Strategy #1 Don’t Stress Over Everything Being Organic

Your priority at first should be to try to get as much plant-based foods into your diet as possible. Make most of your meals based around fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

Don’t worry about what is organic and what is not, or should I buy this or that, or what brand should I get for this or that. This will only serve to overwhelm you and instead of making the raw food lifestyle a pleasurable experience you are going to get frustrated and want to quit right away.

Begin with getting good at simply eating more fruits and vegetables.
Don’t worry if everything is not organic. This should not be your main focus at first. Adopting this strategy when shopping at the grocery store will save you a lot of money on your produce.

With that said, I do recommend that certain items be bought organic at all times.
My #1 recommended item you should always buy organic are greens. These include all lettuces, kale, spinach, collards, and any type of leafy green.

The reason for this is because leafy greens are one of the most pesticide sprayed foods out there. You want to avoid ingesting all of these chemicals.

Other foods you should get organic becuase they are heavily sprayed include celery, bell perppers, grapes, strawberries, peaches, and apples.

Avoid buying any of these items conventionally grown and go for organic instead.
If you just focus on buying these few items organic and not worry about everything else being organic then your life is going to be much easier and you will save a lot of money when you grocery shop.

Strategy #2 Only Get A Few Items In Bulk

Three items that I recommend that you buy in bulk are bananas, dates, and mangoes.
In my opinion, of these three items, bananas are the easiest item to buy in bulk especially when they are on sale. For example, I will often see deals at various markets advertising 3 pounds of banans for 99 cents. Anytime I see that deal, I will buy a whole 40 pound box of bananas. That comes out to just under $13.50 for a whole 40 pounds! What an awesome deal and a great way to save money.

You can buy dates in bulk if you know where to look. If you have any Mediterranean or ethnic foods markets near you this is a great place to start. They often sell dates for low prices.

Another source is your local weekend farmer’s market. I like to visit my local Sunday farmers market and purchase an 11 pound box of juicy and delicious medjool dates for $30. You might say that 11 pounds is not that much. Actually it is, and dates really pack a punch when it comes to nutrition and calories per bite. All you need is 5 dates to give you an easy 300 calories you can add to a smoothie or eat whole.

Mangoes are a great item to buy in bulk mainly during the summer time. During this season I can get a box of about 16-18 sweet yellow mangoes for about $10. I can do this with the kent mangoes as well.

Strategy #3 Look for Wednesday Deals

Most likely your local supermarkets have what are called wednesday deals. For example one market I like to frequent is called Sprouts Farmer’s Market and they do “double ad Wednesdays”, which is basically the previous week’s deals and the upcoming week’s deals combined for that one day only. By taking advantage of double ad wednesdays I get great deals on organic produce and various other fruits and veggies.

If you don’t receive the supermarket ads in your mailbox every week then I suggest you go to your local markets and check out their ads. Usually they will arrive with your mail on Monday or Tuesday, so keep an eye out for them next time you want to see their specials. Even if you do not receive their mailings, you should be able to see their weekly ads online.

Wednesday deals are the way to go for real good specials on your favorite raw foods. Sometimes their special day will fall on a different day other than Wednesday such as Tuesday or Thursday. This will vary by store. Either way, your local supermarkets do have one of these days every week and this is the perfect time for you to take advantage of their low prices on fruits and veggies.

Remember I mentioned earlier how you can save money by buying your bananas in bulk? Well Wednesday’s are the perfect days for buying your boxes since these are the days when bananas are at their lowest prices. Take advantage!

One other thing. See if you can locate any Hispanic or Asian market near you. These stores especially tend to have a great selection of raw foods and will even carry fruit that other conventional supermarkets don’t have. Also, their prices are always a bargain.

Strategy #4 Include Some Healthy Cooked Meals Into Your Plan

If you are not too concerned about being 100% raw, this method will work wonders for saving you money on your raw foods grocery bill. The best part is that you can still experience all of the benefits of the raw food diet even if you include some healthy cooked foods into your meal plans.

The reason this works so well is because you can buy items such as rice, beans, quinoa, potatoes, yams, vegetables, and oats in large quantities for low prices.
An easy way to include some cooked meals into a high raw food diet plan is to stick to an all raw breakfast, an all raw lunch, and nice salad before your main dinner dish. Dinner is where you will have your healthy cooked meal. This can include combinations like rice/steamed veggies, yams/veggies, vegetable soup, baked potatoes/broccoli, beans/steamed kale.

Again, you will still reap the benefits of the raw vegan diet even if you include these cooked items into your plan. So take advantage of this method and save some money on your raw food grocery bill while you are at it.

So I hope these four strategies were helpful to you. Use them right away to cut cost, save money, and get healthy and energized in the process.
Peace, Love, and Health,

Much Love

Luis Medrano
EasyRawFoodEnergy.com

Good suggestions.

