The GAPS diet can be expensive, but it really doesn’t have to be! If you are doing the GAPS diet on a budget, or considering it, read on to find ways to save money while eating good quality, healing foods.
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Good quality food is expensive.
Well, all food is expensive these days. Better foods costs more, most of the time. While trying to heal on the GAPS diet, we try to buy the best quality food we can. Pastured eggs, grass fed meat, and organic produce generally cost more. You get what you pay for, but most of us have budgets.
I find it quite unhelpful when people say things like, “Well, you can pay for better food, or you can pay to be sick!” It is true, of course. Better food helps us stay well, and it also helps us heal if we aren’t very well.
The unhelpful part enters in when we don’t have unlimited money for food, and even more so if the budget is really tight.
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You can’t stretch what you don’t have!
This is all the more true for people who are trying to heal, as GAPS people usually are. (Read about what the GAPS diet is and our family’s GAPS experiences here.) You may also have medical costs of some sort, work opportunities lost to poor health or to needing to take care of children with big needs, or any number of constraints on your budget.
If you are familiar with the GAPS diet, you know that grains and starchy foods are excluded; we don’t eat those because we are trying to stop damaging our guts and feeding harmful bacteria so we can get better. Usually, those grains and starchy foods are ways people try to save money.
Even basically healthful, whole foods are excluded for awhile– oatmeal, sourdough bread, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and so on. We hope to add them back into our lives later, but for awhile we don’t eat them. Too bad, since they can be quite economical.
So, is it even possible to do the GAPS diet on a budget?
Well, it depends on your situation. You might be wise to wait if you have reason to think things are about to get easier financially.
Often, that time might not be immediately around the corner. Maybe you don’t know whether there will be higher income in the near future. You may even think things are more likely to stay the same or get worse. Waiting to address health problems can get expensive, as well.
In her GAPS diet books, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride advises buying the highest quality food possible. She recommends in particular local farm food, both for produce and for animal products. At the same time, she tells us that we can heal using lower quality food if needed. In fact, people do heal using conventional food! She recommends doing as well as we can and not worrying too much about it.
So, buying conventional foods can be part of sticking to a budget. There are other ways to implement the GAPS diet affordably as well. Here are a few ways to maintain the GAPS diet on a budget:
Plan your meat stock around affordable meats
The GAPS diet relies on a carefully prepared meat stock more than anything. If you do no other part of the GAPS diet, a nourishing meat stock can do a lot for your health! This means that you need quite a bit of meat with bones and connective tissues.
Once you master the technique of making the meat stock, it pays to figure out which cuts make a good stock at a reasonable price, preferably without more leftover meat than you can eat before you make another pot.
If you have a farmer or butcher who sells fresh bones with some meat still on them for a good price, that might be an option. I often buy packages of chicken backs this way from a local farmer.
Sometimes, a whole chicken works well. You end up with a lot of meat that way. That can be good if you have a bunch of people to feed! If you don’t have big chicken eaters, you might not want that much chicken, though.
Chicken and turkey drumsticks also make a really good stock. They tend to be very affordable, and yield a bit less meat. Thighs can work similarly.
Sometimes you can buy less popular parts of chickens and turkey in the store as well– necks and feet are ideal for meat stock. These pieces also don’t leave you with a lot of meat, so if you already have too much meat, they are practical. (Feet are so good for getting a stock that gels that I try to always add a couple if I am using a whole chicken!)
Look for sales
Maybe it goes without saying, but sales are your friend, including when doing the GAPS diet on a budget. Whether it is meat, bones, produce, fats, eggs, supplements, or whatever, know what you use and keep an eye out for really good sales. If you have freezer space, you can buy lots of meat, bones, butter, and so on when they are on clearance and use them later.
It helps if you know roughly when stores mark their items down. I often cruise through the meat department on a Monday, because I have often found great prices then. Also, I know where to look for pastured eggs on half price. I don’t always find them, but at least once a month I do! Then I buy as many as I can store. Eggs keep well, and we go through them very quickly, anyway.
