Can You Practice Intuitive Eating on a Budget?
Written by Isabel Vasquez RD, LDN
Intuitive eating—a non-diet approach to nutrition—involves tuning in to your body and embracing all foods as a part of a health-promoting eating pattern.
If you’re not familiar with this approach to nutrition, check out our intro to intuitive eating blog post.
That being said, one common critique is that it’s reserved for people with financial privilege. After all, if you don’t have access to food, how can you practice an all foods fit approach and honor your hunger as it arises?
In this blog post, we’ll share how food insecurity is linked with disordered eating and whether you can work towards food freedom on a budget.
Food Insecurity is Linked With Disordered Eating.
Many studies, including a 2020 study in the journal Current Psychiatry Reports, have shown that food insecurity is tightly linked to disordered eating and eating disorders. It’s especially linked with binge eating and bulimia nervosa.
Another example is a 2017 study in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. Participants with higher levels of food insecurity also had higher levels of disordered eating/eating disorder behaviors including binge eating, dietary restraint, weight self-stigma, and more.
Those experiencing food insecurity often get caught in a similar binge-restrict cycle that occurs in dieters.
That’s because binges are more likely to occur after access to food is limited. This can happen from dieting, but it can also happen when the restriction is out of one’s control (e.g. due to food insecurity).
So, while people with food insecurity would benefit greatly from support overcoming these disordered eating behaviors, the first level of support necessary is access to food and not intuitive eating.
Can You Practice Intuitive Eating on a Budget?
There’s obviously a big difference between experiencing food insecurity and wanting to reduce your grocery spending.
The former is a systemic issue that warrants support accessing food likely through food banks and government assistance. The latter is a financial goal that can certainly be met while practicing intuitive eating.
Tips for Finding Food Freedom on a Budget
For those whose finances are a little tight and want to lower their grocery spending while still working on intuitive eating, here are some tips for how to practice intuitive eating on a budget:
Work on reframing your language around food. Try putting foods on an equal playing field to reduce guilt around selecting certain foods. If you’re struggling to purchase organic, “natural” foods, that doesn’t mean you’re bad and it doesn’t mean you can’t work on your health. You can work on consuming a variety of nutrients without shopping at expensive grocers or buying the most expensive products.
Learn what you enjoy and meal plan accordingly. Meal planning can be a helpful way to reduce food waste, prevent resorting to expensive takeout, and maximize your budget, and it doesn’t have to include a side of diet culture! Even just planning dinners for the week can help.
Learn how to make your favorite restaurant dishes at home. It can oftentimes be more affordable to prepare foods at home than ordering them out. So, if there are times that your favorite takeout meal isn’t within budget, consider learning how to make it at home. As a bonus, it can get you more active in the kitchen! Maybe you can involve your family or friends in the process and maintain the social component of eating out.
Find satisfaction in budget-friendly ways through frozen produce, grains, and dried or canned beans. Well-rounded meals often have more staying power to keep you energized, focused, and satisfied longer. Our classic rice and beans is an example of an affordable meal with staying power.
Discover the most affordable markets near you. For example, the Latino supermarket or grocery outlet is probably more affordable than Whole Foods. (And remember, Whole Foods items aren’t all inherently better than your Latin cultural foods.) You can also ask around and perhaps try venturing to a different grocer to discover where you can get the most bang for your buck.
Final Thoughts
Intuitive eating isn’t suitable for those facing food insecurity; instead, prioritizing access to food is key. But for those who simply want to lower their food spending, there are certainly ways to do this while practicing intuitive eating, especially since intuitive eating helps you take the shame out of buying foods diet culture labels as “bad” or “unhealthy”.
For education on how to ADD nutrition to your favorite Latine cultural dishes, make peace with food, and focus on your health without dieting, join our nutrition library for just $27/month.
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