8 Tips for Budgeting on a Low Fodmap Diet

Almost 20% of the Western World are afflicted by IBS and need to be on the low Fodmap diet. In general, the diet consists of normal fresh food which is cheaper than buying processed foods or fast foods so you should save money on this diet, but people often complain about the extra expense. I think they are confusing expense with the complexity of the diet, but there are a couple of areas where you can cut down your costs and I have shared those in this video.

Transcription of the Video

Today I want to give you eight tips on how to eat on the Low FODMAP diet, on a budget.

There’re some very obvious things that perhaps we sometimes forget.

1. For example, always go shopping after you’ve eaten, so you won’t be making any of those impulse purchases and perhaps buying processed foods that you know are no good for you.
2. While we’re on that tack of processed foods, do your own baking. Don’t buy biscuits or snacks, crackers and so on. You can make all of them yourself. Do that in the weekend when you’ve got some free time.
3. When you go shopping, make a shopping list. Make it very specific because you’ve already planned out your meals for the week or the day, and take that with you and stick to it like glue.
4. Remember that you can buy frozen vegetables and fruits. They’ve mainly been snap frozen and they actually contain a lot more goodness than some of what you think are fresh vegetables in the shops, which have had long transport times and have often been kept in chillers for a long time as well. Frozen are usually cheaper and on top of that there’s no wastage because you just stick the excess back in the freezer again.
5. Of course you could have a vegetable garden and that’s going to save you a lot of money. That’s not convenient for all of you, but it is something to think about.
6. Also, lactose-free milk is more expensive than the normal milk so you can make you own. Normally the chemist will have lactase drops which is what neutralizes the lactose and you just put that into the normal milk – I think you leave it for about 24 hours – and then it’s lactose free. So that is something to consider to save money.
7. I do quite a bit of baking for my family and the best place to buy a lot of the ingredients that you need are actually from Asian supermarkets. I find that the gluten-free flours are a fraction of the price that you’ll find in the health shop, for example. And it’s just a wonderful place to look around. They have all sorts of goodies there. And you’ll find that a lot of them actually don’t contain wheat, barley, or rye. So have a look in the Asian supermarkets.
8. And the last thing is when you’re cooking your dinner, always make sure that you cook extra. And you can have that for your lunch or you can freeze it, have it for another meal. That’s a really great way to save money so you’ve got no wastage at all.

Well, I hope those tips helped you a little bit to save on you shopping bill.