When Zadie Pruitt first heard about the Whole30 diet, she was intrigued—but skeptical. “It sounded great in theory,” she says. “But also like something rich people on Instagram do.”
Whole30, with its emphasis on whole foods and cutting out sugar, grains, dairy, and legumes for 30 days, felt like a nutritional reset she desperately needed. She had been feeling tired, bloated, and irritable for months. Still, she worried that eating “clean” would cost her a fortune.
So instead of giving up, Zadie gave herself a challenge: follow Whole30 on a tight budget.
“I started in my pantry,” she says. She cleared out processed snacks and took stock of what she already had—frozen veggies, canned tuna, eggs, olive oil. “Turns out I didn’t need to buy everything new,” she laughs. “I just needed to use what I had differently.”
Zadie leaned into simple, nourishing meals that didn’t rely on pricey specialty items. Breakfast was often scrambled eggs with sweet potato hash. For lunch, she prepped salads with hard-boiled eggs or leftover chicken. And dinner? Stir-fries with frozen broccoli and ground beef, or baked chicken thighs with roasted carrots.
The biggest surprise wasn’t how much money she saved—it was how good she felt. Her energy returned, her skin cleared, and the bloating disappeared.
“I didn’t need almond flour everything or a cart full of organic kale,” she says. “I just needed real food—and a plan that worked for my budget.”