Wildly Affordable Organic: Eat Fabulous Food, Get Healthy, and Save the Planet -- All on $5 a Day or Less

by Linda Watson

Buy Green. Eat Green. Save Green.

If you've wanted to eat like it matters but felt you couldn't afford it, Wildly Affordable Organic is for you. It's easy to think that "organic" is a code word for "expensive," but it doesn't have to be. With these ingenious cooking plans and healthy, satisfying recipes, Linda Watson reveals the incredible secret of how you can eat well every day--from blueberry pancakes for breakfast to peach pie for dessert--averaging less than two dollars a meal.

Get ready for wild savings! You'll discover how
Ease your family into a greener lifestyle with the 20-minute starter plan
Go organic on just 5 a day--or go thrifty and spend even less
Take advantage of your freezer and freeze your costs
Find the best deals at your local farmers' market or grocery store
Cook easy, scrumptious, seasonal dishes from scratch

Packed with tips for streamlining meals, from shopping and cooking to washing dishes, this book shows how sustainable living is within everyone's reach. Slow global warming with delicious dinners? Lose weight, save money, and save the polar bears at the same time? When you live the Wildly Affordable Organic way, it is possible! Join the movement to change the way you eat--and keep the change.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Cooking, Health, Nutrition, Reference

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Linda Watson is a food evangelist who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, a veritable hotbed of sustainable agriculture with a rich ethnic mix. She started the Cook for Good project after being inspired by the national Food Stamp Challenge: living on a dollar a meal per person for a week. Her three-week experiment became a lifestyle, the website CookforGood.com, the book Wildly Affordable Organic, and now the Wildly Good Cook videos and teachers' training program.

Her ears perked up when she heard that Fifty Shades of Grey had outsold Harry Potter. Why not write a funny book that combines romance and recipes? The result is her new book Fifty Weeks of Green. It celebrates sustainability and the fiery potential of women old enough to have hot flashes

If you and Linda wound up sitting next to each other on plane, you might find out that:

She really believes in the power of cooking a pot of beans every week
She wants to help you live your dreams by using the skills you already have
She's lost 20 pounds since becoming a cookbook writer, just by eating real food cooked from scratch
She's battling ivy in her garden to establish an edible forest garden
She's taken improv and stand-up comedy classes at Dirty South Improv Comedy Theater
She's the inventor of the Rudeness Index, used in the language engine for Douglas Adams' computer game Starship Titanic
She's an optivore and a flexitegan, not a food Nazi, who knows you don't have to do it all or all the time to make a difference

Reviews

[Happyreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

One way to save money is not to buy this book. Bottom line, the tips offered to save money are cook your own food, don’t waste what you bought, buy in bulk, cook in bulk and then freeze, and I may have slept through the rest. The USDA, of food stamp infamy, provides more extensive tips on how to save food money than this book. The recipes and menus offered here are repetitive, boring, and oh so bean and pasta heavy and don’t particularly have much to do with buying organic. While not advertised as such, the recipes are also all vegetarian. Nothing wrong with that except these are dull vegetarian recipes, the kind that make you crave a bucket of fried chicken. Yes, buy organic when you can and organic can fit your budget if you plan wisely but you don’t need this book to tell you that.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, honestly. I've made a couple of the recipes from her site which were good, but the book reads like a Depression-era housewife's manual, aimed at wringing the most nutrients out of the least expensive amount of food. It's completely and utterly devoid of any joy in cooking.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

good practical information, most I already know but a beginner it would be very useful. I am interested to trying some of the recipes as those looked delish! I did like how it has shopping list by the seasons!

[Moniker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book...but as a disclaimer, I should probably add that I love the idea of this book, as I have not tried to live it out! This book was a well organized publication of Linda Watson's personal experiment on eating well on the food budget of a low income family. I personally truly appreciated her efforts in debunking the idea that eating organic costs an arm and a leg. While I learned a great deal about the pros and cons of buying in bulk and looking at your cooking as a weekly process rather than a daily one, I have not tried to use Linda Watson's grocery list for a month’s worth of food - that costs a good chunk of change...and if your cooking doesn't go well, you are already committed for that month - a bit of a risk. Over all though, the parts of the book that I have put into practice went very smoothly and I did see a decrease in my food budget. I recommend this book - simply as an eye opener that will have you looking at your pantry and your meal planning in a completely different way. I can personally say that even if you don't put Linda Watson's plan completely into motion you learn an incredible amount.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes me look forward to spring and summer produce (soon!).

