Eat for Cheap in the New Year

You don't have to join in the American obesity trend just because you can't afford to get all your produce at the Greenmarket anymore.

Here are some foods that are cheap AND healthy, adapted from the website Divine Caroline and also reproduced in my very favorite food blog, Not Eating Out in New York.

1. Oats: High in fiber and good for cholesterol. A dollar buys you a week’s worth of breakfast. Also great for adding to chocolate chip cookies or using to bake oat bars.
2. Eggs: A cheap source of protein, at about a dollar for a half-dozen. Also, yolks have lots of Vitamin D, which is important and hard to get enough of without taking supplements.
3. Kale: At about a dollar a bunch, this is one of the cheapest greens you’ll find in the supermarket.
4. Potatoes. Been there, done that.
5. Nuts, especially when bought in the shell.
6. Bananas: Shop around for deals; DivineCaroline found them for 19 cents apiece at Trader Joe’s!
7. Garbanzo Beans: Also known as chickpeas, garbanzos are cheapeast in dry form, but even precooked beans will still only cost about a dollar. With a food processor, they can become hummus in a flash.
8. Broccoli.
9. Watermelon: The whole melon costs more than a dollar, but the per-serving cost is only about 20 cents, the site says.
10. Wild Rice or Brown Rice.
11. Beets: Roasted in the oven or shred into salads, beets are packed with nutrients. For extra value, buy them with greens on for stir fry or to toss in a salad. Beets have been a popular topic on the NYTimes Well blog: check out Pass the Beets, Again for several recipes that take beets beyond the can.
12. Butternut Squash: In season, the butternut squash costs less than a dollar a pound. It’s hearty and pretty easy to bake or prepare as a soup.
13. Whole Grain Pasta
14. Sardines: A little fish so low on the food chain it doesn’t accumulate mercury and packs tons of nutrition. Mash them with parsley, lemon juice and olive oil for a spread or toss into salads or on pizza.
15. Spinach: Cheap year-round and very nutritious.
16. Tofu: It is one of those "elitist" foods that a political candidate could get in trouble for liking, but its not really that expensive. Add to smoothies for a protein boost.
17. Milk: Per serving, milk and many milk products like yogurt are still under a dollar. Watch for a homemeade ice cream recipe in an upcoming Recipes for the Recession!
18. Pumpkin Seeds: Not the most practical item on the list because most of us aren’t carving pumpkins every day and they are expensive to buy on their own. Still, they are great on salads and as a snack, so it’s always worth saving pumpkin seeds when you have a pumpkin.
19. Coffee: may protect against disease, which is the best addiction-justifying news i've heard all recession.