Food Price Spike in 2020
Canada’s Food Price Report predicts food price spike in 2020!
7 Easy Ways to Reduce your Food Costs
1. Less restaurants
Restaurant food often comes with extra calories, too much fat, salt, aditives as well as a deficience in fiber and vitamins. As if that wasn’t enough to encourage you to cook more at home, eating out is very expensive and is becoming more expensive. Menu prices in Canada rose 4.2% last year and are anticipated to increase up to 4% in 2020! Spending at restaurants has increased by more than $670 per household between 2010 and 2017.
ZestyKits meal plans make it easy and convenient to cook at home as well as reduce your overall food cost.
2. Eat more plant based meals
The cost of meat products are anticipated to increase by up to 6% in 2020! Canadians spend nearly 20% of our food budget on red meat and chicken. Learning to prepare delicious plant based meals will significantly reduce your food costs.
A good plant based recipe has as much protein as a meal with meat and is filling! You won’t miss the meat and with delicious whole grains and legumes, you will feel full for hours. Some of our favourite plant-based meals include:
- Ratatouille pasta: Chickpea pasta tossed in a rich tomato sauce and oven roasted eggplant, red bell peppers, black olives and fresh basil
- Mexi bowls: Black beans, diced avocado, romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, salsa, brown rice and shredded cheddar topped with fresh cilantro.
ZestyKits offers a Clean Food plan which includes 1 meal plant based to help you discover new delicious plant based recipe. If you are ready to eat fully plant-based we also offer a Plant-Based and Vegan plan.
3. Make a meal plan
Making a plan is very important when it comes to managing grocery costs. Going around the grocery aisles aimelessly often results in frustration and poor food choices. Without a plan, it is common to buy too much food that will end up rotting in your fridge.
We love to plan our weekly menu using ZestyKits’ weekly menu. We plan to prepare ZestyKits meal kits during our busiest days.
4. Eat home-made meals more often
Make more meals from scratch. Canada’s 2018 Dietary Guidelines recommend cooking more to support health. Not only does cooking provide a number of health benefits, it saves you a lot of money! Cooking from scratch requires a bit more time and the effort can be well woth it, both for your wallet and your waisline.
ZestyKits meal plans make it easy and convenient to cook at home and involve the kids in meal preparation, empowering you to easily make dinner time family time.
5. Eat seasonal fruits & vegetables
Fruit and vegetables take up almost 24% of the average Canadian’s grocery list. To promote health, it is recommended to eat more vegetables.
The secret to eating more vegetables and still manage cost is to buy more fruits and vegetables that are in season. Load up on local fruits and vegetables when they are in season and freeze them for later use.
During the winter, fresh produces increase significantly in price. To reduce your grocery bill, load up on frozen produces, which have similar nutritional value and are alot more affordable.
Not only does ZestyKits offer tons of seasonal products, we purchase ingredients grown or prepared right here… in the Canadian Prairies!
6. Reduce food waste
Purchase only what you need to decrease your food waste as well as your carbon footprint. Reducing food waste is easy when planning meals and using a locally sourced meal kit service like ZestyKits.
7. Don't shop hungry
Hunger creates a desire to aquire. Research shows that shopping hungry results in spending increase of 64%. Shopping hungry increases spending even when not shopping for food. To reduce your risk of over spending, have a snack before shopping to stabilize your blood sugar.
Having 3 delicious ZestyKits meals delivered every week prevents last minute hungry grocery run – saving you time and money.