I liked finding out that author Linda Watson lives in Raleigh, NC. She offers some nice pointers that I'll use to help streamline our current household project, which is to cook at home with minimally processed and fresh ingredients as much as possible.

I really liked that Watson emphasized that you don't necessarily need lots of equipment to do lots of good cooking ("Whisk Bread" is fabulous). A reasonable approach to buying organic/local--Watson highlights items she thinks are worth the increased cost or inconvenience of purchasing organic/local, and suggests going conventional on others.

I didn't actually find that many recipes in here that would work with our current preference to minimize dairy and wheat in our menu, but I did take note of the Potato Peanut Curry and Spicy Black-Eyed Peas. Also, I'm intrigued by the idea of making my own corn tortillas from scratch, though since we don't eat them often, I'd be trying them just for fun.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been very inspiring to me. By following the menu plans and shopping lists we have saved money and have a fridge and freezer full of delicious homemade food. We gave up: juice boxes, breakfast cereal, store-bought bread, Tofurkey, and all the unpronouncable ingredients and packaging that goes with those items. I would definitely recommend WAO to all vegetarians, especially ones who already enjoy cooking.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the things that makes this book so great is that Linda actually went through this process herself and did a trial-and-error process to find out what works and what didn’t. The book itself is an amazing resource, containing a wealth of information as to how to start a new lifestyle and stage a revolution with your kitchen and your budget to make sure that you’re eating well while also eating cheap.

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anybody who wants to make a lifestyle change without the costly expenditures of doing so. This book helps plan out meals and makes sure that you’re spending the least possible in order to get the healthy, nutrient-rich foods that your body craves. Linda Watson shows her readers that cheap no longer needs to have a negative connotation when you’re wandering through the produce aisle.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. The author is from Raleigh where I live so that was a definite plus.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned how to prepare dried beans with a crockpot so I don't have to use salty squishy canned beans. I would buy the book just for that. Cuban Black Beans is a great recipe.

[Lizzbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should not have liked this book as much as I did! First, I am not vegetarian, and this book is—although it makes no mention of it at all, even to lay out a case that forgoing meat is better for the environment/health. Second, the recipes seemed rather repetitive and simple. However. Every recipe I made was a winner! I especially liked the pasta with peanut sauce and seasonal vegetables. Really good food!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a long-time devotee of Linda Watson and her website "Cook for Good" as well as this cookbook. You can get free recipes through her website and email newsletter, but here's why I love this cookbook:

Watson's recipes are consistently tasty, and we feel great knowing they are all on our budget. I have tried many a recipe from other cookbooks or sources and there's always some duds (a few duds just seems to be the price of admission, so to speak), but I have not had that problem with this book. I like to think that Watson's food is better partly because she and her husband actually eat everything before she shares recipes.

Our most favorites that we make again and again so far are: the spicy peanut noodles (adaptable to whatever veggies you have on hand), the proud black bean burgers, and the potato-peanut curry. The last dish I ate practically non-stop for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during Passover one year, haha. We'd never made our own veggie burgers before her recipe fearing it would be too hard: and lo! They are easy, healthy, and delicious! We make giant batches and freeze them for easy meals later.

She also has some great tips to minimize work in the kitchen like leaving one set of measuring cups permanently as the flour and dry goods measuring set so you don't have to wash it every time. Why did I not think of that?

In 2005 I read Elizabeth Warren's "All your Worth" and ever since our food budget has been $2 per person per meal. Watson's are the only recipes where I don't have to worry whether they'll be in our budget. People always think we have such a low food budget, yet we eat local & organic and really really well! I appreciate that Linda Watson has demonstrated that people can eat well on even less. Bravo!