Good suggestions.

l always prefer to make special contacts/friends via farms for my fruit and nuts and buy from them. They are not certified organic, but they don't use any chemicals, + l get good deals because l bypass middlemen. I get to check out the farms also so l know what l am buying into.

When you buy into certified organic you are going through management people in offices that will bump up prices. All these rogues want their cut, so don't support them if possible. Don't support the big monster system of certified organic [if possible], support the small farms. Anyway...certified organic is not what it once was, it has been infiltrated by folks with bad intentions according to my investigations.

I also buy big sacks of seeds for sprouting greens, but unfortunately l need to mainly go through middlemen, but all seeds are certified organic and still good value.

I get my peas direct from the farmer. 100 kg of seed for $120.00....makes a house full of greens.


Rant
The seeds from sprouting companies are heavily price gouged because there are lots of slugs acting as middlemen taking their cut for not doing much. The internet sellers go through various middlemen who all take their cut, and this bumps up prices skyhigh. I can get certified organic fenugreek seeds for $87 for 20 kg, but going through a sprouting company will cost me $360 for 20kg of non sprayed seeds that are not certified organic.

Sprouting seed company set-up in Australia:
* farms sell to a warehouse
* business 1 buys from warehouse
* business 2 buys from business 1
* business 3 buys from business 2
* customer buys from business 3

That is 4 middlemen potentially getting in the way, and that is why sprouting seeds are so expensive. Best to buy through channels with as few middlemen as possible.

The middlemen don't like me because i've done my homework and l plan to shut them all down because they serve very little purpose other than to line their own pockets for not doing much. They won't even sell me or other customers seeds in bulk anymore because other companies are not getting their greedy cut, so it's war!!! I plan to get one central warehouse where seeds will be delivered straight from the farms and distributed directly to customers for bulk amounts or in shops. Cut out the un-neccessary middlemen and give people good prices so sprouting is affordable. Why should a 5kg sack of watercress seeds be $7050 in Australia???

Get rid of the middlemen where-ever possible and make food affordable like it should be! I am sick of managers in offices handling the food supply and interfering with it and charging us more for the unneccessary privilege, and l am sick of middlemen acting as gate keepers to information and often tampering with the food supply. It's really hard to find info on the nut and sprouting seed market, but l am slowly making inroads. If l have to hire a private investigator and put him under contract, l will. l want these greedy middlemen gone.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2013 10:45PM by The Sproutarian Man.

Here is a classic rogue site:
[www.australianwheatgrass.com.au]

1 gram of seeds for $5.00. Really??? Who buys 1 gram of seeds???

It takes years to track down efficient distribution sources for food - takes networking, asking questions and phone calls. Source food people who sell on the side of the road and ask them if they know any farmers, go to farmers markets and ask the sellers for farm contacts etc and tell the farmer you want to buy a sack of raw nuts.

I've got another good source where l can buy sprouting seeds without going through many middlemen. I can get certified organic lentils for $7.50 per kilo, but if l go through inefficient distrubution processes l pay almost $27.oo per kilo + postage for organic. Find someone who buys direct from the farmer and stop paying the wages of middlemen who usually don't make the marketplace any better. Why pay almost 4 times the price for seeds to a middle man who never ever returns phone calls.
[sprout.net.au]


I can get raw certified organic almonds and other nuts also for less than half the prices at health food shops. Took years to find the source, gotta network.

Try to avoid fancy shops with websites boasting about their business. It usually means you will overpay.


It's time to get more efficient distribution chanels so people pay a fair price for their product.

If your country doesn't sell local seeds etc, start contacting farmers who will. Study the market and see if you can get good tonnage to see if it is worthwhile for the farmer.

Unfortunately some foods are highly marketed and people will pay for that eg, chia and brocolli seeds, but all we need to do is put middlemen out of business by creating a more efficient distribution chanel so the public can get these benefits without propping up middlemen taking their slice for not doing much.

If you are buying fruit and vegetables it is far harder...you are virtually locked into their system unless you can find small local farms and get to know them.

thanks TSM - it's very interesting

a few years ago, after many phone calls I found a good produce wholesaler (tons of fresh fruits and veggies by the crates) with prices very very low compare to stores-
I haven't done that exercise for seeds at the time but I'd like to now...

because sprouting seeds are definitely a luxurious product - so expensive here it's amazing
I believe it's worth doing some searching and get a right price for our food.

blessings to you all

Cynthia

Why is it sensationalistic? It seemed pretty tame to me. "Dirty secrets?" Unless you are referencing something else, in this article that would be a gross exaggeration.

www.certkiller.org

I think you meant the other thread about the end of the raw food movement. Think about the motivation of this person. His only income comes from web articles about raw food or quick bookies that don't add anything. negativity brings attention. The more money they need the bigger the bomb. this type of articles bring the most money. So by rephrasing them evry now and then, they live large. I think he even teaches techniques on how to make the most money from raw fooders. connect the dots. people try to become rich by whatever means. money is their final goal and unfortunatelly people dig it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2013 01:44PM by Panchito.