Just a heads up for anyone looking to eat healthy on a budget, the following foods are cheaper than most fast food meals, are easy to prepare, and taste great:
1) Chicken Breast: I buy target brand, but you can do any grocery chain's "chicken breast with rib meat". They usually come out to a dollar or 2 per breast. Just pre-heat your oven to 450, put around 8-10 breasts on a baking sheet, and bake them on each side for 10 minutes. You can put oil and shit on if you want to be fancy, but I just cook mine naked, and add hot sauce when I'm going to eat them. I keep them in a ziplock container in the fridge and they last a while. Hungry? Just heat up a chicken breast.
2) Eggs: Just hard boil 12 to 18 eggs, peel them, and keep them in a ziplock container. Add salt, hot sauce, soy sauce, or whatever when you eat them. Eggs typically cost about $0.10 each, so they're great for eating healthy in a budget. Worried about cholesterol? Don't eat the yolk. To boil them, just put them all in a pot with some salt and enough water to cover about an inch above the eggs. As soon as the water hits a rolling boil, take the pot off and let the eggs simmer in the water for about 25 minutes. Rinse with cold water and ice and peel when ready.
3) Lentils: Lentils are insane in that they're crazy healthy, very high in protein, and dirt fucking cheap. A bag of lentils is $1.00 at my grocery store, and will make enough for me to eat all week. They're seriously cheaper than Ramen. They're also filling. They taste a little like lima beans, so they're definitely not for everybody, but you can cover the taste pretty well with salt, hot sauce, or any other seasoning.
4) Red Meat: Similar to chicken breast, you can usually find red meat that comes out to around $1.50 to $2.00 per serving. Target sells packs of 8 small steaks, and a lot of grocery stores sell giant steaks that you can cut into 6 or 8 servings yourself. Just like chicken, you can cook it in bulk and then just freeze it or refrigerate it.
5) Pinto Beans: My favorite side dish to eat along with my chicken and steak, pinto beans are delicious and healthy and cost less than $1. Heat them on the stove or in the microwave in under 5 minutes.
