Budget Nutrition: Expert Highlights Healthy Foods Growing in Your Backyard

As maintaining a healthy lifestyle becomes an increasingly expensive endeavor, one TikToker has made it her mission to offer actionable tips on how to live a healthier life for free.

At a time when health and wellness have never been trendier — or more expensive — one TikToker is trying to bridge the gap by offering tangible advice on how to eat healthier without breaking the bank.

Known as @ch1_panda on TikTok, Amanda, who asked that her last name be kept private, is a corrective exercise specialist and a nutrition coach. Online, she shares advice about forageable plants, grocery shopping, exercise, and other lifestyle habits to help individuals with limited funds lead healthier lives.

“I started my tiktok because I love helping people,” Amanda tells Healthnews, a fact that is made evident by her catchphrase that concludes most of her videos: “Thank you, I hope I helped.”

Amanda’s videos all share a similar speed and conciseness, packed to the brim with information the average person can use to their advantage.

One of her most popular videos outlines the many nutritional benefits of stinging nettle — a very common plant found in nearly every U.S. state.

As gatekeeping and greenwashing continue to make it increasingly difficult for people to make informed, affordable decisions about their health, Amanda’s more than 140k followers consistently express gratitude for the invaluable advice she provides.

Healthnews sat down with the content creator to learn more about why she believes this kind of information should be publicly available to all and why she’s made it her mission to make it so.

Q: Tell me about how health and wellness are gatekept — how are they made inaccessible and how does it impact the average person?

A: Here’s a perfect example: I spoke to a man a few weeks ago, and he told me he and his husband prefer to eat healthy foods, including fresh produce, organic, free-range, etc. We talked about rising costs of food and everything else. He then explained that costs of healthy food options have risen so high that he and his husband, both of whom work full time making more than minimum wage, could no longer afford to purchase quality foods. So, he decided to become a part-time farmer and get some chickens of his own.

Now, think of a single parent in a low-income situation who can’t just do this. There are some places in the U.S. where the most accessible grocery store is a Dollar General with only processed foods and very basic essentials. There are food deserts where people simply cannot get fresh foods. Furthermore, the rampant greenwashing in the food industry makes it impossible to even determine what on the shelves is good for us.

Combining the cheap prices of highly processed foods, the lack of access to fresh produce in low-income areas, the higher overall cost of living, and the inability to determine what is and isn't good for us to eat — how are people to figure it out?

Q: Why did you decide to start your TikTok channel?

A: When I originally started posting videos on TikTok, I started with the nutritional and metaphysical aspects of forageable plants. Often the metaphysical, medicinal, and nutritional information of the plants are related. For example, peppers are high in vitamin C, making them a great prophylactic and stand for protection in the metaphysical sense.

I did that for about a year and then took a break for two years while starting a company with my partner. When I got back on, I started making a few other random videos for fun until earlier this year, when I decided to get more serious with it. I am a corrective exercise personal trainer, and I love my job because I love helping people. I also started my TikTok because I love helping people.

Q: What do you hope people take away from your content?

A: The thing I hope people are taking from my videos is different easy ways to take back our health. Because of the gatekeeping, greenwashing, general lack of honesty from these major food industries, and aggressive marketing, it is incredibly hard to figure out anything food or health-related.

Not to mention the fact that doctors are considered the be-all end-all of health information, yet I have several comments from people claiming to be doctors, saying in medical school, they took one singular class on food and nutrition. Then, you look at the rising rates of obesity and diabetes and the huge effect they have on other comorbidities. Plus, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.

Although genetics will make a person more or less likely to develop these conditions, lifestyle choices are the major determining factor in most cases, according to statistics. Even the term "lifestyle choices" is vague, and we should instead be specific and say “healthy diet and exercise.” I hope that my TikTok videos make people think and make more mindful decisions about what they ingest.

Q: What has the reception been like to your videos?

A: I believe the reception has been very positive. That's not to say it's perfect — people are people and they will argue and disagree. But it’s a great chance to learn new information or dig deeper into information you thought you already knew though when there are disagreements.

I am always excited to see the comment section of my videos. People share their info with me, which makes me think and perpetuates more learning. Also, people add their own knowledge to the videos, which I think is fantastic and adds a whole new level of learning. I learn from them too. I do try to monitor the comment section rather strictly for anything scammy or disrespectful. We, as humans, are all capable of arguing respectfully, especially on the internet.

Q: What are your top tips for anyone hoping to improve their health/lifestyle on a budget?

A: The best tip is hard to answer because everyone is different, and everyone needs different nutrition. Nutrition is a huge factor in overall health. If we give our body what it needs, it can do incredible things.

The best summary of advice I can give would have to be to eat mindfully. Take time to enjoy what you eat, taste it, smell it, notice the mouthfeel. Simply doing that encourages you to not only chew more thoroughly, which aids in the digestion of carbs and fats, but it slows down overall eating time, which helps us recognize hunger and fullness cues. It takes time — roughly 20 minutes — for the satiety hormone leptin to make its way to your brain to signal you're full. Savoring each bite also encourages you to make more healthy mindful decisions about what you're eating.

Reading the nutrition facts is a great tool. Not only will it help you make correlations about what you eat and how you feel, it will also give you insight into what your body is telling you.

For example, let's say Mary gets a headache every afternoon at work. After reading labels and being mindful about her eating, she realized she was drinking a gallon of water and not getting the electrolytes from her food she needed along with it. A piece of fruit or a snack of mixed nuts solves the problem — no need for the medicines with side effects that can damage our bodies.