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like where this book is coming from: it was inspired by the food-stamp challenge. That is: see how well you can eat on $1 or less per meal. That being said, this book neither promises nor delivers any easy answers. If you want to eat healthy organic food on an affordable budget, you are going to have to WORK for it. Which, it should be said (but isn't in this book), is a socio-economical point in itself: low-income people don't need ANOTHER job on top of several other jobs just to be able to eat as healthily as us affluent people on our trendy organic diets. IF you want to eat affordable organic, be prepared for an extended transition as you hunt and peck for the best deals in the unexpected aisles at different times of the year. This book will help show you the way. The first 1/3 is dedicated to that task, and the remainder is dedicated to a laundry list of recipes and weekly meal plans. It can feel a bit regimented, nay, OCD to the extreme. I'll second what others have said: there was no real joy of cooking to be found in these pages. Still, having already made some changes to my own routine, I bet it works if your only aim is to reduce your grocery budget. A decent, quick read, WAO offers some useful insights into the organic market and home kitchen.

[Sheba · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are absolutely some great ideas in this book--like how to ask for and use fruit and veggie seconds from your farmer's market in your cooking, which I've recently become a huge proponent of doing--but at times Watson lost me with the numbers. Her insistence on weighted vs. measured ingredients and her emphasis on (overly?) planned-out, diet-focused meals was a joy kill, even as they felt apropos to the subject. I was crazy about the idea of the wildly affordable organic meals Watson proposes, however, and learned some great tips that have changed the way I approach menu planning, but I'm not so crazy about sitting down and writing out every meal for the week-month or approaching food as a science or eating the same foods every week. It doesn't escape me that my lazy attitude proves Watson's point that planned organic meals and consistent diets are how one keeps his or her money in one's pocket, but I still couldn't muster up the energy to wade through the charts of calorie-nutritional values. If you've ever been forced to take Home Ec classes in high school, you'd understand.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve wanted to eat like it matters but felt you couldn’t afford it, Wildly Affordable Organic is for you. It’s easy to think that “organic” is a code word for “expensive,” but it doesn’t have to be. With these ingenious cooking plans and healthy, satisfying recipes, Linda Watson reveals the incredible secret of how you can eat well every day—from blueberry pancakes for breakfast to peach pie for dessert—averaging less than two dollars a meal.
I borrowed this from the library to download on my ipod, so didn't get any photos of the food, but I did make the apple/walnut streusel cake, the raisin flatbread and we are having the bean and tomato stew for supper tomorrow night. I liked the affordability of the recipes and the way she explained what to buy organic and what was OK from the regular shelves. Mostly vegetarian recipes from what I remember.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a huge help! Living on a tight budget doesn’t have to feel like you’re limiting your food options, thanks to the help of Linda Watson.I was a vegetarian for seven years of my life, so it was easy for me to all but revert back to the lifestyle-and honestly, it feels healthier to limit the amount of meat I eat. I love the term “flexitarian” and will be using it in my daily life. Linda gives you an easy plan to follow, helps you to scour the grocery stores for the best deals, tells you how to make the tastiest, healthiest recipes, and makes it all feel like it’s incredibly easy. This is absolutely my new go-to book for all things food-related.

[Chelsea Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wildly Affordable Organic is great because it does what it promises-educates people about how to prepare food on a budget while teaching them that it’s possible to actually be satisfied with that menu. One of the things that makes this book a great read is that its author actually went through the process herself that she suggests for her readers, and was completely honest about how it turned out. Not everything was easy, she admits, but it’s worth it. If eating on a budget is really your concern, this is the best way to go about making sure that you can actually afford healthy food and still be satisfied.

[Shannon Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

very compelling - she sets out to prove that you can eat healthy and even organic food on a food-stamp budget. This can obviously be applied for just saving money - doesn't have to be that stringent. The menu ends up pretty limited but has a lot of good ideas. I will take from it the ideas of cooking beans and sauce in bulk and freezing, and cooking a little each day for meals that come together for the week, as well as some of the good charts, especially about what should be splurged on and what is just as good if generic. Great website too.

