With the price of food on a relentless upswing, one of the keys to budgeting sanity is to buy the best-available food at the best value. This means, apart from anything else, doing your best to avoid purchasing food that is beyond its sell-by date, is over-ripe, and looks bad and smells bad. When shopping for food, you have to bring your senses into play.

Buying Meat
You are looking for cuts that offer value for your money, that look and smell fresh. Value for the money comes down to the type of meat offered, the quantity of fat and grisle you can see and the amount of bone. The equation works like this: the lower the price per pound, the lower the quality. But wait. Before you go back to buying filet mignon, consider the argument advanced by nutritionists that the cheaper cuts of meat are often the most nutritious. If you have the time to cook, your labor over the stove could produce a better-tasting, more nourishing casserole or stew with skirt steak, for example, than Mr. Grilleman with his T-bones.

Warning: Whatever cut of meat you buy, make sure it looks fresh, with a red hue across the whole surface; no areas of gray or black. It should have absolutely no smell when you bring it up to your nose. Thoroughly wash your hands and the meat when ready to cook.

Tip: Try lamb shoulder. It is very cheap and makes an incredible Irish stew or Indian curry, if you are prepared to cook extremely long.


Fish
Fresh fish has no smell, or at the most a distant aroma somehow reminiscent of the sea. If you are buying the whole fish, look into its eye. The eye should be bright. Dullness suggests the fish is not fresh. The flesh should be firm to the touch.

Warning: Thoroughly wash your hands and the fish when ready to cook.

Tip: Try grilling salmon in the oven. Add water to a chicken-flavored boullion cube to make a stock. Add chopped carrots and celery. Place the salmon in the stock. When done, coat the salmon top with marmalade combined with lemon. Plate the salmon, surround with the vegetables, drizzle the stock over the fish.


Vegetables and Fruit
Look for sales. Also, many stores place carts full of ripe vegetables and fruit between the aisles. Americans tend to avoid ripe fruit, for example, which makes no sense when you consider that the appearance of a ripe banana skin can still contain a perfectly edible banana. A packet of four or six apples sold off for less than a dollar probably contains at least three nutritious, good-tasting apples--- purchased at an extremely worthwhile price.

Warning: Thoroughly wash your hands and the fruit or vegetable when ready to eat.

Tip: If you like pancakes, try adding a mashed-up ripe banana to the mixture.


Caution: Learn to read the labels on packaged foods. Check the level of saturated fat, whether any trans fat is present (extremely undesirable to heart health), quantity of sodium present (bad for blood pressure), level of sugar (risk for diabetes) and presence of allergens, such as ground nuts, which can cause severe reactions.