
1.5kg ORGANIC NEW POTATOES - £1.99 - WAITROSE - organic is better since potatoes absorb a lot of the pesticide and even farmers admit to not eating conventional forms of their own crops.
4 PACK BRANSTON BAKED BEANS - £1.30 - TESCO - Yes it's proccessed but lets make an excepton. High fibre and high in nutrients like potassium and even magnesium, makes it a health food. You can always pour some of the tomatoe sauce down the drain to reduce sugar content.

Yes I thought this too so this evening saw another doctor for advice.
She explained that I need to increase my activity levels and increase my unsaturated fat intake because I have very high HDL Cholesterol and very low LDL Cholesterol levels.

So she told me to eat plenty of nuts, seeds and oily fish, and to cut out red meat (lamb, beef, pork, ham), processed meats such as sausages and bacon, cheese, butter yoghurt and full fat milk, and consequently cakes, pastries, biscuits and milk chocolate.

So yes I was wrong, it might not be too expensive to eat more healthily but fish, chicken and such like arent my most favourite of foods

Doctors are not experts in nutrition, infact they probaly cover it for about 1 hour on their courses so I would take it as a pinch of salt. You don't have to cut out any food, just scale back the quantity and frequency. Portion size is the key, you probaly need to eat half what you have been doing.

Just accumululate as much information as you can and try to put together a meal plan you will enjoy. Healthy eating should be fun and creative. Also your taste buds will change dramatically when you eat other foods more regularly, your brain reacts and becomes conditioned to what you feed it.

I used to think I needed crisps and pizza but I havn't eaten them for a whole year and I don't miss them at all now. I did try some crips a few months ago as a one off trial and they tasted empty and pointless.

I recommend the cookbook "Economy Gastronomy" by Alegra McEvidy and Paul Merrett.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economy-Gast.../dp/0141045507

It has recipes that make the maximum use of good ingredients over a few days - called tumble down meals. Tasty and quick and cheap(er)

If you want REALLY cheap fruit and veg btw go to markets.

You'll be shocked at the amount of fruit and veg you can get for your money at Birmingham's open market for instance.

Healthy food is cheap as anything.

Vegetables are incredibly inexpensive. As for fish, I had herrings for supper last night - 36p each. I had three and felt nicely full afterwards.

Duck flesh is fine. It's the skin that contains the fat. You could say the same about chicken and pork to an extent.

Depends on how much you eat. Nuts contain a lot of natural oil/fat.

Strange the the doc would tell you to cut out pork and then again to tell you to cut out bacon and sausages (mainly pork in the UK). Either they don't know that they are from the same animal or they think you are a bit dense.

What is it with reducing sugar as much as possible? Sugar is the brain's energy. You need so much sugar. For goodness sake, just be sensible with sugar. You don't have to go to the extreme with things. Hells bells!

I think people should just eat what they want.

Surely happiness is the most important thing?

From my experience fat people tend to be happier.

Don't go overboard though. Don't go eating enough to put on a lot of weight. Just eat nice things but in moderation. There's no need to go depriving your body of what it needs (in sensible amounts) because you think it will make you super fit and healthy. You might actually be making things worse for yourself. That's just my opinion though.

It's not that expensive if you have a stock cupboard of basics but getting the stock cupboard can be

This weeks main meals has been reasonably cheap and reasonably healthy.

Sweet potatoes
Butternut squash
Turkey mince,
Fish dish (2 for £4)
New potatoes
Cabbage
Sweet corn
Wraps
Yogurt
Baking potatoes

+ a few extras as needed

Monday.

Turkey mince "Shepard's pie" with sweet potato mash. If you slow cook the mince I can't tell much difference between that and cheapish beef mince. The sweet potato is good for you and makes a really nice change. Serve with cabbage

Tuesday

Fish dish - This week I am having Cod parcel with Malasyan stuffing, and my partner is having Seabass with Red pesto butter. Served with new potatoes and sweetcorn.

Wednesday

Roasted strips of butternut squash, in fajita type spices, with fried onions and peppers, in wraps. With Greek yogurt instead of sour cream.

Thursday

Slow cooked turkey chili, with whatever veg is left over diced and chucked in with sweet potato and butternut squash chips.

Friday Baked potatoes with "home made" coleslaw (just one of the cheap bags of coleslaw mix and some mayo, super cheap and you get loads)

I'm going away on Friday so that is why it is only planned till then.

Lunch time tends to be either salad with tinned fish or a sandwich and for breakfast toast or cereal. Snacks are whatever fruit is on offer that week. I don't buy chocolate or crisps so if I want them I have to go and buy them which most of the time I can't be bothered to do.

The above has cost no more than £30 for two people. Really large portion sizes too (my husband can eat a hell of a lot!)

i hope its not the asda fish 2 for £4 I bought this and it was tiny .. tasted great though, and those birds eye chicken chargrills piri piri are nice and for £1 nice with a salad and maybe a wrap

It is that one yeah. I've had it a few times and the portion sizes are alright for me (though when looking through the selection I've noticed a lot of them weigh a lot less than the others so I have avoided those ones)

I got mine with home delivery think the picked the smallest ones possible

How much salt? Calories isn't everything!