[Zoey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't spent much time looking at the recipes - they look pretty basic, and Watson eats a lot of beans (no meat). But this was a great resource, since I'm trying to get more organized about shopping and cooking. Watson's comprehensive plan considers cost, source, health, taste, time, convenience, and variety. Detailed seasonal menus and shopping lists. Cooking broken out into set times. negative: Her ideas about eating organic (literally: "save the polar bears") seem lig [review cut short by Amazon.]

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be an ideal book for a vegaterian eater who was looking to go organic. For me this book doesn't work. I really don't like beans, I've tried to like them, I really wish I like them more. A big portion of this book is a million ways to cook and eat cheap beans. A lot of the foods also had a lot of sugar and fats, both of which I try to limit. The bottom line is it is an interesting book that will help many people.

[Gina Boyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linda Watson cares deeply about the food she eats and where it comes from. Everything she says is sound and valuable, and there wasn't a single thing I could disagree with.

I baked two loaves of the Good Whisk Bread, and as much as I wanted to love it . . . I didn't. I enjoyed reading Watson's story and her thoughts about food, and I certainly agree with her belief that home cooking is the best, most healthful way to feed yourself, I'll keep experimenting with other cook books.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend Wildly Affordable Organic to anybody who feels like they want to make a healthy eating change, but worries that it’ll be too expensive to do so. This book can absolutely help you revolutionize your diet to eat in a more healthful fashion. It even has separate grocery lists which show you the “green” option (that’s code for super-healthy and delicious) and the “thrifty” option (which means even cheaper, and still a great variety of options

[Dee Mcrae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains so many recipes...it was great to learn how to cook all types of different things, in addition to reading about a diet transformation that would be easy on my wallet. Though it isn’t the intended purpose of this book, this would be a great way to maintain one’s weight (if that were a desired goal) because the meals are focused on making sure that everything is nutritious enough that you’re not skimping on quality to save a few bucks.

[Kelly Lynn Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some great stuff in here, but following a strict shopping and meal plan isn't something I'm interested in. Especially not when every meal seems to involve pasta and you're expected to eat peanut butter on toast for breakfast every morning. Sorry, but that's not breakfast, it's a snack. But like I said, there is still some good stuff in here, like how to make your own yogurt and pasta sauce.

[Cyndie Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that's about sustainability and practicality! Loved it. While I don't know that I'm ready to do the full cooking schedule right away, the recipes seem simple, doable, and affordable. After reading a couple organic/sustainable books that expected me to have complex equipment like dehydrators and pressure canners, this book helped assure me that putting these recipes to work didn't take any crazy or special resources. Enjoyed reading, think I'll really enjoy cooking from it too!

[Jen Michaels · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few cookbooks that I use consistently, year after year and month after month. For the record, I'm an omnivore--I eat meat, dairy, etc.--but Linda's recipes are consistently delicious, delightfully simple, and cheap to make. When I first read this cookbook, I scoffed at many of the recipes; they seemed so spare, so simple, that I couldn't imagine that they'd taste good. Well, they taste fabulous and often best the more complicated recipes that I make!

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was ok. Good lessons on how to eat organic. I would have to try some of the methods. A couple just seemed off compared to the prices I have seen and she writes about. Some of the ideas are pretty common ideas. There were some things that I walked away with that were new to me. I agree with another reviewer who stated it read as a depression era book vs. anything inviting for non-users to try.

[Amanda Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some great tips in here on prepping & freezing foods. However, the menus recommended are high in inflammatory grains and other ingredients that don't contribute to extraordinary health. Use the first section as a guide for money saving tips in selection, prep & storage, but find better sources for actual menus & recipes with maximized nutrition.

[Zaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book. Though it’s definitely been a switch away from how I’m used to eating-meat as often as possible-I’ve realized that there was a lot of room for improvement when it came to spending in my budget. I think that this book is a great guide for anybody who feels like they need some help in planning out their food and wants to save money while doing so.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Echoing the reviews of many others, I'd say this is 90% tips on how to save money by buying in bulk and planning your meals in advance. The recipes are nice, along with the step-by-step plan for easing your way into cooking all your meals with organic ingredients, but those are only a small section of this book. I don't think the author had enough content for an entire book.