Lazy Nutrition Tips

Nutrition Tips for People without Cooking Skills (Or if you are too lazy to cook….)
Guest Contributor
Jan 30, 2011

Some of us do not have the gift to cook good meals. Most online health tips provide healthy recipes which are geared to those who want to cook. If you are a busy professional, student or just too lazy to cook, there are several healthy choices. Healthy choices include choosing food with less preservatives, more whole grains (minimize or avoid refined grains), and food with minimum or no artificial sugar. So instead of cooking instant noodles or microwaving unhealthy processed meal in a box, I hope this article provides you some ideas to eat healthy without overspending.

1. Rotisserie Chicken

If you go to any grocery store, you will find a cooked rotisserie chicken for under $10. This can feed about 4-5 people. All you need to do is bring it home, cut it with a knife and start eating. If you do not feel like just eating chicken, then you can eat it with whole grains bread or bagel.

2. Tuna Salad and Whole Grains Bread

Canned tuna can be bought at any store for under $2. Tuna can be tasty even if you are too lazy to mix with other ingredients to make a tuna salad. You can use this tuna and whole grains bread to make a sandwich and enjoy. My recommendation is to look for canned light tuna because of relatively low mercury content compared to albacore white tuna. Another healthy alternative to tuna is canned salmon.

3. Canned Soup

Although canned soup is inexpensive an easy to cook, you will have to be careful about the sodium content and preservatives. Choose a brand that has relatively low sodium content and preservatives.

4. Salad

If you like eating lots of green vegetables, salad is an inexpensive food for someone who does not want to cook. You can buy lettuce, spinach and other green vegetables cheaply at any grocery store. If you mix this walnuts, some beans, fruits and low-calorie dressing, you can easily have a tasty salad for lunch.

5. Indian Ready to Eat Meals

If you like Indian food, a quick affordable option is to buy ready-to-eat meals that you can find at any Indian grocery store. While you still have to be careful about preservatives, my experience has been that some of these brands have less preservatives and have lots of vegetables and spices (which are both healthy). You can put the packet in boiling water and let it stay for a couple of minutes. Then your food is ready to eat. This is a better and convenient option, especially if you believe that microwaving can destroy some nutrients.

6. Fruits such as Banana

Bananas are very inexpensive and easy to eat. It also provides lots of essential minerals while providing you energy for your busy day. It will also fill you up without much effort. Eating banana or any other kind of fruits with yogurt is also an excellent way to snack during the day.

Lack of culinary skills should not be an excuse for eating poorly because it is easy to get started with any of the ideas mentioned above. While I understand that cooking healthy organic food still beats eating canned soup, Indian ready-to-eat meals or rotisserie chicken, these options are still much better than eating junk food or most packaged processed meals. If you have other ideas about eating healthy without cooking or spending a lot of time, please email your ideas at editor@healthonabudget.com or leave a comment below.