The Caveman Diet: Cheap Meals for Cheap Living

The caveman diet means buying foods that are natural and unprocessed. Which makes preparing cheap meals SO much easier.

There’s a Caveman Diet book out that is supposed to make us all slender and cure what ails us.

It involves eating only what a paleolithic human might be able to hunt and forage for. Grubs, grass, antelope, and whatnot. Okay, probably not grubs and grass.

We don’t go quite that far. Because we're a bit squeamish and still like our creature comforts. We'll only go so far in our quest to produce meals on a budget. And antelope are rather scarce at the local Co-op.

We're more interested in the diet for your wallet.

Which amounts to the same thing in the end: you save money, possibly lose weight and get healthier.

But you don’t need to buy a book to get back to food basics and prepare budget meals.

Just avoid processed foods, buy basic ingredients like pulses and grains in bulk, add a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, some lean meats, poultry and fish, and voila, you’re a cave man/cave woman/cave child.

Shop the outer aisles of the grocery store. Fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, and dairy always make up the outer aisles. Temptation (a.k.a. junk food, cookies, pop) lurks in the inner aisles.

If you’re not a scratch cook, get some recipe books out of the library for thrifty meal inspiration (or go online and print off some simple recipes).

Following your own version of a hunter-gatherer diet will also be easier on your pocketbook. And if you get healthier and lose some weight in the process, then wahay!

Some members of the family were a bit miffed by the lack of cheezie poofs in the caveman diet.

But if you’re anything like me, you’ve bought all this stuff before with the best intentions, and left it to moulder in your pantry. Because when it comes time to actually COOK with basic ingredients, you’re usually:

1. Beyond hungry
2. Pressed for time (because you’re beyond hungry and you have a posse of similarly rabid family members demanding to know when dinner is).
3. Closing the will to live just thinking looking at your collection of dried lentils.

So some forward planning is called for. Unless you’re a super-efficient human being who has willpower and can whip up tasty meals without a recipe.

Okay, so forward planning it is then. Some basic recipes, a paleolithic shopping list, and a determination to produce healty, cheap meals equals more pennies in your pocket.