Grocery Shopping at the Dollar Store

I have posted before about the great food bargains I find at Dollar Tree (where every thing costs a dollar).  Although this might seem tiresome, I think it's worth it to remind folks to shop outside of the grocery store/super market environment.  It helps stretch your food dollars and does not mean you will be eating cheap or unhealthy goods.  Steer clear of the ramen noodles and and cans of soup, but look for healthier versions of staples you usually need to spend more on.  For instance, protein pasta like this.  Right now, with the focus being on low or no gluten diets, protein pasta is not cheap.  I snagged three boxes for a buck each. These are turned into pasta based dinners that I mix half with regular pasta.  The boxes shown here will easily make 15 meals or more.

In a grocery store, frozen riced cauliflower runs around $2.49 on sale.  Bags of frozen fruit about two bucks.  While I can often find frozen broccoli for a  buck, the bag is often smaller that what I get at Dollar Tree.  This pile of frozen goodness was used to make two week's worth of veggie slop for the dog.  The vegetable portion of her diet is important to us, so I am always looking for affordable ways to feed her. The veggies we feed are very important for nutritional reasons (vitamins, antioxidants, etc.), as well as part of her cancer care program.  She benefits from the fiber too.

I printed off the nutrition label from the pasta.  One serving offers four grams of fiber and 11 grams of protein, without any sodium. In addition, there's a good nutritional profile: Iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and folic acid.  While this contains flour, the formula also includes fava bean, chick pea and lentil products.  All of the kinds of soluble fiber sources I want in our diet.

There's a lot of high calorie, high carbohydrate, sodium and sugar laden products to be found at most dollar stores.  Cheap food is generally not very healthy.  However, if you keep your eyes open, healthy gems can be found.  When I spot them, I stock up.  It's one way I manage to feed us and the dog healthy meals.  If you haven't already included this type of store in your food shopping plan, it's worth giving it a try.