I really appreciate that you identify foods that you 'prefer' to eat rather than calling them better/worse or good/bad. For people on a tight budget, or people who have struggled with diet mentality/eating disorders it's a much nicer way to describe it then moralizing foods as good or bad.
When people say good or bad for you it's not villainizing you it's saying something about the producers of that food. Being poor is not evil it's a problem to be fixed and you're rather victimized and not villainized.
Here in Germany where Aldi originated we get more an more veggies and fruit not wrapped in plastic which is a great thing. More and more supermarkets get rid of plastic wrapping for fresh produce. The raisin bars look great!
OrangeTabbyCat Have you visited the plastic/container free grocery store in Berlin? I still haven’t stopped there in my visits to Germany but it looks awesome!
“Do the best you can with what you have. Make the best effort you can make without putting pressure on it it to always be perfect.” - this is really so true and can be applied to so many aspects of life. I think I needed to hear that today :) thank you
Last night made the raisin bars but used dried cranberries instead of raisins and added a mashed banana to reduce the amount of honey. It is astonishingly delicious: I packed a couple in my lunch box to take to work - as the result, spent the afternoon dreaming of going home and finishing the whole lot! It is soo good! Thank you!
Thank you so much for including the anecdote about not being perfect. I tend to beat myself up about spending extra money for better ingredients and wasting food, because I am low-income.
This video is so great! I love the message about doing the best one can, when it comes to buying healthy products. The recipes all looked so delicious and the filming and editing was amazing too!
Those No Bake Raisin Bars have my name written all over them lol. Perfect to snack on the go and super low-cost healthy ingredients, perfect for any time of day or anywhere.
$55 for 2 people to eat for 4 days. My max shopping budget is $140/month, for one person to function for 30 days. I love Aldi's as well. You can find some nice choices there without breaking the bank for those of us on fixed budgets.
Would love to see a video based around figuring how to cook what you get in a CSA (community supported agriculture) food box, where you don't necessarily know what you're getting ahead of time and have to figure out how you're going to cook everything once it arrives. Also, as a Canadian from Montreal, I am super-jealous of your food prices in this video.
@@TheCupcake1029 haha - maybe. Looked a bit red tho. Who knows, some random sauce that's been stuck with that name i guess. Always find creme englaise hilarious in France too. Soooo you've ruined some custard & you're gonna blame it on us then? Haha.
I was just about to watch this video without subscribing but the way you present the stuff and most importantly answering directly to the questions, made me hit that subscribe button immediately. Great work !!!!
I loved this video! The message about doing the best you can with what you have was really helpful - it helps to remind us that in the end, food is just food and fuel, and you can have fun with it and don't need to spend tons of time stressing about it. I also thought it was super educational how you explained your thought process for choosing the BBQ sauce, improvising for your green bean salad and improvising with the sloppy joes. It really helps us learn how to cook realistically :)
THANK YOU! I don't have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's near me (WF is over an hour away), but we do have an Aldi. This was great to see and especially to see the cost since I have been trying to convince my husband that it is better than Publix.
Yay, Alyssia! Very awesome-saucy. No Aldi's near me but I am going to Germany soon for 10 days where Aldi's are everywhere. I can cook yummy stuff in the AirBNB. You saved the day again!
(Sadly) the American Aldi has very little in common with the German one (the American Aldi is part of the southern Aldi branch (in Germany they are divided in South and North for each one of the Aldi brothers)).. In Germany there are no such things as pure peanut butter or avocado oil at Aldi. I grew up on Aldi North, the cheese selection is really varied and kinda nice (the sliced goat cheese and the soft cheeses are nice) and when we were feeling really lazy the refrigerated 2lb lasagna is alright :D
Oh! But the non-food section is very popular and the Aldi champagne was tested as pretty decent. Aldi stepped up their game in the last few years, so please do enjoy a stroll through one of the newer aldis :)
I've been watching you for a couple years now. And I just wanna say, your attitude about healthy eating is a breath of fresh air. You make healthy eating enjoyable, doable, and most importantly SUSTAINABLE! I always learn something new when watching your content. Keep up the good work! You rock!
