Body, mind and wallet

One of the biggest problems about trying to eat healthy — after figuring out what exactly “eating healthy” means — is the added cost. After all, it’s cheaper to eat fast food and pre-packaged dinners than it is to make a meal from scratch with all-natural ingredients, right?

Well, not necessarily. With a little bit of planning and a willingness to be flexible, you can incorporate a diet loaded with fresh, locally sourced vegetables without draining your food budget. Here are five easy ORGANIC ways to eat healthy without break the bank.

— Join a CSA (community supported agriculture) program. Members of the Leslie-based Titus Farms CSA get a weekly supply of fresh vegetables that make eight to 10 meals for a couple per week. For a couple, that’s a week’s worth of lunches. You can get the weekly standard share and a dozen eggs every other week for under $19 a week for 19 weeks.

The farm also has chicken shares as well as fruit. For an extra $50, you can get eight weeks of just picked apples this fall. This year Titus Farm is working with Tirrell Farmstead Specialties to offer a cheese share. Find out more at titusfarms.com.

— Herbs can be expensive and go bad quickly, so consider growing your own. Horrocks Farm Market on Lansing’s west side sells fresh herb plants for under $2 apiece. You can grow three or four of the most expensive herbs in the supermarket; oregano, rosemary, chives and sage are the easiest and can get you through almost every recipe. Don’t bother with cilantro and parsley — they’re already inexpensive and not worth the trouble. And except for rosemary, most herbs will survive the Michigan winter. So when it starts getting cold, just put the planter in the garage and forget about it. In the spring, bring it back out and water. You’ll be surprised how they perk up and grow.

— Find a u-pick in the area and spend a couple of hours picking ubiquitous mid- Michigan fruit, such as strawberries, apples and blueberries. And don’t worry about picking too much. After you get home, just wash the fruit, place it in a single layer on a baking sheet and put it in the freezer. Once frozen, loosen from the tray and put it in a container and then back in freezer. When you want to make some jam in the middle of winter, just pull it out and get started. Tip: Discard peach pits and freeze peaches as halves. When you defrost, the skins will slip right off — no extra work.

— Learn how to forage. In the spring, lettuces, herbs and ramp (or wild onions) are everywhere in mid-Michigan. In the summer you can find wild gooseberries, black raspberries, mulberries and currants. As fall approaches, autumn olives give plenty of berries And we haven’t even talked about the mushrooms around the area.

— Join a food swap. If you harvested, preserved, dried, grew, hunted, brewed or fermented it, you can swap it. Come with your jam and leave with chicken curry, homemade bread or goat cheese. Find out more at mid-mittenhomemade.com.

— Frequent the clearance bin at your local supermarket. Everyday markets must go through their product to make sure it looks its best — that means pulling items and placing them on a special clearance rack. You can find whole bags of lemons, a bunch of bananas that are ready for bread and all kinds of other vegetables for super cheap. Some markets also have a bin for bread products.

The most important idea about finding inexpensive food is flexibility. You may need to use green peppers instead of the red peppers that are in a recipe, or you may find items in the clearance bin and have to change your dinner plans altogether. Whichever way you go, as long as you’re open to new types of food and don’t mind a little adventure, eating healthy can even be cheaper than the alternative.

Danielle Welke is the founder of Mid- Mitten Homemade and the organizer of the Mid-Michigan Food Club. You can reach her at midmittenhomemade@gmail.com.