With the rising cost of fresh produce and wild weather creating food shortages, one expert has shared her trick to staying healthy while sticking to a budget.
Certified nutritionist Nikki Hart joined AM on Tuesday morning to discuss how to stick to basics on a budget without compromising your health.
Hart told AM's Ryan Bridge that frozen vegetables are "just as good" as fresh ones.
"They are snap-frozen at their best, and as long as you have got a good freezer that you can keep them in so it's not temperature variant, they're a great option," she said.
She said by the time it's come through distribution centres, fresh produce isn't always the best option.
"It's not a matter of thawing out - you don't want to do that with frozen vegetables - you actually want to cook it from frozen," she said.
"You have got to take it out, steam it, do whatever and then eat it."
When the subject turned to dairy products, Hart said people should consider milk powder.
"The cost of things are going up, and because of all these crises we are facing, we are concerned as health professionals that people are going to start to pull back on the things they really need, and some of those are protein products like milk and eggs, and we've got an egg shortage," she stressed.
She said that buying a litre of fresh milk can cost between $2.50 to $3.
"Milk powder makes something between eight to nine litres, and a litre of this is $1.50," she said.
"So if you are really on a budget, it's a great way to do it".
Hart said people have to be careful of the quality of the drinking water, as the milk powder won't work without it.
"It's a constituted syrup, so basically you take a tablespoon of it and add it to water and it allows you to add it to baking products," she said.
Hart said she expects whole dehydrated egg powder will start to appear in supermarkets.
"If you start to pull back on drinking milk or eating eggs or using meat or chicken or whatever, you are going to get low in micronutrients and we are really mindful that in this time of crisis that everyone is going through, we do not want people compromising their health," she said.
Hart said people's ability to work through the challenges they are already facing will become so much harder for them.