thank you so much! I really appreciate that :) My own healthy eating journey has been a struggle, I think as much as it has for anyone else, so my goal is to let people know that struggle is normal, and okay!! It isn't easy, but we can keep learning and trying :)
I’m lucky enough to live near 3 Aldis and it’s true, they aren’t all created equally! These recipes use so many ingredients I already buy on the regular, thank you for sharing 💕
I recently moved to Kansas City and discovered Aldi, and it's now the main place that I shop at! Thank you so much for the video and ideas, and if you are able to, please make more Aldi meal ideas :-) thank you!!!
I love Aldi, been going strong since 2012 when they first came to NYC and no one knew about them in the US lol. I’ve turned so many people on to Aldi over the years haha. Love the meal prep, your dollar goes so far there and with meal prep it’s even better!
RobinOrzo We’ve had them in the Midwest since the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, if not sooner. They got my family through some very tough times! I will forever miss their scuba diver/shark fruit snacks 😭
I just want to say thank you for the inspiring things you say! I get so overwhelmed with meal prepping and trying to shop healthy for my husband and I. I love how you say to do the best you can and know that if you cant it's ok. Thank you. I was getting so overwhelmed because food is so expensive and my husband has nafld and I just want to help him be healthy and heal his liver but it seems so impossible when you cant buy organic food. I've been on a search to try and buy more organic but right now it's just not in our budget. But I will continue to do the best I can ♡
Love this! I use leftover potato salad to make a shepherd's pie! Also, just got an air fryer and I'm shocked how amazing it is... and how many things I can make that aren't typical fries and fried chicken. Would love a video with more fun ideas of things to make that are un-breaded in an air fryer (so easy to clean in my tiny kitchen, too!)
@@udhe4421 I always add a few sprays of olive oil to what I'm cooking- like chicken or potatoes. But, for things like marinated chicken, I think you could do it without any oil.
Omg yasssss!!!!! Aldi is my jam!!!! They have such great prices on staples & fruits/veg even organic! I’m able to do most of my grocery shopping there & save so much money!! Thank you so much!!!!!!
I am a regular at Aldi and love that they are adding more options for those who are nutritionally minded! I would love to see more videos like this. I have a family of 5 and 2 of us are gluten free and dairy free, so I find asian and mexican are two meal options that are on our table frequently. Thanks for the great video!
I have been following for some time all the way from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. You have done great things for my eating AND my english lol. Every single time I visit family in the US, I put on around 20 pounds in the month I spend there and lose it around a month after I come back home. I just can't understand why because I keep cooking and eating traditional Haitian food (mostly veggie based and not calorie dense at all) and don't eat out much (ok, I went to Mc Donalds because I was curious of the taste 🙈)... I will now try to stay strickly organic this summer and see if that will prevent the weight gain.
@@leahpeterson11 Maybe not. But back home everything is organic because the farmers still work with old school methods. I don't have to think about it when buying groceries, it will be organic. This is the only difference between what I eat home and what I eat in the US. I don't buy organic in the US because it's more expensive. I think the pesticides and chemicals might be messing with my metabolism since my body is not used to them. This is why I wanna try organic and see if that helps.
Those bars look magical. Really with coconut milk?? I am making this tonight. I have all the ingredients already. My girls would love them for breakfast. ... Side note. My girls love those 3 ingredient energy bars...especially the apple pie and Pecan pie ones!!
Whoa. Watching from Hawaii and crying over how low groceries are. My weekly grocery bill has never been less than 350 for our family of 4. Nevertheless, excellent video as per usual!
