Are these meals healthy?

[Heytheredeliah]

Hi everyone,
to cut back on my spending with food prices rising, I have started eating these meals quite often, but I am worried they might not be healthy enough and I may get health problems. The meals are..

Tinned tomato soup with buttered brown toast
Beans on brown buttered toast
Wraps with red pepper and kidney beans
Omelette with red pepper and ham on top
Jacket potato with coleslaw

I also eat fruit like orange and bananas for snacks. I am a student and trying to cut costs as much as possible.

Do you think these meals are healthy enough?

They sound healthy but to make sure you stay full, perhaps add an element where possible.

Soup and bead (plus half tin of kidney/butter beans for protein).

Beans on toast (an one poached egg or cheese).

Remember that frozen fish can be cheap and, when mashed up, can make quite a few portions of fish pie.

For cheap options, visit A Girl Called Jack website. She's amazing. Good luck, sounds like you're making tasty healthy meals.

You just need more veg and/or salad.

Not all your meals have protein, so you need to do some research on protein rich foods and add them to your meals.

Beans on wholemeal toast is fine. Eggs are expensive. Save for another day.

Make the coleslaw yourself

Grate carrot, fine chop a chunk of cabbage and a half onion and small spoon mayo - stir strongly to mix

Much healthier than shop bought and cabbage and carrots do tend to be cheap

You probably need more fresh veg, protein and 'greens'. Try goggling healthy eating.

with the same ingredients you could make a veggie chili and what about lentils? A nice lentil dahl. Rice and a few spices is all that is needed on top of what you have.

Just to ring the changes.

But otherwise, sounds healthy to me.

I often buy very cheap reduced meat and fish to get protein. I buy things from the reduced section which are healthy but I can't always find things in the reduced section that I like

thanks I will take a look at that

You’re definitely on the right lines with beans - a good source of cheap protein. Yes add in some cheap veg - carrots/frozen veg. Make sure you have protein at every meal if you can. So the tinned soup day probably wouldn’t be filling enough.

Lentils are good. If you’ve time you could make a lentil soup. Or homemade hummus with a tin of chickpeas to have on the soup day?

Tinned tuna to add to your jacket potato? Though even tinned tuna is expensive these days. Frozen fish is a good call.

I'd add some green stuff. Lettuce? Round lettuces are cheap. Or frozen peas or broccoli.

I was thinking about mixing chickpeas with curry sauce and green beans. Would that be alright? thanks for all answers!

It seems low on iron to me.

Look up some basic dhal or chickpea curry recipes and then eat it a few days in a row. Maybe one day with rice and another day with home made flatbreads?

Yes chickpeas/green beans and curry sauce seems like a good combo (plus rice for carbs). You could throw in some frozen spinach as another poster made a good comment about iron. There’s no red meat. Which is fine as it’s expensive. But you would need to keep an eye on iron levels- so make sure you have say orange juice with meals (vitamin C helps with iron absorption). Green leafy veg, lentils, chickpeas even jacket potatoes have iron. Just don’t drink tea/coffee with these meals.

For breakfast you could have fortified cereal.

Do you like chilli? That (with reduced beef mince/turkey mince/whatever) can be cheap, black beans are good in it, have it with own brand (get the cheapest) tortilla chips or rice

You can also make it into a burrito with a wrap, or roll them up and top with a bit of grated cheese and bake it

Yes I like chilli I will keep your suggestion in mind

As someone has already mentioned, lentil soup would be healthier than a canned soup. Mix some red lentils with a can of tomatoes and some curry powder, add some water and simmer a bit. Then blend or mash.

Veg soup is easy to make too. Do you have access to a stove? Add potatoes and veg (can be carrots, leeks, or courgettes, peas, spinach, onions, etc), bring to the boil then simmer. Chuck in a stockcube if you have one. When the veg is mushy you can either mash or blend if you have a blender (Tesco hand blenders are 7 quid).

Do you like pasta? You can cook pasta and chickpeas together for a filling dish. Or just pasta and a can of tomatoes with a can of tuna and red peppers.

You can save money on curry sauce (I think) by buying curry powder. Fry an onion, add curry powder, then add a tin of tomatoes.

Yes I have a stove. good recipes thanks

Pumpkin soup is also easy and cheap to make. Add a handful of red lentils to any soup you make to add some protein. They take about 20 mins to cook and you don’t notice them.

Fried rice is another easy and cheap meal

good tip thanks