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Keep up with your best coupon sources
Yes, coupons still can apply to GAPS foods. I know, most foods that appear on coupon deals are junk food, or at least highly processed. Still, figure out where you can find good coupons. I usually find the best ones on my grocery store app– things like organic produce, pastured eggs, and grass fed beef.
Sometimes other coupons can help, too. It may take some vigilance, but figuring out which really good coupons apply to your basic needs can be worthwhile. For example, lately I have been saving about $1 per gallon on gas by buying grocery store items on Fridays with a coupon. Crazy, but it helps.
Check out new sources of food now and then
Habits and routines can serve us well. Knowing what you buy and where can help you manage your time, trips out, and budget. I usually buy certain things from certain stores and farms for this reason. It saves energy too!
Sometimes, though, it pays to try a different store. It may not work out, and then you can let it back off your radar. Other times, you may stumble on a new find.
For example, last fall I noticed a “raw milk” advertisement outside a gas station near my house. I stopped in a bought a gallon of milk from the same farm I usually buy from. It was 10 minutes closer to home than my usual shop! The milk wasn’t any cheaper, but it saves driving. I know which days they take delivery, so I stop in on the days I know they will have milk. At a gas station!
Choose your produce carefully
It is great to eat organic or, even better, regeneratively grown, fruits and vegetables. Sometimes it isn’t much more expensive, as in the case of bananas. Other times, better produce is quite expensive.
One way to deal with the cost is to focus on organic for the “dirty dozen” and not worry quite so much about the rest. Be sure to wash, peel, and so on as needed.
Another way to keep costs low is to pay careful attention to what you pay per serving. Vegetables tend to cost less than fruits. Onions, ginger, and garlic are very inexpensive, add magnificent flavor, and provide significant health benefits. They can also be used in different ways for different effects. For example, pickled onion is not much like green onion, and both are entirely different from caramelized onions.
Vegetables like carrots, zucchini, and squash are usually quite affordable around me, so I buy a lot of them and prepare them in different ways. The options are more limited during GAPS intro, but on full GAPS you can use them in soups, sautées, roasted, grated into ground meats and salads, and so much more.
Fruits, while a bit more expensive on average, also vary. Bananas are generally inexpensive, and so is watermelon in summer. Beyond those two, keeping an eye on sales and what is in season helps a lot.
Discount grocery shopping
While it may be ideal to purchase directly from local farmers, it may not be possible for many people for all sorts of reasons. Acquiring absolutely all our food locally is pretty challenging! Not impossible, depending on how you cook, but highly unlikely.
The grocery stores are an obvious and familiar option. They increasingly carry quality foods, and most GAPS people buy some food from grocery store chains. Discount and wholesale stores evince a low quality vibe that seems antithetical to GAPS goals. Indeed, much of what they sell really is junk.
Some of it is not, though. Look again, and you will find some reasonable GAPS (or just good quality) options. Back in the day, I couldn’t find much of anything at Aldi that seemed like real food, and that was long before GAPS! The best they offered was iceberg lettuce and pinkish tomatoes.
Things have changed. I can find some good options at Aldi now, as well as BJ’s and Costco. Not fresh-picked-this-morning-on-a-regenerative-farm kind of options, but organic, grass fed, etc. It is worth a look, especially if you live near one of these stores. As in grocery stores, read labels and choose carefully. Most of what you see will stay in the store!
Order online
Also not as ideal as local food, online ordering can nonetheless help you eat well while pinching pennies. The options are endless, and include small, family companies and little known farms that will ship. Finding these is a challenge; hanging out in GAPS groups online can be a way of finding what you need.
Larger companies can also fill some of your needs. We have ordered from imperfect produce companies and gotten good quality, but funny-looking, vegetables. We have used Thrive Market for certain things, like salt and organic spices, though you need to be careful. You have to purchase a membership, so you need to be getting a lot of great deals to make it worthwhile. Azure Standard is another option to consider if there is a drop near you.