I absolutely love how laid-back you are about eating healthy, being on a budget, and the combination of the two. So many of there cooking RU-vidrs are so condescending an discouraging, making it sound like "if you can't make it homemade and organic and sodium free, gluten free, soy free, nut free, sugar free, meat free-- you can't ever be good enough! And if you're on a budget, likewise!" Sorry for my mini-rant. All this to say, I am so glad a found your channel ~3 years ago. You've yet to disappoint me!
Oh man, I hear you! When I see that kind of stuff on RU-vid it makes me cringe and feel like crap. I'm trying my best, and I think encouraging others to do the same is the best we can do! Plus, there's no way those RU-vidrs actually eat like that all the time. They're showing you what they want you to see :)
You and your channel are so amazing! I always love when you keep it seriously real when talking about not being perfect and how you don't always stick to one particular diet because then you'd miss other foods. You're such an amazing inspiration Alyssia! 💖
I bought 1 black friday. I used it twice both times when i released the pressure it shot up to my ceiling and shot back down and burnt me and my daughter how was in the kitchen next to me. Of course the burns werent bad but enough for me to take it back.
@@nailsbysandeemore7036 i think you are supposed to let it sit for a bit before you release the pressure. Surely the manual tells you how to avoid that
@@Pallepop909 yes i know that and did that. Im not stupid and do know how to read and do read instructions before using products especially those that can cause harm to me or my family. At the time i lived my ceiling wasnt very high in fact my 13 yr old daughter that was next to is 5 feet 9 in and she could touch the ceiling. I have since moved and have a higher ceiling. I bought another one and havent had a problem
Love your positive reinforcements about being human, making mistakes, and not putting pressure on yourself. It's a good reminder to everyone out there who are trying their best to eat healthy. 😊
I'm a med student so the budget is tight. I go to aldis (almost exclusively) and you gave me so many great ideas. Definitely taking advantage of that avocado oil price next time I go shopping. Thanks!!!
Oh, thanks for the sloppy joe inspiration! I haven't made those in forever, and I always just used the bad stuff in a can. This is much, much better. As for chicken in the Instant Pot - it is so tender that way! It's my new preferred method - even straight from frozen. Thanks for the video!
I love your message about not perfect but striving for healthy choices! and yes, I'm into the instant pot vids. I got one for christmas and am trying it out a few times a week.
New to your channel but I'd love to see more hot/cold lunch ideas. Husband works in construction and I have yet to find a plate-like thermos type container that will keep different foods warm. So if he could heat it up should he be in the office that day - awesome! Loved the example in this video! Never even considered that.
1) I'm definitely trying those peanut butter oat bars (substituting dried cranberries for the raisins)! I'm always looking for amazing grab and go healthy items for breakfast! 2) Maybe it's time to take my Instant Pot out of the box. That teriyaki chicken recipe looks so good!
Or if you're from my area it's "the Aldi's" because it's a place with a name that sounds like a proper noun, like going to someone's house or establishment.
Putting the sloppy Joe mix inside a pepper boat is such a great idea! I'm a huge fan of wrapping things in lettuce, I do it to everything I can, but never thought about putting stuff inside a little pepper boat. Will most definitely have to try it out! Thanks!
This all looks so appealing. I'm definitely an Aldi convert, since I spend 95% of my time and money on veggies and fruit. I choose carefully and inspect things closely. They also have a guarantee at my Aldi's. If veg or fruit go bad quickly, return for your money back and a replacement. Great video!
Mind Over Munch, I have just watched your video and just wanted to compliment you on doing such a great job on it - keep up the good work! I'm actually starting a new job in the next couple of weeks and know that I'm going to be tight for time when it comes to cooking. I used to love cooking from scratch when I was younger and will find that meal prepping will save an awful lot of time for me with it all (finishing training this week to start working towards becoming a professional Home Care Assistant). Already subscribed. You doing a fantastic job, MOM! x
Very helpful. Doing what’s best on a budget and some great tasty options! More crockpot and Instant pot recipes please! I also always love your sheet pan recipes
