Lose weight and save money by going veggie

Here are a few money saving tips from Scott McCreddie in MSN Money for people on a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian diet:

• If you include an occasional piece of flesh (of whatever kind) in your diet, try to limit yourself to four or five ounces, which is about the size of a deck of cards.
• If you want to buy private life insurance, wait until you’ve been on a vegetarian diet long enough to improve your key health indicators (body mass index, cholesterol, etc.). It could save you thousands of dollars when an insurer reviews the results of your physical.
• Buy vegetable protein in bulk. Dried beans, rice, oatmeal and other similar commodities last a long time if properly stored, and they are far cheaper in larger quantities.
• If you get discouraged by the blandness of a vegetarian diet, buy cookbooks that explore Indian, Malaysian, Chinese or South American cuisines. Mixing novel spices and ingredients may perk up your taste buds and make the transition easier.
• If you can’t afford or prefer not to buy organic produce, remember that most experts think the nutritional benefits of eating conventionally grown fruits and vegetables outweigh the possible negative effects of pesticide residues.

Personally, I think that the best way to save money is to prepare the food yourself, cook in big batches (and prepare serving-size portions for meals later in the week), and avoid eating out. I think that eating out has become a stress management tool of some sort, something to reward ourselves for a hard day at work.

I used to spend a lot of money eating in restaurants, but as I became more serious in eating healthily, I found it increasingly difficult to go to places that were not only expensive, but also didn’t have the kind of food that I like to eat. If one is seriously pursuing a healthy “eating practice,” I think it’s quite difficult to find cheap restaurants that do not use a lot of fat, sugar and salt on their foods.