Buy a cow
Not a live one, though that could be useful, too.
Buy a butchered cow, or a half or quarter of one. You need plenty of extra freezer space, of course, which is the reason we haven’t done it. However, it is a goal. Farmers near us offer this for less per pound than the grocery store. The beef is higher quality, too.
Sometimes you can get some of the less desirable (to the general population) parts, like organs, this way. The initial outlay is steep, especially if you need a freezer, but the savings are significant for beef and pork. In my area, that is not at all true of chicken or turkey.
Grow something yourself
Though not many GAPS people plan to be homesteaders and actually grow a significant portion of the food we need, most of us can grow a little something. Maybe a summer garden, or a couple of pots with something you like to eat. The skill might expand to replace part of your food budget, or it might not.
If you can grow only a tiny bit of something, I recommend herbs. Fresh herbs can be expensive in the stores! Fresh herbs are packed with nutritional benefits, to say nothing of how they enhance the flavors of many dishes. They can even make some meals seem quite fancy– no need to be deprived while doing the GAPS diet on a budget.
Though I use mostly dried herbs in cooking, and a lot of them, fresh herbs add something wonderful to certain dishes. Fresh basil is delicious and summery in salads, meat dishes, and even some desserts. Rosemary can grow much of the year and is marvelous freshly chopped onto meat, eggs, or vegetables.
I have entirely stopped buying green onions by pushing the root ends of grocery store green onions into a bin of dirt. They regrow through the spring and into late fall, and I cut what I want each day.
Less commonly, some of us have developed a fondness for lemon balm. I also grow mint, a relative of lemon balm, but lemon balm tastes totally different. It offers and aroma and taste a lot like mild lemon and has medicinal uses in addition making a delicate and lovely tea!
Adopt a minimalist approach
I don’t do this. We like interesting food. Variety is a value for us. When people say that food is just fuel, I don’t fully agree. I want it to be delicious, with pleasing flavors and every meal different from yesterday. I am not a culinary minimalist.
My family isn’t, either. People want to know what is for dinner. It isn’t mere fuel for us; we didn’t stay on GAPS intro for long. I don’t think we would have stuck with GAPS, even imperfect GAPS, for long if we hadn’t enjoyed our food most of the time. In fact, I knew we would make it when my pickiest family member told someone who commiserated about the GAPS diet that “the food is really good!”
That said, you may not be like us. You might be quite happy to keep a simple approach to meals, having the staple GAPS soups and casseroles made with the most basic ingredients. This would be an excellent way to implement the GAPS diet on a budget without much fuss in the kitchen.
Another benefit of a minimal approach to GAPS would be a simplified cooking schedule. If you pretty much had meat stock, soups, kefir, eggs, and some organ meats, your kitchen time could be fairly low. It is something to consider on a tight budget and also when your time and/or energy is also very limited.
You can do GAPS on a budget!
The GAPS diet doesn’t have to break the bank. You don’t have to always buy top quality foods, or ever buy them if you just can’t. The cost doesn’t need to hold you back, with some planning and these tips.
I found we spent more on GAPS. Mainly, I think this was because we stopped the inexpensive grains, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Without those, we had to eat more of other, more expensive foods. We bought some higher quality foods, like eggs, butter, and meaty chicken bones, but some of what we ate was conventional. Not ideal, but that was the reality.
On the other hand, I hear people say that they spend less on food once they start the GAPS diet. I don’t always know why– maybe they took a minimalist approach. Another possibility is that they had been buying things like pre-made meals, individually packaged snacks, and a lot of pricier conveniences. Eating out is also very expensive. Stopping those habits would save a lot of money!
Generally, cooking at home from scratch is budget friendly. If you are already doing that, you may find GAPS more expensive than what you have been doing. If you aren’t, you could find the GAPS diet to actually be more affordable.
Either way, try some of these tips if you want to implement the GAPS diet on a budget!