Keto * Low-Carb on a Budget

I am on disability, and I actually save money for the government because I control my T2 diabetes with my Keto eating plan and not with pills and expensive medical interventions paid for by Medicaid. But while Medicaid will pay for my pills, they don’t pay for the healthy food I need to stay on Keto * Low-Carb.

Poor people in general often feel the need to eat dreadful carb-filled diets because of poverty. How many times have you heard of a person who eats ramen noodles because of money issues. The problem with ramen noodles is this— it is just a lot of cheap carbs and flavoring chemicals. And when I have eaten ramen noodles, I can eat a full packet and be hungry for more just a little later. While if I have a bulletproof coffee, I may feel non-hungry for quite a long time.

We need to learn strategies for food buying that help us get what we need for our Keto * Low-Carb life at a low price. I have a few suggestions that may help you eat better and healthier even if you can’t afford grass-fed steaks every night.

DON’T FORGET THE EGGS

Eggs are good food— both the whites and the yolks— and can be prepared in many ways. Eggs over-easy or sunny-side-up, omelets or scrambled eggs, quiche without pie crusts…. You can even hard-boil an egg and mix it into your low-carb smoothie if you worry about raw eggs.

Grocery store eggs can be very low priced because the egg corporations exploit the egg farmers who work for them. Farm eggs are better, though a bit more expensive. If you have neighbors who keep chickens, you may be able to get some eggs in exchange for doing chicken chores.

Raising your own chickens is more expensive than buying eggs, because your hens will need food whether they are laying well or not. And no matter how well you feed and raise your hens, you are competing with cheap grocery store eggs when you try to sell your surplus. 

DON’T SHOP IN HEALTH FOOD STORES

Foods in a health food store are always higher in price. Most of them will not work on our Keto * Low-Carb way of life. Brownies with organic sugar and flour are still a health disaster, no matter how much you pay for them. There may be some specialty products in a health food store that you need— but if you can get the same product at Walmart or online, that will be better than going to a store full of expensive carb-filled temptations.

USE DAIRY PRODUCTS

It’s not Paleo, but dairy products such as butter, heavy whipping cream, full-fat cottage cheese, and sour cream can be a good part of our eating plan, if you are not allergic to them. If you would rather use ghee than butter, you can make your own ghee at home from grocery-store butter. I’ve found that Aldi’s has good prices on butter, but there are often good sale prices on the dairy products I use at my local rural grocery store.

WALMART HAS GRASS-FED BEEF

A lot of people look down on the poor folks who shop at Walmart for some reason, but that store has a lot of food we can use at decent prices. My local Walmart has grass-fed ground beef (and ground bison) at a reasonable price— more expensive than the regular over-lean ground beef at local grocery stores, but the health benefits of grass-fed are worth paying a bit more. I’ve also bought coconut flour, liquid and regular coconut oil, and avocado mayonnaise from Walmart.

FOLLOW THE USE-IT-UP RULE

The Keto * Low-Carb way of life will have you buying more perishable food than non-perishable processed food. And the big key to low-cost eating is to eat your perishable food before it perishes. If you buy a head of lettuce, eat lettuce in your salads every day til it is used up. Don’t skip your salads some days and let the lettuce get brown and yucky. 

Home-made foods you will really need to follow the use-it-up rule for. When I make home-made salad dressing to get more healthy fats into my body, I use some on each salad I eat until it is used up. When I sprout some salad sprouts, I have to eat my sprout salads every day or some of the sprouts will be wasted. Or fed to the chickens.

Having a good freezer is a good way to make low-carb foods and not have to eat your low-carb pork curry at every meal. I freeze portions in Ball wide-mouth canning jars, so I can eat my own home-made frozen food. (The freezer compartment on my refrigerator is not as good at preserving food as my upright freezer on the porch.)

DON’T FOLLOW KETO TRENDS

‘Keto’ is a word that sells food— often food that is expensive and not essential to your Keto * Low-Carb lifestyle. But you don’t need to spend a fortune on ‘Keto Chow’ or specialty keto products. Most of these products may not be available for long, anyway. Much better to learn to live on the ordinary low-carb foods you can find in regular groceries for regular prices.

SPROUTING FOR SALADS

On Original Atkins (a ketogenic diet) you are allowed about 2 cups of salad veggies a day even on Induction. Since salad greens are perishable, I grow my own at home, mostly in the form of salad sprouts (alfalfa, red clover, and a mix called Broccoli and Friends.) I also grow some pea shoots, lentil shoots and am starting some sunflower shoots/sprouts to add to my salads. 

The cost of my sprout seeds is not much when you think that I can get my daily salads from 1.5 to 2 teaspoons of sprouting seed daily. Also, I grow just the amount I need so I don’t have to worry about my salad veggies spoiling in the refrigerator. 

‘SHOPPING’ AT FOOD BANKS

If you are really hard up, you may end up having to turn to your local food bank for help. In my county, there is one food bank I am allowed to use, and I have to show some ID with my local address, to prevent folks from getting food from multiple food banks. 

At my food bank, you are allowed to tell them what you eat. I always tell the folks that I am on a special diet for my health, and can’t eat foods with sugars or starches. I can usually get a can of tuna or two, some cans of low-carb veggies, maybe even a can of Spam…. I also got some frozen venison once, and once a bag of lentils (which you can sprout to make sprouted lentil soup.)

Food banks are oriented to the majority, who are carb eaters, and so I find very little I can use there. I also get Food Stamps, which are more generally useful in meeting my food needs, and so I haven’t had to go to the food bank in a few years.