Like so many women, Marisa Poropat-Pogue has a life that can aptly be described as hectic.

The Coquitlam mother of four runs her own business, which has her working seven nights a week. She does nearly all the shopping and cooking. She home-schools her kids and drives them to their activities.

And though she has the best intentions when it comes to the family's dietary needs, the 40-year-old often finds herself picking up takeout food, preparing a last-minute meal with canned pasta sauce, or taking the family out for dinner when she's particularly exhausted.

"You get into a rut. You feel like you're in a bad marriage, but you can't get out," she said of her meal-planning habits.

The rut got even deeper when Poropat-Pogue's husband was laid off at the end of January. The loss of his income made take-out meals and convenience foods not only unhealthy options, but expensive ones.

Before Greg Pogue was laid off, little thought was given to food expenses.

"Things got pretty cushy for a while," she said.

But now that his employment future is uncertain, the family wants to shrink its grocery bills. While they're at it, they want to make their shopping list healthier, too.

"It's easy to get lazy. It's bad for the kids to get into bad habits. I don't want them to see the box as the solution," Poropat-Pogue said.

The first step in the family's diet transformation required keeping track of what they ate and what they spent on food for about a week, before meeting with registered dietitian Diana Steele of Eating for Energy, a nutrition consulting firm.

The food journal revealed a clear dependence on prepackaged, takeout and restaurant foods.

The five-day menu included frozen waffles, hot dogs, sugary cereal, butter chicken, popcorn, pepperoni sticks, White Spot burgers, french fries, root-beer floats and ice-cream cake. Those were the worst offenders. But the menu also included fruit, homemade beef stew, salad, oatmeal, and juice.

Dietitian Steele saw plenty of room for improvement.

"You guys spend a lot on eating out, almost as much as on groceries," Steele said. "And you need more vegetables in your diet."

Steele spent about an hour with the family, going through better options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She doled out tips to keep costs down while increasing nutritional value, and she tailored her suggestions to the family as much as possible.

Marisa works from about 3 a.m. until 9 a.m. every morning, cleaning bars, restaurants and offices while they're empty. She sleeps just four or five hours a day and has little time to cook.

"Take advantage of employee No. 2," Steele suggested to Marisa, referring to husband Greg, who was there for the meeting. "And start planning your meals."

Steele is a keen proponent of one-pot meals for the time-strapped chef.

"Think stews," she advised.

Making life even simpler is the slow-cooker or Crock-Pot, which had its heyday in the 1970s but is experiencing something of a renaissance. Marisa owns one, but said she never thinks to use it.

Far more important than owning a slow-cooker, however, is Steele's firm belief that families should plan their meals ahead, and make one big shopping trip per week.

Grocery shopping several times a week leads to more impulse buys, which are expensive and usually not particularly healthy.

If you're strapped for time, it often seems easier to pick up a frozen pizza or selection of pre-made deli items than shopping for ingredients you still have to cart home, prepare and cook. But planning ahead can save time, money, and stress, as well as reduce the amount of sodium, preservatives, and trans fats in your food -- simply because you're making the food from scratch.

"I really think shopping just once a week is a good idea," Steele said.

"Plan dinner for every night of the week. And you have to stick to your list."

The meals don't have to be fancy or complicated. In fact, Steele recommends sticking to the recipes you know, at least to begin with. If your go-to favourites are stir-fries, pastas, and soups, by all means, shop for those ingredients.

And always shop alone.

Bringing kids along to the grocery store is a recipe for overspending on unnecessary items. "You can only say 'no' so many times," Steele said.

But kids in the kitchen is a different matter, entirely. Steele recommends getting them involved, from scrambling their own egg in the microwave for breakfast, to helping wash lettuce at dinner time.

"You have very capable children. Put them to use," Steele told Marisa and Greg.

And because the Poropat-Pogue kids are home-schooled, Steele recommends incorporating cooking and baking into their lessons.

She suggests making a big batch of muffins, which will teach the kids about measurements and provide a healthy option for future breakfasts.

Steele encourages people to eat three to four food groups at every meal. If breakfast's main event is a muffin, have a glass of milk and a bit of fruit as well.

The Poropat-Pogue clan drinks a lot of juice. And although it's a decent way to incorporate fruit into their daily diet, Steele notes that eating an apple or orange is considerably less expensive.

Even though she suggests eliminating expensive items such as juice, frozen waffles, yogurt tubes and cookies, Steele doesn't want to create the impression that eating cheaper and healthier is about deprivation.

"Don't think about it as cutting. Think about it as adding to your diet," she said.

Add fresh fruit and vegetables wherever possible. Try adding different grains, such as quinoa, to your meals. Add black bean and chickpea recipes to your repertoire as a replacement for expensive meat meals. Add a few extra chicken breasts or pork chops to what you're already cooking and use the leftovers for lunches.

Digesting so much new information all at once was understandably a bit overwhelming for Marisa and Greg. But Steele suggested tackling one or two things at a time, rather than taking it on all at once.

Five days after the meeting with Steele, Marisa said the family was doing well adopting some of the tips.

The kids had started making their own snacks and lunches. "They like having the responsibility," Marisa said.

Greg was trying to make breakfast more often. Marisa was doing her best to stick to just one shopping trip a week. And the family pulled out the muffin tins and got baking.

"I'm trying to get a couple more vegetarian meals a week -- lentils and more bean dishes," Marisa said. "And another goal I have is to try one new recipe a week and see how it goes."

Before their meeting with Steele, the Poropat-Pogues were spending about $275 per week on groceries and nearly the same amount on takeout and restaurant food. It's too soon to tell how successful they will be in cutting the excess costs and empty calories from their diet, but Marisa is optimistic.

"I feel better already," she said.

aobrian@vancouversun.com

10 TIPS FOR EATING HEALTHIER AND CHEAPER

1. Drink less juice and pop. Drink tap water and eat fruit instead.

2. Make cookies at home as a family activity instead of buying packaged ones.

3. Reduce your food waste. Be mindful of how much you throw out each day. Do you scrape food into the garbage after each meal? Maybe you are serving the family too much food. Consider allowing family members to serve themselves. Take less the first time and go back for more if you want it. Package the leftovers for lunch the next day.

4. Cook more root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and beets. They are less-expensive vegetables that are full of beta carotene when other produce is out of season.

5. Try cooking with reconstituted skim milk powder instead of fresh milk for recipes such as scrambled eggs, French toast, milk pudding, and smoothies.

6. Eat at least two vegetarian meals each week such as a veggie chili, black bean wrap or chickpea curry. Legumes are a bargain protein alternative to meat.

7. Buy foods in bulk and consider going to big bargain stores like Costco or Superstore for items you use heavily. But buy only what you will use. If you don't think you will get through it before it goes bad, then it is not a good deal.

8. Cut your meat portion in half and add extra vegetables, a salad or vegetable soup. We can all stand to get more fruit and veggies into our diets and meat is expensive.

9. Limit your cheese intake and eat more yogurt (from the big tubs) or drink milk.

10. Make extra protein for sandwiches (chicken breast, turkey or roast beef) instead of buying deli meats.

Diana Steele, a dietitian with the nutrition consulting firm Eating for Energy, has a family keep track of what they eat and what they spend on food for a week.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun

Go to www.eatingforenergy.com for more healthy eating tips from Diana Steele.